“It’s an old crab,” Laura told her. “He cuts big sticks in two with his claws. He could cut our toes right off.”
“Oh, where is he? Is he coming?” Nellie asked.
“You stay there and I’ll look,” said Laura, and she went wading slowly and stopping and looking. The old crab was under his rock again, but Laura did not say so. She waded very slowly all the way to the bridge, while Nellie watched from the plum thicket. Then she waded back and said, “You can come out now.”
Nellie came out into the clean water. She said she didn’t like that horrid old creek and wasn’t going to play any more. She tried to wash her muddy skirt and then she tried to wash her feet, and then she screamed.
Muddy-brown bloodsuckers were sticking to her legs and her feet. She couldn’t wash them off. She tried to pick one off, and then she ran screaming up on the creek bank. There she stood kicking as hard as she could, first one foot and then the other, screaming all the time.
Laura laughed till she fell on the grass and rolled. “Oh, look, look!” she shouted, laughing. “See Nellie dance!”
All the girls came running. Mary told Laura to pick those bloodsuckers off Nellie, but Laura didn’t listen. She kept on rolling and laughing.
“Laura!” Mary said. “You get up and pull those things off, or I’ll tell Ma.”
Then Laura began to pull the bloodsuckers off Nellie. All the girls watched and screamed while she pulled them out long, and longer, and longer. Nellie cried: “I don’t like your party!” she said. “I want to go home!”
Ma came hurrying down to the creek to see why they were screaming. She told Nellie not to cry, a few leeches were nothing to cry about. She said it was time now for them all to come to the house.
The table was set prettily with Ma’s best white cloth and the blue pitcher full of flowers. The benches were drawn up on either side of it. Shiny tin cups were full of cold, creamy milk from the cellar, and the big platter was heaped with honey-colored vanity cakes.
The cakes were not sweet, but they were rich and crisp, and hollow inside. Each one was like a great bubble. The crisp bits of it melted on the tongue.
They ate and ate of those vanity cakes. They said they had never tasted anything so good, and they asked Ma what they were.
“Vanity cakes,” said Ma. “Because they are all puffed up, like vanity, with nothing solid inside.”
There were so many vanity cakes that they ate till they could eat no more, and they drank all the sweet, cold milk they could hold. Then the party was over. All the girls but Nellie said thank you for the party. Nellie was still mad.
Laura did not care. Christy squeezed her and said in her ear, “I never had such a good time! And it just served Nellie right!”
Deep down inside her Laura felt satisfied when she thought of Nellie dancing on the creek bank.
Chapter 24
Going To Church
It was Saturday night and Pa sat on the doorstep, smoking his after-supper pipe. Laura and Mary sat close on either side of him. Ma, with Carrie on her lap, rocked gently to and fro, just inside the doorway.
The winds were still. The stars hung low and bright. The dark sky was deep beyond the stars, and Plum Creek talked softly to itself.
“They told me in town this afternoon that there will be preaching in the new church tomorrow,” said Pa. “I met the home missionary, Reverend Alden, and he wanted us to be sure to come. I told him we would.”
“Oh, Charles,” Ma exclaimed, “we haven’t been to church for so long!”
Laura and Mary had never seen a church. But they knew from Ma’s voice that going to church must be better than a party. After a while Ma said, “I am so glad I finished my new dress.”
“You will look sweet as a posy in it,” Pa told her. “We must start early.”
Next morning was a hurry. Breakfast was a hurry, work was a hurry, and Ma hurried about dressing herself and Carrie. She called up the ladder in a hurrying voice: “Come on down, girls. I’ll tie your ribbons.”
They hurried down. Then they stood an
d stared at Ma. She was perfectly beautiful in her new dress. It was black-and-white calico, a narrow stripe of white, then a wider stripe of black lines and white lines no wider than threads. Up the front it was buttoned with black buttons. And the skirt was pulled back and lifted up to puffs and shirrings behind.
Crocheted lace edged the little stand-up collar. Crocheted lace spread out in a bow on Ma’s breast, and the gold breast-pin held the collar and the bow. Ma’s face was lovely. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright.
She turned Laura and Mary around and quickly tied the ribbons on their braids. Then she took Carrie’s hand. They all went out on the doorstep and Ma locked the door.