These Happy Golden Years

Hello, hello, welcome to the Wilder on the Prairie podcast.

This is episode 200, chapter one of these happy golden years, Laura Leaves Home.

Only yesterday she was a schoolgirl, now she was a schoolteacher.

This had happened so suddenly.

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'd better be going laura hung her coat and muffler and veil and hood on the 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 may i help you mrs brewster laura asked 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 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 but then when he grows up john is a good name for a man do you call him johnny now laura did not know what to do it was too early to go to bed there was no other paper not a book to look at in the room she thought of going her school books going to the cold dark room she groped in ma's satchel and found her history book by sense of touch taking it into the kitchen she sat down by the light and began to study laura thought mrs brewster doesn't want to board the teacher that is all she'd be as cross as 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 to-morrow when she must begin to teach school Just by looking at the first few chapters in these happy golden years, I think these are going to be short podcast episodes for this book because there is less and less to say because I have said so much over the last 200 episodes.

But I could be wrong.