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    These Happy Golden Years
    These Happy Golden Years
    These Happy Golden Years
    Ebook318 pages3 hours

    These Happy Golden Years

    By Laura Ingalls Wilder and Garth Williams

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    About this ebook

    The eighth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor—now available as an ebook! This digital version features Garth Williams's classic illustrations, which appear in vibrant full color on a full-color device and in rich black-and-white on all other devices.

    Fifteen-year-old Laura lives apart from her family for the first time, teaching school in a claim shanty twelve miles from home. She is very homesick, but she knows that her earnings can help pay for her sister Mary's tuition at the college for the blind. Only one thing gets her through the lonely weeks—every weekend, Almanzo Wilder arrives at the school to take Laura home for a visit. Friendship soon turns to love for Laura and Almanzo.

    The nine Little House books are inspired by Laura's own childhood and have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier history and as heartwarming, unforgettable stories.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 8, 2016
    ISBN9780062484109
    Author

    Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) was born in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods. With her family, she pioneered throughout America’s heartland during the 1870s and 1880s, finally settling in Dakota Territory. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885; their only daughter, Rose, was born the following year. The Wilders moved to Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where they established a permanent home. After years of farming, Laura wrote the first of her beloved Little House books in 1932. The nine Little House books are international classics. Her writings live on into the twenty-first century as America’s quintessential pioneer story.

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    Reviews for These Happy Golden Years

    4/5

    1,179 ratings27 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Timeless classic. Laura and Almanzo marry in this book and settle on his claim.
    • 4/5
      I love the sweet romance between Laura and Almanzo. Laura works to help her family and her sister Mary. She has very little, but her family is loving and happy.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. It was always my favorite of the series. I thought it was romatic and beautiful in its simplicity. I read it more times as i could count as a kid and a teen.
    • 5/5
      my absolute favorite Little House book.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Laura grows up and finds herself teaching school and finding her soul mate. Little House makes me long for those simple times when we enjoyed simple things and worked hard each day. Though the days are gone I can still chose to implement some of those lovely true principles into my home and into my heart.Quotes: "Everything is simple when you are alone, or at home, but as soon as you meet other people you are in difficulties. ""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 can not have much help in getting one you can each help yourself to an education if you try. "
    • 5/5
      See review for Little House #1
    • 4/5
      When we meet up with Laura again she is fifteen years old and off to teach school at the Brewster settlement, twelve miles away. This is a period of great confusion for her. On the one hand, she is still a child, wanting to go to school to learn and to be with friends. On the other hand, she is a young adult, wanting to teach school to earn money for her family. Mary is away at a school for the blind and needs help with tuition. As she says, "only yesterday she was a schoolgirl; now she was a schoolteacher" (p 1). During this time Laura's fashion sense is becoming more adult with floor-length dresses and fancy hats. She takes up sewing on Saturdays to earn money for new clothes. She is starting the receive the attention of Almanzo Wilder as well. While this attention is, at first, unsettling to Laura she begins to look forward to his cutter (winter) and buggy (summer) rides. Soon they are courting under the guise of taming wild horses, but I don't think I will be spoiling anything to admit their inevitable engagement seemed sudden and uneventful to me.Probably the most interesting part of the story was when Laura was negotiating her wedding vows with Almanzo. She doesn't want the ceremony to include the word "obey" in it. Almanzo is fine with that but when Laura learns the reverend also feels strongly about not including the vow of "obey" she is shocked. Yet she is not a feminist. She doesn't want the privileged of voting. Interesting.
    • 4/5
      "These Happy Golden Years" is one of my favorites in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It picks up with Laura when she is 15 years old as she starts teaching for the first time and travels away from home. The center of the book is really the courtship between herself and her future husband, Almanzo Wilder. Like many other books in the series, it's a fascinating look at life as a pioneer out west -- it's particularly interesting to see how the country around the Ingalls family grows as well.
    • 4/5
      I loved the description of Almanzo's courtship. Despite Laura's reticence and shyness, Almanzo continues to seek her company and eventually win her heart. The ending chapters, when Laura is preparing to leave her parents home were so poignant - marriage is the end of childhood, even as it is the beginning of a new chapter in life.
    • 5/5
      I love all of Laura's books, but if I had to choose a favourite, it would probably be this one. It picks up exactly where "Little Town..." leaves off and describes Laura's life now that she's suddenly a grown-up school teacher. I couldn't imagine teaching school at an age where I still ought to GO to school! It's fascinating. And the courtship between her and Almanzo is just adorable. I always finish this book with a content sigh :)
    • 5/5
      This book sees a 15-year-old Laura gaining more responsibility as a schoolteacher and preparing for her adult life. Her perspective is so fresh and innocent as she mixes the burdens and fears of growing up with her natural inclination to want to be a girl, have fun, and see mean old Nellie Oleson get her comeuppance. The love story between Laura and Almanzo in this book is simply beautiful; it is a tale of romance blossoming from mutual companionship and respect, not from superficial appearances and physical lust. This is a particularly moving story to read if you are at a time of new beginnings in life, such as after a graduation or before a wedding. Laura speaks honestly of the childish hopes and fears hidden inside the grown-ups we all are forced to become, in a way that illustrates magnificently how little the human condition has changed in spite of all else.
    • 5/5
      These Happy Golden Years is an interesting change from even just the previous book in the series, though certainly very different from the first six. Laura is more adult in the stories and even takes on real work of her own - as a teacher. Her trials with trying to control a class of students, some of whom were older than her, and venturing into her first romance. It's interesting to read about how the courtship between Laura and Almanzo came about and how, despite Laura's attempts to keep Almanzo away. Most interesting is Laura's own form of 'feminism', which greatly varies from that of even twenty years later. Laura is against using the word 'obey' in her wedding vows, but not particularly in favor of votes for women. The stories are sweet and subtly romantic, lacking the overtures and public displays of affection of subsequent generations and all the sweeter for it.
    • 3/5
      I like the relationship between Laura and Almanzo. It's very sweet and old-fashioned.
    • 5/5
      Well, the unfinished business of my childhood is finally complete after finishing up this series. I thought it might be less interesting now that Laura was so much older, but it really wasn't. Her courtship with Almanzo is very sweet, and I was impressed by wanting to take the "obey" out of the marriage vows even way back then! It was a little hard for me to read about how sad Laura is leaving home when I'm about to do the same thing myself. And I'm sad to not have anymore of these to read! But I'm buying some stuff from the various spinoff series.
    • 4/5
      Laura works as a teacher and becomes engaged to Almanzo.
    • 4/5
      This wonderful series continues with a look at Laura's teaching experiences and continuing blossoming romance with Almanzo. Favorites of mine when I was younger, the entire series is a treasure.
    • 5/5
      I've always loved this book. It's the end of the series as Laura imagined it, culminating with her marriage to Almanzo. All the hard things that happened after are left out and the readers feel a definite circular tie up--the story opened with Charles and Caroline beginning their life together and ends twenty years later with Laura and Almanzo beginning theirs together. Sweet.
    • 5/5
      OK, I'll admit it. I'm an unabashed fan. I love everything about this series, from the descriptions of household chores, to the family characters, to the old fashioned morality. I love Garth William's illustrations. I love the memories I have of hearing my mother read these to us, and the memories of my own voice reading them to my daughter. And this particular volume pulls all the pieces into a gentle happy ending.
    • 5/5
      Timeless classic. Laura and Almanzo marry in this book and settle on his claim.
    • 5/5
      Laura is now working as a teacher and making money for her family. It’s been such a joy to watch her grow up and it’s hard to believe she’s a woman now. Almanzo courts her with buggy rides and I loved watching her show her strength and fearless nature as she becomes more comfortable around him. Definitely one of my favorites in the series. “The last time always seems sad, but it isn’t really. The end of one thing is only the beginning of another.”
    • 4/5
      Well, we have known it was going to happen all series, so I don't feel it is much of a spoiler to say this is the book where Laura and Almanzo finally get together. I really enjoyed this - Laura as a young woman has a more varied and interesting set of relationships in her life than Laura as a child, and I even found myself fond of Pa now, playing the fiddle, and lovingly supporting Laura in her growing adulthood.For a romance, it is surprisingly dominated by many many chapters of excellent descriptions of horses. Pulling sleighs, pulling buggies, horses just being tamed, horses starting to be obedient - when Ma says 'Laura, do you like him, or his horses?' I really did laugh out loud. But they are such lovely horses, spirited and swift and glossy.There are so many good aspects of Laura's character in this book - Laura learning how to be a school teacher and dealing with trying to have control over boys older than she is; Laura staying at the Brewster's, and trying to be a good cheerful helpful non-complaining person, while Mrs Brewster is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and wandering the house at night with a knife; Laura spending all her wages on an organ for Mary, and then trying to be supportive and happy when Mary decides to go and stay with a friend for the summer instead. She's not just a saint though, Laura deliberately spooking the horses so Nellie gets scared when Nellie has her eye on Almanzo is quite cheeky!The last bit is a sudden tone change, it is a bit like 'oh, there should always be a horrible prairie disaster, we had better mention one', so it stops being weddings and singing clubs and compliant school children, and becomes 'and then a cyclone killed children and destroyed entire houses'. But, err, not Laura's for once!
    • 4/5
      “I will build a little house in the grove on the tree claim. It will have to be a little house. Do you mind?”“I have always lived in little houses. I like them,” Laura answered.Laura moves from home and begins her teaching career- at 15 years of age! And she gets engaged to Almanzo Wilder! And we all know how that usually turns out! :-)This book is a cute one, as the courtship of Laura and Almanzo gradually plays out along many a buggy ride! It's been a long ride since the first book, and it's been interesting watching little Half Pint grow. I don't know what the last book will bring, but I think the end of this one is the way it should have ended:"It's a wonderful night," Almanzo said."It is a beautiful world," Laura answered, and in memory she heard the voice of Pa's fiddle and the echo of a song, "Golden years are passing by, These happy, golden years."Honestly, how could the series have ended any better? I'll guess I'll see...
    • 4/5
      Laura is now 15(?) years old and has her first teaching job. But it’s taking her away from her family and she needs to board with people near the new school… and the wife/mother doesn’t seem to like her much. Lucky for Laura, Almanzo decides to come bring her home on weekends. And the job is only for a couple of months. Once she is done, she can go back to her own schooling. This is the start of this installment of Laura’s childhood/growing up in the late 1800s. The rest of the book follows her to more teaching jobs and with her and Almanzo’s courtship. I really enjoyed this one, as well. It feels like not as much happened in this one as in some of the others, but we followed the seasons through a few more years as Laura (and Mary) grow up and are branching out on their own. From the title of this one, I always thought they would be much older (“Golden Years”) in this book, but I suppose the meaning of the phrase might be different now. I found it interesting that she could go back and forth between teaching and being a student (with her regular class!). Obviously she didn’t need to finish school to become a teacher. I really do love the descriptions of the prairie and of the weather.
    • 4/5
      Substance: The courtship of Almanzo ripens into marriage in a delightful story of Laura's coming-of-age , when that term meant "growing into adulthood responsibilities" rather than just having sex for the first time (the book ends with the cabin door not just closed, but never even touched.Style: As usual.Note to the PC Mafia: You could find something to complain of here, but, at the time, it was considered good clean fun rather than racist cultural appropriationSecond note to the Revisionist Historians: For the second time, Ingalls chronicles the actions by the US government and army to prevent or punish settlers encroaching on the land belonging to the Native Americans aka Indians.Laura is going on 16 years when the book starts and ages 2 years; time is c. 1882-1884.
    • 4/5
      Laura continues her schooling, while also teaching school, as Almanzo Wilder patiently woos her. One of the better books in this uneven series.
    • 1/5
      Wow-wee. I haven't read this much about dress patterns and sewing styles since that horrible day in my grandmothers bathroom after some bad lunch meat. While reading this aloud to the kids on the car I couldn't help but continually lapse into a Swedish Chef voice for Pa, An antebellum southern mistress for Ma, An earnest lisp-y twit for Laura and Lenny impression for her sisters (Tell us about the rabbits, George) to keep it the least bit interesting.

      On a side note, Laura Ingalls Wilder is a first rate braggart. Not a chapter goes by without Laura-as-author putting words into her sisters or friends mouths telling Laura-as-character how wonderful and special she is. Easily the most annoying and useless installment in the series.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Well, here we are in China and all my books and the Seattle Public Library are back home. I had planned to read a number of my daughter's school books--the Sonlight curriculum is literature intensive--but of the two boxes of school materials we had sent out, only one has arrived. Oh, well at least that one contained some of the "Little House" books. This one the girls left sitting on the table and I happened to pick it up and then had to read it through. It's the second to the last of the series, the one where Laura is fifteen, is finishing school and is catching the attention of the young men in town. Like the rest, this book is well written with likable characters and vivid settings--check it out. Mrs. Wilder's books are truly an American treasure.--J.

    Book preview

    These Happy Golden Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder

    LAURA LEAVES HOME

    Sunday afternoon was clear, and the snow-covered prairie sparkled in the sunshine. A little wind blew gently from the south, but it was so cold that the sled runners squeaked as they slid on the hard-packed snow. The horses’ hoofs made a dull sound, clop, clop, clop. Pa did not say anything.

    Sitting beside him on the board laid across the bobsled, Laura did not say anything, either. There was nothing to say. She was on her way to teach school.

    Only yesterday she was a schoolgirl; now she was a schoolteacher. This had happened so suddenly. Laura could hardly stop expecting that tomorrow she would be going to school with little sister Carrie, and sitting in her seat with Ida Brown. But tomorrow she would be teaching school.

    She did not really know how to do it. She never had taught school, and she was not sixteen years old yet. Even for fifteen, she was small; and now she felt very small.

    The slightly rolling, snowy land lay empty all around. The high, thin sky was empty overhead. Laura did not look back, but she knew that the town was miles behind her now; it was only a small dark blot on the empty prairie’s whiteness. In the warm sitting room there, Ma and Carrie and Grace were far away.

    Brewster settlement was still miles ahead. It was twelve miles from town. Laura did not know what it was like. She did not know anyone there. She had seen Mr. Brewster only once, when he came to hire her to teach the school. He was thin and brown, like any homesteader; he did not have much to say for himself.

    Pa sat looking ahead into the distance while he held the reins in his mittened hands and now and then chirruped to the horses. But he knew how Laura felt. At last he turned his face toward her and spoke, as if he were answering her dread of tomorrow.

    Well, Laura! You are a schoolteacher now! We knew you would be, didn’t we? Though we didn’t expect it so soon.

    Do you think I can, Pa? Laura answered. Suppose . . . just suppose . . . the children won’t mind me when they see how little I am.

    Of course you can, Pa assured her. You’ve never failed yet at anything you tried to do, have you?

    Well, no, Laura admitted. But I . . . I never tried to teach school.

    You’ve tackled every job that ever came your way, Pa said. You never shirked, and you always stuck to it till you did what you set out to do. Success gets to be a habit, like anything else a fellow keeps on doing.

    Again there was a silence except for the squeaking of the sled runners and the clop-clop-clop of the horses’ feet on the hard snow. Laura felt a little better. It was true; she always had kept on trying; she had always had to. Well, now she had to teach school.

    Remember that time on Plum Creek, Half-Pint? Pa said. Your Ma and I went to town, and a blizzard came up? And you got the whole woodpile into the house.

    Laura laughed out loud, and Pa’s laugh rang like great bells in the cold stillness. How little and scared and funny she had been, that day so long ago!

    That’s the way to tackle things! Pa said. Have confidence in yourself, and you can lick anything. You have confidence in yourself, that’s the only way to make other folks have confidence in you. He paused, and then said, One thing you must guard against.

    What, Pa? Laura asked.

    You are so quick, Flutterbudget. You are apt to act or speak first, and think afterward. Now you must do your thinking first and speak afterward. If you will remember to do that, you will not have any trouble.

    I will, Pa, Laura said earnestly.

    It was really too cold to talk. Snug enough under the heavy blankets and quilts, they went on silently toward the south. The cold wind blew against their faces. A faint trace of sled runners stretched onward before them. There was nothing else to see but the endless, low white land and the huge pale sky, and the horses’ blue shadows blotting the sparkle from the snow.

    The wind kept Laura’s thick black woolen veil rippling before her eyes. Her breath was frozen in a patch of frost in the veil, that kept slapping cold and damp against her mouth and nose.

    At last she saw a house ahead. Very small at first, it grew larger as they came nearer to it. Half a mile away there was another, smaller one, and far beyond it, another. Then still another appeared. Four houses; that was all. They were far apart and small on the white prairie.

    Pa pulled up the horses. Mr. Brewster’s house looked like two claim shanties put together to make a peaked roof. Its tar-paper roof was bare, and melted snow had run into big icicles that hung from the eaves in blobby columns larger around than Laura’s arms. They looked like huge, jagged teeth. Some bit into the snow, and some were broken off. The broken chunks of ice lay frozen into the dirty snow around the door, where dishwater had been thrown. There was no curtain at the window, but smoke blew from the stovepipe that was anchored to the roof with wires.

    Mr. Brewster opened the door. A child was squalling in the house, and he spoke loudly to be heard. Come in, Ingalls! Come in and warm yourself.

    Thank you, Pa replied. But it’s a long twelve miles home and I better be going.

    Laura slid out from under the blankets quickly, not to let the cold in. Pa handed her Ma’s satchel, that held her change of underclothes, her other dress, and her schoolbooks.

    Good-by, Pa, she said.

    Good-by, Laura. His blue eyes smiled encouragement to her. But twelve miles was too far to drive often; she would not see him again for two months.

    She went quickly into the house. Coming from the bright sunshine, she could not see anything for a moment. Mr. Brewster said, This is Mrs. Brewster; and Lib, here’s the teacher.

    A sullen-looking woman stood by the stove, stirring something in a frying pan. A little boy was hanging on to her skirts and crying. His face was dirty and his nose needed a handkerchief.

    Good afternoon, Mrs. Brewster, Laura said as cheerfully as she possibly could.

    Just go in the other room and take off your wraps, Mrs. Brewster said. Hang them behind the curtain where the sofa is. She turned her back on Laura and went on stirring the gravy in the pan.

    Laura did not know what to think. She could not have done anything to offend Mrs. Brewster. She went into the other room.

    The partition stood under the peak of the roof, and divided the house into two equal parts. On either side of the partition, the rafters and the tar-paper roof sloped down to low walls. The board walls were well battened down every crack. They were not finished inside; the bare studding stood against them. This was like Pa’s house on the claim, but it was smaller and had no ceiling overhead.

    The other room was very cold, of course. It had one window looking out at empty prairie covered with snow. Against the wall under the window was the sofa, a boughten sofa with a curved wooden back and one end curved up. A bed was made up, on the sofa. Brown calico curtains hung against the wall at each end of it, on a string that ran across above the window, so they could be pulled together and hide the sofa. Opposite it, a bed stood against the wall, and at the foot of the bed there was just space enough for a bureau and a trunk.

    Laura hung her coat and muffler and veil and hood on nails behind the calico curtain, and set Ma’s satchel on the floor under them. She stood shivering in the cold, not wanting to go into the warm room where Mrs. Brewster was. But she had to, so she did.

    Mr. Brewster sat by the stove, holding the little boy on his knee. Mrs. Brewster was scraping the gravy into a bowl. The table was set, with plates and knives carelessly askew on a smudged white cloth; the cloth was crooked on the table.

    May I help you, Mrs. Brewster? Laura said bravely. Mrs. Brewster did not answer. She dumped potatoes angrily into a dish and thumped it on the table. The clock on the wall whirred, getting ready to strike, and Laura saw that the time was five minutes to four.

    Nowadays breakfast is so late, we eat only two meals a day, Mr. Brewster explained.

    Whose fault is it, I’d like to know! Mrs. Brewster blazed out. As if I didn’t do enough, slaving from morning to night in this . . .

    Mr. Brewster raised his voice. I only meant the days are so short . . .

    Then say what you mean! Mrs. Brewster slammed the high chair to the table, snatched the little boy and sat him in it, hard.

    Dinner’s ready, Mr. Brewster said to Laura. She sat down in the vacant place. Mr. Brewster passed her the potatoes and salt pork and gravy. The food was good but Mrs. Brewster’s silence was so unpleasant that Laura could hardly swallow.

    Is the schoolhouse far from here? she tried to ask cheerfully.

    Mr. Brewster said, Half a mile, cross-lots. It’s a claim shanty. The fellow that homesteaded that quarter section couldn’t stick it out; he gave up and went back east.

    Then he, too, was silent. The little boy fretted, trying to reach everything on the table. Suddenly he flung his tin plate of food on the floor. Mrs. Brewster slapped his hands, and he screamed. He went on screaming and kicking the table leg.

    At last the meal was over. Mr. Brewster took the milk pail from its nail on the wall and went to the stable. Mrs. Brewster sat the little boy on the floor and gradually he stopped crying, while Laura helped to clear the table. Then she got an apron from Ma’s satchel, tied it over her brown princess dress, and took a towel, to dry the dishes while Mrs. Brewster washed them.

    What’s your little boy’s name, Mrs. Brewster? she asked. She hoped that Mrs. Brewster would be more pleasant now.

    John, said Mrs. Brewster.

    That’s such a nice name, Laura said. People can call him Johnny while he’s little, and then when he grows up, John is a good name for a man. Do you call him Johnny now?

    Mrs. Brewster did not answer. The silence grew more and more dreadful. Laura felt her face grow burning hot. She went on wiping the dishes blindly. When they were done, Mrs. Brewster threw out the dishwater and hung the pan on its nail. She sat in the rocking chair and rocked idly, while Johnny crawled under the stove and dragged the cat out by its tail. The cat scratched him and he bawled. Mrs. Brewster went on rocking.

    Laura did not dare to interfere. Johnny screamed, Mrs. Brewster sullenly rocked, and Laura sat in the straight chair by the table and looked out at the prairie. The road went straight across the snow and far away, out of sight. Twelve miles away was home. Ma was getting supper now; Carrie was home from school; they were laughing and talking with Grace. Pa would come in, and swing Grace up in his arms as he used to lift Laura when she was little. They would all go on talking at the supper table. Later they would sit in the lamplight, cosily reading while Carrie studied; then Pa would play the fiddle.

    The room grew dark, and darker. Laura could not see the road any more. At last Mr. Brewster came in with the milk. Then Mrs. Brewster lighted the lamp. She strained the milk and set the pan away, while Mr. Brewster sat down and opened a newspaper. Neither of them spoke. The unpleasant silence settled heavily down.

    Laura did not know what to do; it was too early to go to bed. There was no other paper, and not a book in the room. Then she thought of her schoolbooks. Going into the cold, dark bedroom she groped in Ma’s satchel and found her history book by the sense of touch. Taking it into the kitchen she sat down by the table again and began to study.

    At least, nothing hinders my studying, she thought grimly. She felt hurt and sore as if she had been beaten, but gradually she forgot where she was, by keeping her mind fixed on history. At last she heard the clock strike eight. Then she stood up and said good night politely. Mrs. Brewster did not answer, but Mr. Brewster said, Good night.

    In the bedroom Laura shivered out of her dress and petticoats, and into her flannel nightgown. She got under the covers on the sofa and pulled the calico curtains around it. The pillow was of feathers, and there were sheets, and plenty of quilts, but the sofa was very narrow.

    She heard Mrs. Brewster talking angrily and very fast. The quilts were over Laura’s head, so that only the tip of her nose was out in the cold, but she could not help hearing Mrs. Brewster’s quarreling. . . . suits you, but I keep a boarder! she heard, and . . . this horrible country out here! Schoolteacher, indeed! . . . been a teacher myself, if I hadn’t married a . . .

    Laura thought: She doesn’t want to board the teacher, that is all. She’d be as cross to anybody else. She did her best not to hear any more, and to go to sleep. But all night, in her sleep, she was careful not to fall off the narrow sofa, and she was dreading tomorrow when she must begin to teach school.

    FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

    Laura heard a stove lid rattle. For one instant she was in bed with Mary, and Pa was building the morning fire. Then she saw the calico curtain and she knew where she was, and that today she must begin to teach school.

    She heard Mr. Brewster take down the milk pail, and the door slammed behind him. On the other side of the curtain Mrs. Brewster got out of bed. Johnny whimpered, and was still. Laura did not move; she felt that if she lay still enough, she might keep the day from coming.

    Mr. Brewster came in with the milk, and she heard him say, I’m going to start a fire in the schoolhouse. I’ll be back by the time breakfast’s ready. The door slammed behind him again.

    All at once, Laura threw back the covers. The air was biting cold. Her teeth chattered and her fingers were so stiff that she could not button her shoes.

    The kitchen was not so cold. Mrs. Brewster had broken the ice in the water pail and was filling the tea-kettle, and she replied pleasantly to Laura’s Good morning. Laura filled the wash basin and washed her hands and face at the bench by the door. The icy water made her cheeks tingle, and her whole face was rosy and glowing in the looking glass above the bench while she combed her hair before it.

    Slices of salt pork were frying, and Mrs. Brewster was slicing cold boiled potatoes into another frying pan on the stove. Johnny fussed in the bedroom, and Laura quickly pinned her braids, tied on her apron, and said, Let me fix the potatoes while you dress him.

    So while Mrs. Brewster brought Johnny to the stove and made him ready for breakfast, Laura finished slicing the potatoes, and salted and peppered and covered them. Then she turned the slices of meat and set the table neatly.

    I’m glad Ma told me to bring this big apron, she said. I like a real big apron that covers your whole dress, don’t you?

    Mrs. Brewster did not answer. The stove was red now and the whole room was warm, but it seemed bleak. Nothing but short, necessary words were said at the breakfast table.

    It was a relief to Laura to put on her wraps, take her books and her tin dinner pail, and leave that house. She set out on the half-mile walk through the snow to the schoolhouse. The way was unbroken, except for Mr. Brewster’s footsteps, which were so far apart that Laura could not walk in them.

    As she floundered on, plunging into the deep snow, she suddenly laughed aloud. Well! she thought. Here I am. I dread to go on, and I would not go back. Teaching school cannot possibly be as bad as staying in that house with Mrs. Brewster. Anyway, it cannot be worse.

    Then she was so frightened that she said aloud, "I’ve got to go on." Black soft-coal smoke rose against the morning sky from the old claim shanty’s stovepipe. Two more lines of footprints came to its door, and Laura heard voices inside it. For a moment she gathered her courage, then she opened the door and went in.

    The board walls were not battened. Streaks of sunshine streamed through the cracks upon a row of six homemade seats and desks that marched down the middle of the room. Beyond them on the studding of the opposite wall, a square of boards had been nailed and painted black, to make a blackboard.

    In front of the seats stood a big heating stove. Its round sides and top were cherry-red from the heat of the fire, and standing around it were the scholars that Laura must teach. They all looked at Laura. There were five of them, and two boys and one girl were taller than she was.

    Good morning, she managed to say.

    They all answered, still looking at her. A small window by the door let in a block of sunshine. Beyond it, in the corner by the stove, stood a small table and a chair. That is the teacher’s table, Laura thought, and then, Oh my; I am the teacher.

    Her steps sounded loud. All the eyes followed her. She put her books and dinner pail on the table, and took off her coat and hood. She hung them on a nail in the wall by the chair. On the table was a small clock; its hands stood at five minutes to nine.

    Somehow she had to get through five minutes, before the time to begin school.

    Slowly she took off her mittens and put them in the pocket of her coat. Then she faced all the eyes, and stepped to the stove. She held her hands to it as if to warm them. All the pupils made way for her, still looking at her. She must say something. She must.

    It is cold this morning, isn’t it? she heard herself say; then without waiting for an answer, Do you think you can keep warm in the seats away from the stove?

    One of the tall boys said quickly, I’ll sit in the back seat, it’s the coldest.

    The tall girl said, Charles and I have to sit together, we have to study from the same books.

    That’s good; then you can all sit nearer the stove, Laura said. To her joyful surprise, the five minutes were gone! She said, You may take your seats. School will begin.

    The little girl took the front seat; behind her sat the little boy, then the

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