2018.05.15

It's Tuesday.

Pa played Money Musk and Arkansas Travelers, Irish Washerwoman and the Devil’s Hornpipe. Baby Carrie couldn’t sleep in all that music. She sat up in Ma’s lap, looking at Mr. Edwards with round eyes, and clapping her little hands and laughing. Even the firelight danced, and all around its edge the shadows were dancing. Only the new house stood still and quiet in the dark, till the big moon rose and shone on its gray walls and the yellow chips around it. Mr. Edwards said he must go. It was a long way back to his camp on the other side of the woods and the creek. He took his gun, and said good night to Laura and Mary and Ma. He said a bachelor got mighty lonesome, and he surely had enjoyed this evening of home life. He asked them to play him down the road. So while he went down the creek road and out of sight, Pa played, and Pa and Mr. Edwards and Laura sang with all their might. “Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man; He washed his face in the frying-pan, He combed his hair with a wagon wheel, And died of the toothache in his heel. Git out of the way for old Dan Tucker! He’s too late to get his supper! Supper’s over and the dishes washed, Nothing left but a piece of squash! Old Dan Tucker went to town, Riding a mule, leading a hound...” Far over the prairie rang Pa’s big voice and Laura’s little one, and faintly from the creek bottoms came a last whoop from Mr. Edwards. When Pa’s fiddle stopped, they could not hear Mr. Edwards any more. Only the wind rustled in the prairie grasses.