And I’ll sing Yankee Doodle,
And I’ll sing Yankee Doodle-de-do,
And I’ll sing Yankee Doodle!”
All alone in the wild Big Woods, and the snow, and the cold, the little log house was warm and snug and cosy. Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie were comfortable and happy there, especially at night.
Then the fire was shining on the hearth, the cold and the dark and the wild beasts were all shut out, and Jack the brindle bulldog and Black Susan the cat lay blinking at the flames in the fireplace.
Ma sat in her rocking chair, sewing by the light of the lamp on the table. The lamp was bright and shiny. There was salt in the bottom of its glass bowl with the kerosene, to keep the kerosene from exploding, and there were bits of red flannel among the salt to make it pretty. It was pretty.
Laura loved to look at the lamp, with its glass chimney so clean and sparkling, its yellow flame burning so steadily, and its bowl of clear kerosene colored red by the bits of flannel. She loved to look at the fire in the fireplace, flickering and changing all the time, burning yellow and red and sometimes green above the logs, and hovering blue over the golden and ruby coals.
And then, Pa told stories.
When Laura and Mary begged him for a story, he would take them on his knees and tickle their faces with his long whiskers until they laughed aloud. His eyes were blue and merry.
One night Pa looked at Black Susan, stretching herself before the fire and running her claws out and in, and he said:
“Do you know that a panther is a cat, a great, big wild cat?”
“No,” said Laura.
“Well, it is,” said Pa. “Just imagine Black Susan bigger than Jack, and fiercer than Jack when he growls. Then she would be just like a panther.”
He settled Laura and Mary more comfortably on his knees and he said, “I’ll tell you about Grandpa and the panther.”
“Your Grandpa?” Laura asked.
“No, Laura, your Grandpa. My father.”
“Oh,” Laura said, and she wriggled closer against Pa’s arm. She knew her Grandpa. He lived far away in the Big Woods, in a big log house. Pa began:
The Story of Grandpa and the Panther.
“Your Grandpa went to town one day and was late starting home. It was dark when he came riding his horse through the Big Woods, so dark that he could hardly see the road, and when he heard a panther scream he was frightened, for he had no gun.”
“How does a panther scream?” Laura asked.
“Like a woman,” said Pa. “Like this.” Then he screamed so that Laura and Mary shivered with terror.
Ma jumped in her chair, and said, “Mercy, Charles!”
But Laura and Mary loved to be scared like that.
“The horse, with Grandpa on him, ran fast, for it was frightened, too. But it could not get away from the panther. The panther followed through the dark woods. It was a hungry panther, and it came as fast as the horse could run. It screamed now on this side of the road, now on the other side, and it was always close behind.
“Grandpa leaned forward in the saddle and urged the horse to run faster. The horse was running as fast as it could possibly run, and still the panther screamed close behind.
“Then Grandpa caught a glimpse of it, as it leaped from treetop to treetop, almost overhead.
“It was a huge, black panther, leaping through the air like Black Susan leaping on a mouse. It was many, many times bigger than Black Susan. It was so big that if it leaped on Grandpa it could kill him with its enormous, slashing claws and its long sharp teeth.
“Grandpa, on his horse, was running away from it just as a mouse runs from a cat.
“The panther did not scream any more. Grandpa did not see it any more. But he knew that it was coming, leaping after him in the dark woods behind him. The horse ran with all its might.
“At last the horse ran up to Grandpa’s house. Grandpa saw the panther springing. Grandpa jumped off the horse, against the door. He burst through the door and slammed it behind him. The panther landed on the horse’s back, just where Grandpa had been.