Chapter 5
Indians
Early one morning Pa took his gun and went hunting. Jack wanted to go. too, but Pa tied him to the stable.
'No, Jack,' Pa said. 'You must stay here and take care of the family.' Then he said to Mary and Laura, 'Don't untie him, girls.'
Poor Jack lay down. Mary and Laura stayed by the stable all morning and tried to play with him, but he was miserable. Jack's head was on Laura's leg and she was talking to him when he suddenly stood up and growled. The hair on his neck stood straight up and his eyes stared, red and angry.
Laura was afraid. Jack had never growled at her before. Then she looked over her shoulder, where Jack was looking, and she saw two wild men, one behind the other coming closer on the Indian trail.
'Mary! Look!' she shouted. Mary looked and saw them, too.
They were tall, thin, fierce-looking men. Their skin was reddish-brown. Their eyes were black and shining. There were feathers on their heads.
'Indians!' Mary whispered.
Laura suddenly felt cold. Her legs trembled. Jack growled angrily.
The Indians came closer and closer. Then Mary and Laura watched them walk right into the house! Jack was growling, jumping, and trying to break free.
'Jack's here,' Laura whispered to Mary. 'We'll be safe if we stay close to him.'
'But they're in the house,' Mary whispered. 'They're in the house with Ma and Carrie!'
Then Laura began to shake all over. She knew she must do something. What were the Indians doing to Ma and Baby Carrie? There was no sound from the house. 'Oh, what are they doing to Ma?' Laura screamed, in a whisper.
'Oh, I don't know!' Mary whispered.
'I'm going to untie Jack,' Laura whispered loudly. 'He'll kill them.'
'Pa told us not to do that,' Mary answered.
'He didn't know Indians would come,' Laura said.
'He said not to untie Jack,' Mary was almost crying.
Laura thought of little Baby Carrie and Ma, there in the house with those Indians. 'I'm going in to help Ma!' she said.
She ran two steps and then turned and flew back to Jack. She hid her face against his neck.
'We mustn't leave Ma in there alone,' Mary whispered. She stood still and trembled.
Laura made herself leave Jack. She shut her eyes and ran towards the house as fast as she could. She fell down and her eyes opened. She got up again and started running. Mary was right behind her. They came to the door. It was open, and they entered the house without a sound.
The naked wild men stood by the fireplace. Ma was cooking something over the fire while Baby Carrie hid her face in Ma's dress. Laura ran towards Ma, but as she reached the Indians, she smelled something awful. She looked up at the Indians and ran to hide behind the table. With one eye, she looked out at the wild men.
First, she saw the moccasins on their feet. Then their thin, red-brown legs, all the way up. Around their waists each Indian wore the skin of a small animal. The skin was black and white, and now Laura knew what had made that smell. The skins were made from fresh skunks. There was a knife and a small axe in each skin. Their faces were very calm and very fierce. These wild men had no hair around their ears, where hair usually grows. There was hair only at the very top of their heads, and they had put feathers in it.
When Laura looked out from behind the table, both Indians were looking straight at her. Her heart jumped. The Indians did not move. Only their eyes shone. Laura did not move, either.
Then the Indians made short sounds like 'Hah!' Laura hid again behind the table. She heard them sitting down on the floor. She heard Ma giving them cornbread and she heard them eating it. When Laura looked again, she saw they had eaten every bit of the cornbread. Then the Indians got up. They looked at Ma, made deep noises in their throats, and walked out the door. Their feet made no sound at all.
Ma sat down on the bed. She looked sick. She put her arms around Laura and Mary.
'Do you feel sick, Ma?' Mary asked her.
'No.' said Ma. 'I'm just thankful they're gone.'
Soon Pa arrived home with a big rabbit and two prairie chickens. He put his gun up in its place over the door. Laura and Mary threw their arms around him, both talking at the same time.
'What's all this?' he said.
'Indians? So you've seen Indians at last, have you, Laura? I noticed they have a camp in a valley west of here. Did Indians come into the house, Caroline?'
'Yes, Charles, two of them,' Ma said. 'I'm sorry, but they took all your tobacco and ate a lot of cornbread. I just gave them what they wanted. Oh, Charles! I was afraid!' But Laura did not forget the papoose. This was Indian country and she wanted to see Indians. She knew that she would see them sometime, but she was tired of waiting.
Pa had taken the canvas off the top of the house. For days he had been carrying logs from the creeks and cutting them into long, thin boards. The boards were lying all around the house.
Now Pa reached down and pulled up a board. He put it across the rafters. Then he began to nail the board to the rafters. Pa pulled up and nailed down more boards, all the way to the top of the rafters. The roof was done. Rain would never get in. Then Pa made a floor with beautiful hard wood.
'You've done a wonderful job, Charles,' Ma said.
They were all happy that night. The sky was full of stars. Pa sat for a long time by the open door and played his fiddle and sang to his family in the house, and to the stars outside.
Later Pa dug a well with Mr Scott's help and they didn't need to fetch muddy water from the creek any more. And after that he went to town to get glass to put in the windows, and then the house was truly finished.
