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

completely forgotten that Pa always brought them presents from town, until after supper he pushed back his bench and looked as if he expected something. Then Laura jumped on his knee, and Mary sat on the other, and Laura bounced and asked,
    “What did you bring us, Pa? What? What?”
    “Guess,” Pa said.
    They could not guess. But Laura felt something crackle in his jumper pocket and she pounced on it. She pulled out a paper bag, beautifully striped with tiny red and green stripes. And in the bag were two sticks of candy, one for Mary and one for Laura!
    They were maple-sugar-colored, and they were flat on one side.
    Mary licked hers. But Laura bit her stick, and the outside of it came off, crumbly. The inside was hard and clear and dark brown. And it had a rich, brown, tangy taste. Pa said it was horehound candy.
    After the dishes were done, Laura and Mary each took her stick of candy and they sat on Pa's knees, outside the door in the cool dusk.
    Ma sat just inside the dugout, humming to Carrie in her arms.
    The creek was talking to itself under the yellow willows. One by one the great stars swung low and seemed to quiver and flicker in the little wind.
    Laura was snug in Pa's arm. His beard softly tickled her cheek and the delicious candy-taste melted on her tongue.
    After a while she said, “Pa . ”
    “What, little half-pint?” Pa's voice asked against her hair.
    “I think I like wolves better than cattle,”
    she said.
    “Cattle are more useful, Laura,” Pa said.
    She thought about that a while. Then she said, “Anyway, I like wolves better.”
    She was not contradicting; she was only saying what she thought.
    “Well, Laura, we're going to have a good team of horses before long,” Pa said. She knew when that would be. It would be when they had a wheat crop.

THE CHRISTMAS HORSES
    Grasshopper weather was strange weather. Even at Thanksgiving, there was no snow.
    The door of the dugout was wide open while they ate Thanksgiving dinner. Laura could see across the bare willow-tops, far over the prairie to the place where the sun would go down. There was not one speck of snow.
    The prairie was like soft yellow fur. The line where it met the sky was not sharp now; it was smudged and blurry.
    “Grasshopper weather,” Laura thought to herself. She thought of grasshoppers' long, folded wings and their high-jointed hind legs.
    Their feet were thin and scratchy. Their heads were hard, with large eyes on the corners, and their jaws were tiny and nibbling.
    If you caught a grasshopper and held him, and gently poked a green blade of grass into his jaws, they nibbled it fast. They swiftly nibbled in the whole grass blade, till the tip of it went into them and was gone.
    Thanksgiving dinner was good. Pa had shot a wild goose for it. Ma had to stew the goose because there was no fireplace, and no oven in the little stove. But she made dumplings in the gravy. There were corn dodgers and mashed potatoes. There were butter, and milk, and stewed dried plums. And three grains of parched corn lay beside each tin plate.
    At the first Thanksgiving dinner the poor Pilgrims had nothing to eat but three parched grains of corn. Then the Indians came and brought them turkeys, so the Pilgrims were thankful.
    Now, after they had eaten their good, big Thanksgiving dinner, Laura and Mary could eat their grains of corn and remember the Pilgrims. Parched corn was good. It crackled and crunched, and its taste was sweet and brown.
    Then Thanksgiving was past and it was time to think of Christmas. Still there was no snow and no rain. The sky was gray, the prairie was dull, and the winds were cold. But the cold winds blew over the top of the dugout.
    “A dugout is snug and cosy,” said Ma. “But I do feel like an animal penned up for the winter.”
    “Never mind, Caroline,” Pa said. “We'll have a good house next year.” His eyes shone and his voice was like singing. “And good horses, and a buggy to boot! I'll take you riding, dressed up