2018.06.01

It's Friday.

Chapter eight: TWO STOUT DOORS

Laura felt a soft warmth on her face and opened her eyes into morning sunshine. Mary was talking to Ma by the camp fire. Laura ran outdoors, all bare inside her nightgown. There were no wolves to be seen; only their tracks were thick around the house and the stable. Pa came whistling up the creek road. He put his gun on its pegs and let Pet and Patty to the creek to drink as usual. He had followed the wolf tracks so far that he knew they were far away now, following a herd of deer. The mustangs shied at the wolves’ tracks and picked their ears nervously, and Pet kept her colt close at her side. But they went willingly with Pa, who knew there was nothing to fear. Breakfast was ready. When Pa came back from the creek they all sat by the fire and ate fried mush and prairie-chicken hash. Pa said he would make a door that very day. He wanted more than a quilt between them and the wolves, next time. He said that he had no more nails but he would not keep on waiting till he could make a trip to Independence and a man didn’t need nails to build a house or make a door. After breakfast he hitched up Pet and Patty, and taking his ax he went to get timber for the door. Laura helped wash the dishes and make the beds, but that day Mary minded the baby. Laura helped Pa make the door. Mary watched, but Laura handed him his tools. With the saw he sawed logs the right length for a door. He sawed shorter lengths for crosspieces. Then with the ax he split the logs into slabs, and smoothed them nicely. He laid the long slabs together on the ground and placed the shorter slabs across them. Then with the auger he bored holes through the crosspieces into the long slabs. Into every hole he drove a wooden peg that fitted tightly.