On The Banks Of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder Read Free Book Online

Laura and Mary and Jack. He did not know what had happened and they could not tell him because the only words he knew were Norwegian.
    They went back through the high grass that dragged at their trembling legs. They were glad to drink at the spring. They were glad to be in the quiet dugout and sit down to rest.

RUNAWAY
    All that long, quiet afternoon they stayed in the dugout. The cattle did not come back to the hay-stacks. Slowly the sun went down the western sky. Soon it would be time to meet the cattle at the big gray rock, and Laura and Mary wished that Pa and Ma would come home.
    Again and again they went up the path to look for the wagon. At last they sat waiting with Jack on the grassy top of their house.
    The lower the sun went, the more attentive Jack's ears were. Often he and Laura stood up to look at the edge of the sky where the wagon had gone, though they could see it just as well when they were sitting down.
    Finally Jack turned one ear that way, then the other. Then he looked up at Laura and a waggle went from his neck to his stubby tail.
    The wagon was coming!
    They all stood and watched till it came out of the prairie. When Laura saw the oxen, and Ma and Carrie on the wagon seat, she jumped up and down, swinging her sunbonnet and shouting, “They're coming! They're coming!”
    “They're coming awful fast,” Mary said.
    Laura was still. She heard the wagon rattling loudly. Pete and Bright were coming very fast.
    They were running. They were running away.
    The wagon came bumpity-banging and bouncing. Laura saw Ma down in a corner of the wagon box, hanging on to it and hugging Carrie. Pa came bounding in long jumps beside Bright, shouting and hitting at Bright with the goad.
    He was trying to turn Bright back from the creek bank.
    He could not do it. The big oxen galloped nearer and nearer the steep edge. Bright was pushing Pa off it. They were all going over.
    The wagon, Ma, and Carrie, were going to fall down the bank, all the way down to the creek.
    Pa shouted a terrible shout. He struck Bright's head with all his might, and Bright swerved. Laura ran screaming. Jack jumped at Bright's nose. Then the wagon, Ma, and Carrie flashed by. Bright crashed against the stable and suddenly everything was still.
    Pa ran after the wagon and Laura ran behind him.
    “Whoa, Bright! Whoa, Pete,” Pa said. He held on to the wagon box and looked at Ma.
    “We're all right, Charles,” Ma said. Her face was gray and she was shaking all over.
    Pete was trying to go on through the doorway into the stable, but he was yoked to Bright and Bright was headed against the stable wall. Pa lifted Ma and Carrie out of the wagon, and Ma said, “Don't cry, Carrie. See, we're all right.”
    Carrie's pink dress was torn down the front.
    She snuffled against Ma's neck and tried to stop crying as Ma told her.
    “Oh, Caroline! I thought you were going over the bank,” Pa said.
    “I thought so, too, for a minute,” Ma answered.
    “But I might have known you wouldn't let that happen.”
    “Pshaw!” said Pa. “It was good old Pete. He wasn't running away. Bright was, but Pete was only going along. He saw the stable and wanted his supper.”
    But Laura knew that Ma and Carrie would have fallen down into the creek with the wagon and oxen, if Pa had not run so fast and hit Bright so hard. She crowded against Ma's hoopskirt and hugged her tight and said, “Oh, Ma! Oh, Ma!” So did Mary.
    “There, there,” said Ma. “All's well that ends well. Now, girls, help bring in the packages while Pa puts up the oxen.”
    They carried all the little packages into the dugout. They met the cattle at the gray rock and put Spot into the stable, and Laura helped milk her while Mary helped Ma get supper.
    At supper, they told how the cattle had got into the hay-stacks and how they had driven them away. Pa said they had done exactly the right thing. He said, “We knew we could de-pend on you to take care of everything. Didn't we, Caroline?”
    They had