She knew that she must make some closing speech to the school, so she praised them all for the work they had done. “You have made good use of the opportunity you had to come to school,” she told them.
“I hope that each of you can get more schooling, but if you cannot, you can study at home as Lincoln did. An education is worth striving for, and if you cannot have much help in getting one, you can each help yourself to an education if you try.”
The
n she gave Ruby one of her name-cards, of thin, pale pink cardboard with a spray of roses and cornflowers curving above her printed name. On the back she had written, “Presented to Ruby Brewster, by her teacher, with kind regards. Brewster School, February, 1883.”
Tommy was next, then Martha and Charles, and Clarence. They were all so pleased. Laura let them have a moment to enjoy looking at the pretty cards, and carefully place them in their books. Then she told them to make ready their books, slates, and pencils, to carry home. For the last time she said, “School is dismissed.”
She had never been more surprised than she was then. For instead of putting on their wraps as she expected, they all came up to her desk. Martha gave her a beautiful, red apple. Ruby shyly gave her a little cake that her mother had baked for her gift. And Tommy and Charles and Clarence each gave her a new pencil that he had carefully sharpened for her.
She hardly knew how to thank them, but Martha said, “It’s us, I mean we, that thank you, Miss Ingalls. Thank you for helping me with grammar.”
“Thank you, Miss Ingalls,” Ruby said. “I wish it had frosting on it.” The boys did not say anything, but after they had all said good-by and gone, Clarence came back.
Standing by Laura’s table and leaning against it he looked down at his cap in his hands and muttered, “I’m sorry I was so mean.”
“Why, Clarence! That’s all right!” Laura exclaimed. “And you have done wonderfully well in your studies. I am proud of you.”
He looked at her with his old saucy grin, and shot out of the room, slamming the door so that the shanty shook.
Laura cleaned the blackboard and swept the floor. She stacked her books and papers and shut the drafts of the stove. Then she put on her hood and coat and stood at the window waiting until the sleigh bells came jingling and Prince and Lady stopped at the door.
School was out. She was going home to stay! Her heart was so light that she felt like singing with the sleigh bells, and fast as the horses trotted, they seemed slow. “You won’t get there any faster, pushing,” Almanzo said once, and she laughed aloud to find that she was pushing her feet hard against the cutter’s dashboard. But he did not talk much, and neither did she. It was enough to be going home.
Not until she had thanked him nicely and said good night and was in the sitting room taking off her wrap did she remember that he had not said, “Good night.” He had not said, “I’ll see you Sunday afternoon,” as he had always said before. He had said, “Good-by.”
Of course, she thought. It was good-by. This had been the last sleigh ride.
Chapter 11
Jingle Bells
Waking next morning was happier than Christmas. “Oh, I’m at home!” Laura thought. She called, “Carrie! Good morning! Wake up, sleepyhead!” She almost laughed with joy as she shivered into her dress and skipped downstairs to button her shoes and comb her hair in the warming kitchen where Ma was getting breakfast.
“Good morning, Ma!” she sang.
“Good morning,” Ma smiled. “I declare you look better already.”
“It’s nice to be home,” Laura said. “Now what shall I do first?”
She was busy all that morning, helping with Saturday’s work. Though usually she disliked the dryness of flour on her hands, today she enjoyed kneading the bread, thinking happily that she would be at home to eat the fresh, brown-crusted loaves. Her heart sang with the song on her lips; she was not going back to the Brewsters’ ever again.
It was a beautifully sunny day, and that afternoon when the work was all done, Laura hoped that Mary Power would come to visit with her while they crocheted. Ma was gently rocking while she knitted by the sunny window, Carrie was piecing her quilt block, but somehow Laura could not settle down. Mary did not come, and Laura had just decided that she would put on her wraps and go to see Mary, when she heard sleigh bells.
For some reason, her heart jumped. But the bells rang thinly as they sped by. There were only a few bells; they were not the rich strings of bells that Prince and Lady wore. Their music had not died away, when again sleigh bells went tinkling past. Then all up and down the street, the stillness sparkled with the ringing of the little bells.
Laura went to the window. She saw Minnie Johnson and Fred Gilbert flash by, then Arthur Johnson with a girl that Laura did not know. The full music of double strings of bells came swiftly, and Mary Power and Cap Garland dashed by in a cutter. So that was what Mary was doing. Cap Garland had a cutter and full strings of sleigh bells, too. More and more laughing couples drove up and down the street, in sleighs and cutters, passing and repassing the window where Laura stood.
At last she sat soberly down to her crocheting. The sitting room was neat and quiet. Nobody came to see Laura. She had been gone so long that probably no one thought of her. All that afternoon the sleigh bells were going by. Up and down the street her schoolmates went laughing in the sunny cold, having such a good time. Again and again Mary and Cap sped past, in a cutter made for two.
Well, Laura thought, tomorrow she would see Ida at Sunday School. But Ida did not come to church that Sunday; Mrs. Brown said that she had a bad cold.
That Sunday afternoon the weather was even more beautiful. Again the sleigh bells were ringing, and laughter floating on the wind. Again Mary Power and Cap went by, and Minnie and Fred, and Frank Hawthorn and May Bird, and all the newcomers whom Laura barely knew. Two by two they went gaily by, laughing and singing with the chiming bells. No one remembered Laura. She had been away so long that everyone had forgotten her.
Soberly she tried to read Tennyson’s poems. She tried not to mind being forgotten and left out. She tried not to hear the sleigh bells and the laughter, but more and more she felt that she could not bear it.
Suddenly, a ringing of bells stopped at the door! Before Pa could look up from his paper, Laura had the door open, and there stood Prince and Lady with the little cutter, and Almanzo stood beside it smiling.