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

in silks! Think, Caroline—this level, rich land, not a stone or stump to contend with, and only three miles from a rail-road! We can sell every grain of wheat we raise!”
    Then he ran his fingers through his hair and said, “I do wish I had a team of horses.”
    “Now, Charles,” said Ma. “Here we are, all healthy and safe and snug, with food for the winter. Let's be thankful for what we have.”
    “I am,” Pa said. “But Pete and Bright are too slow for harrowing and harvesting. I've broken up that big field with them, but I can't put it all in wheat, without horses.”
    Then Laura had a chance to speak without interrupting. She said, “There isn't any fireplace.”
    “Whatever are you talking about?” Ma asked her.
    “Santa Claus,” Laura answered.
    “Eat your supper, Laura, and let's not cross bridges till we come to them,” said Ma.
    Laura and Mary knew that Santa Claus could not come down a chimney where there was no chimney. One day Mary asked Ma how Santa Claus would come. Ma did not answer.
    Instead, she asked, “What do you girls want for Christmas?”
    She was ironing. One end of the ironing-board was on the table and the other on the bedstead. Pa had made the bedstead that high, on purpose. Carrie was playing on the bed and Laura and Mary sat at the table. Mary was sorting quilt blocks and Laura was making a little apron for the rag doll, Charlotte.
    The wind howled overhead and whined in the stovepipe, but there was no snow yet.
    Laura said, “I want candy.”
    “So do I,” said Mary, and Carrie cried,
    “Tandy?”
    “And a new winter dress, and a coat, and a hood,” said Mary.
    “So do I,” said Laura. “And a dress for Charlotte, and—”
    Ma lifted the iron from the stove and held it out to them. They could test the iron. They licked their fingers and touched them, quicker than quick, to the smooth hot bottom. If it crackled, the iron was hot enough.
    “Thank you, Mary and Laura,” Ma said.
    She began carefully ironing around and over the patches on Pa's shirt. “Do you know what Pa wants for Christmas?”
    They did not know.
    “Horses,” Ma said. “Would you girls like horses?”
    Laura and Mary looked at each other.
    “I only thought,” Ma went on, “if we all wished for horses, and nothing but horses, then maybe—”
    Laura felt queer. Horses were everyday; they were not Christmas. If Pa got horses, he would trade for them. Laura could not think of Santa Claus and horses at the same time.
    “Ma!” she cried. “There IS a Santa Claus, isn't there?”
    “Of course there's a Santa Claus,” said Ma.
    She set the iron on the stove to heat again.
    “The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can't be just one man, don't you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in New York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don't you?”
    “Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.
    “Well,” said Ma. “Then you see—”
    “I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.
    Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.
    Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.
    Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.
    “If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said,
    “Yes, Laura.”
    Laura thought about that. So did Mary.
    They thought, and they looked at each other, and they knew what Ma wanted them to do.
    She wanted them to wish for nothing but horses for Pa. They looked at each other again and they looked away quickly