On the Banks of Plum Creek

The next morning, there is finally snow. Ma gives Mary and Laura a box of buttons she’s been saving since she was a little girl so that they can make a button string for Carrie for Christmas.

On Christmas morning Laura wakes to the sound of the fire crackling and finds that there is candy in her and her sisters’ stockings. At chore time, Pa asks them if they think there’s anything in the stable and the girls go with him to see that, in Pete and Bright’s place are two red-brown horses. Pa lifts Mary and Laura up onto the horses’ backs, all of them laughing and happy together.

In the middle of the night, a roaring noise wakes up Laura, and when Pa opens the doors, they see it is pouring rain. The next morning Laura opens the door and ice-cold rain blows in. She sees that the creek has risen close to the dugout and is making a loud roaring noise. Ma jerks Laura back indoors.

The rain stops while they’re eating breakfast and Pa takes Mary and Laura outside to look at the creek, which has completely changed their familiar landscape. Pa’s fields are black and wet, and he tells the girls he will be able to plant soon.

The next day, Laura slips outside to look at the creek again. The water has gone down enough so that she can see the footbridge again. Drawn to the water, Laura takes off her shoes and socks and walks out onto the plank. She lays on her stomach and puts her arms on either side of the plank, and clasping her hands together, rolls off so that she can be completely submerged.

She feels the strength of the current’s pull, and the water trying to drag her head under the plank. She holds on with her chin and her arm and worries. She can’t call for help because no one knows where she is. She starts to lose feeling in her limbs and knows she must haul herself out, so she kicks and pulls until she is back on the plank.

Back at the dugout, Ma quickly strips her of her wet clothes while Laura explains what happened. Ma tells her that she almost drowned and can’t go near the creek again unless she or Pa allows her.

The weather begins to warm, and the creek goes back down. Pa begins to work the wheat-field from sunup to sundown. One day, Pa returns from a trip to town with lumber to build a new house. Although the wheat isn’t harvested yet, Pa has purchased the lumber on credit, and will pay Mr. Oleson back once he’s harvested it.

The next morning Mr. Nelson comes, and they begin digging the cellar for the house. Ma makes them do their chores and then Mary and Laura run to watch and play with the wood shavings and wood blocks left over. Laura is excited that the new house has real windows, a store-bought door, two rooms, a shed, and an attic. One day Pa asks Laura and Mary if they can keep a secret, showing them a brand-new cookstove he’s bought to surprise Ma.

The next morning, they move everything from the dugout to the wagon so they can bring it to the new house. Laura feels excited about Pa’s secret of a new cookstove. When Ma sees the cookstove her mouth opens and she says it’s all too much, but Pa replies that nothing is too much for her.

Ma makes dinner on the new stove, and they all enjoy being in their new house. After dinner, they begin to decorate and place all their treasured items. That night Laura struggles to fall asleep. She hears rain pattering on the roof, and she is happy, realizing she hasn’t heard that sound in quite some time.

After chores in the new house, Laura hurries down the path that Nelson made and finds that it leads to a gentle part of Plum Creek. Mary and Laura wade in this water.

Suddenly, Laura sees a creature almost as big as her foot, with pincers and short legs and a scaly tail, that turns out to be a crab. Laura also wades into the muddy water under the plum trees, and when she exits, there are soft worms stuck on her legs and feet that won’t come off. When she pulls them off, blood dots her legs. At dinner, Ma explains that the worms were leeches. Ma tells them they won’t be able to get into much more trouble, since they can now start attending school.

Laura does not want to go to school, but her parents stress the importance of education. Outside Pa is hammering together a fish-trap. Laura helps him finish it and then goes with him to the creek. They put the trap under a waterfall to catch fish. There, Pa tells her that Ma used to be a schoolteacher, and he promised Ma that their girls would have a good education.

After catching four large fish, they bring them home, clean them, and then Ma fries them for supper. Since Pa cannot hunt because of the springtime baby animals, they begin to eat fish every day.

On Monday morning, Mary and Laura prepare for school. Ma gives them three books to take with them: a speller, a reader, and a book on arithmetic. The girls walk together to the schoolhouse in town. Laura, anxious about being around other children, blurts out, “You all sounded just like a flock of prairie chickens!” (145).

A boy begins making fun of their short dresses which they’d been outgrowing, calling them “snipes.” However, the boy’s sister makes him stop and introduces herself as Christy Kennedy, also telling them the names of the other children, including the fair-haired Nellie Oleson who is in nice clothing and calls Mary and Laura “country girls” with disdain.

The teacher, Eva Beadle, shows the girls the classroom and has them show her what they already know about reading and spelling. The teacher tells them they’ll need a slate and loans them hers for the day. Laura and Mary behave themselves and study at their bench. Laura makes fast progress and can read the whole first row in the speller by the end of the day.

The next morning, Pa gives the girls money to buy a slate. Once they reach town, they go into Mr. Oleson’s store, where Nellie and Willie Oleson enter and begin mocking Mary and Laura for being poor. Although they get a slate, they find they also need a slate pencil, and use one of their Christmas pennies to buy a pencil the next morning.

Laura begins to like school more and more, even recess, during which Nellie Oleson forces them to always play ring-around-a-rosy. One day Laura suggests they play a different game and Nellie pulls her hair. The girls begin playing Laura’s game and Nellie storms off in anger. The next week, Nellie asks all the girls to come to a party at her house that weekend.