She laid her hand on Laura’s shoulder and said, “You’re a new little girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Laura.
“And this is your sister?” Teacher asked, smiling at Mary.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mary.
“Then come with me,” said Teacher, “and I’ll write your names in my book.”
They went with her the whole length of the schoolhouse, and stepped up on the platform.
The schoolhouse was a room made of new boards. Its ceiling was the underneath of shingles, like the attic ceiling. Long benches stood one behind another down the middle of the room. They were made of planed boards. Each bench had a back, and two shelves stuck out from the back, over the bench behind. Only the front bench did not have any shelves in front of it, and the last bench did not have any back.
There we
re two glass windows in each side of the schoolhouse. They were open, and so was the door. The wind came in, and the sound of waving grasses, and the smell and the sight of the endless prairie and the great light of the sky.
Laura saw all this while she stood with Mary by Teacher’s desk and they told her their names and how old they were. She did not move her head, but her eyes looked around.
A water-pail stood on a bench by the door. A boughten broom stood in one corner. On the wall behind Teacher’s desk there was a smooth space of boards painted black. Under it was a little trough. Some kind of short, white sticks lay in the trough, and a block of wood with a woolly bit of sheepskin pulled tightly around it and nailed down. Laura wondered what those things were.
Mary showed Teacher how much she could read and spell. But Laura looked at Ma’s book and shook her head. She could not read. She was not even sure of all the letters.
“Well, you can begin at the beginning, Laura,” said Teacher, “and Mary can study farther on. Have you a slate?”
They did not have a slate.
“I will lend you mine,” Teacher said. “You cannot learn to write without a slate.”
She lifted up the top of her desk and took out the slate. The desk was made like a tall box, with one side cut out for her knees. The top rose up on boughten hinges, and under it was the place where she kept things. Her books were there, and the ruler.
Laura did not know until later that the ruler was to punish anyone who fidgeted or whispered in school. Anyone who was so naughty had to walk up to Teacher’s desk and hold out her hand while Teacher slapped it many times, hard, with the ruler.
But Laura and Mary never whispered in school, and they always tried not to fidget. They sat side by side on a bench and studied. Mary’s feet rested on the floor, but Laura’s dangled. They held their book open on the board shelf before them, Laura studying at the front of the book and Mary studying farther on, and the pages between standing straight up.
Laura was a whole class by herself, because she was the only pupil who could not read. Whenever Teacher had time, she called Laura to her desk and helped her read letters. Just before dinner-time that first day, Laura was able to read, CAT, cat. Suddenly she remembered and said, “P A T, Pat!”
Teacher was surprised.
“R A T, rat!” said Teacher. “M A T, mat!” And Laura was reading! She could read the whole first row in the speller.
At noon all the other children and Teacher went home to dinner. Laura and Mary took their dinner-pail and sat in the grass against the shady side of the empty schoolhouse. They ate their bread and butter and talked.
“I like school,” Mary said.
“So do I,” said Laura. “Only it makes my legs tired. But I don’t like that Nellie Oleson that called us country girls.”
“We are country girls,” said Mary.
“Yes, and she needn’t wrinkle her nose!” Laura said.
Chapter 21
Nellie Oleson
Jack was waiting to meet them at the ford that night, and at supper they told Pa and Ma all about school. When they said they were using Teacher’s slate, Pa shook his head. They must not be beholden for the loan of a slate.
Next morning he took his money out of the fiddle-box and counted it. He gave Mary a round silver piece to buy a slate.