“For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruits of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing on the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.”
Laura knew how true that was. When she repeated those verses she thought, “through all the land of Minnesota.”
Then Ma read the promise that God made to good people, “to bring them out of that land to a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
“Oh, where is that, Ma?” Mary asked, and Laura asked, “How could land flow with milk and honey?” She did not want t
o walk in milky, sticky honey.
Ma rested the big Bible on her knees and thought. Then she said, “Well, your Pa thinks it will be right here in Minnesota.”
“How could it be?” Laura asked.
“Maybe it will be, if we stick it out,” said Ma. “Well, Laura, if good milk cows were eating grass all over this land, they would give a great deal of milk, and then the land would be flowing with milk. Bees would get honey out of all the wild flowers that grow out of the land, and then the land would be flowing with honey.”
“Oh,” Laura said. “I’m glad we wouldn’t have to walk in it.”
Carrie beat the Bible with her little fists and cried: “I’m hot! I’m prickly!” Ma picked her up, but she pushed at Ma and whimpered, “You’re hot!”
Poor little Carrie’s skin was red with heat rash. Laura and Mary were sweltering inside their underwaists and drawers, and petticoatwaists and petticoats, and long-sleeved, high-necked dresses with tight waistbands around their middles. The backs of their necks were smothering under their braids.
Carrie wanted a drink, but she pushed the cup away and made a face and said, “Nasty!”
“You better drink it,” Mary told her. “I want a cold drink, too, but there isn’t any.”
“I wish I had a drink of well water,” said Laura.
“I wish I had an icicle,” said Mary.
Then Laura said, “I wish I was an Indian and didn’t have to wear clothes.”
“Laura!” said Ma. “And on Sunday!”
Laura thought, “Well, I do!” The wood smell of the house was a hot smell. On all the brown streaks in the boards the juice was dripping down sticky and drying in hard yellow beads. The hot wind never stopped whizzing by and the cattle never stopped mourning, “Moo-oo, moo-oo.” Jack turned on his side and groaned a long sigh.
Ma sighed, too, and said, “Seems to me I’d give almost anything for a breath of air.” At that very minute a breath of air came into the house. Carrie stopped whimpering. Jack lifted up his head. Ma said, “Girls, did you—” Then another cool breath came.
Ma went out through the lean-to, to the shady end of the house. Laura scampered after her, and Mary came leading Carrie. Outdoors was like a baking-oven. The hot air came scorching against Laura’s face.
In the north-west sky there was a cloud. It was small in the enormous, brassy sky. But it was a cloud, and it made a streak of shade on the prairie. The shadow seemed to move, but perhaps that was only the heat waves. No, it really was coming nearer.
“Oh, please, please, please!” Laura kept saying, silently, with all her might. They all stood shading their eyes and looking at that cloud and its shadow.
The cloud kept coming nearer. It grew larger. It was a thick, dark streak in the air above the prairie. Its edge rolled and swelled in big puffs. Now gusts of cool air came, mixed with gusts hotter than ever.
All over the prairie, dust devils rose up wild and wicked, whirling their dust arms. The sun still burned on the house and the stable, and the cracked, pitted earth. The shadow of the cloud was far away.
Suddenly a fire-white streak zigzagged, and a gray curtain fell from the cloud and hung there, hiding the sky beyond it. That was rain. Then a growl of thunder came.
“It’s too far away, girls,” Ma said. “I’m afraid it won’t get to us. But, anyway, the air’s cooler.”
A smell of rain came on streaks of coolness through the hot wind.
“Oh, maybe it will get to us, Ma! Maybe it will!” Laura said. Inside themselves they were all saying, “Please, please, please!”
The wind blew cooler. Slowly, slowly, the cloud shadow grew larger. Now the cloud spread wide in the sky. Suddenly a shadow rushed across the flat land and up the knoll, and fast after it came the marching rain. It came up the knoll like millions of tiny trampling feet, and rain poured down on the house and on Ma and Mary and Laura and Carrie. “Get in, quick!” Ma exclaimed.
The lean-to was noisy with rain on its roof. Cool air blew through it into the smothery house. Ma opened the front door. She fastened back the curtains and opened every window.