American Girl

Wisconsin

The cabin sat deep in the woods. There was a little clearing around it and a vegetable garden. Visitors rarely made their way to the small cabin besides rabbit and deer. Town was five miles away. Pa walked there when he had furs to trade. Occasionally, he hitched the horses to the wagon, and they went to town for the day. Ma could purchase fabric to make dresses and curtains. Sometimes, she would buy white sugar. She would bake a cake and make silky white frosting when she did. Otherwise, they used brown sugar made from molasses.

Lena and Darla Scott went to school each day. The one-room schoolhouse stood at the crossroads. About a dozen children attended. Darla, the eldest, sat at a desk near the back of the room. She was friends with the bigger girls. Lena's desk was in the middle row. She shared it with Yvonne Cox. They were best friends.

The schoolmistress sat at the huge desk up front. She kept her back as straight as a rail and her hands folded in front of her. The arithmetic assignments were written on the chalkboard behind her by class. Lena stuck her pencil in the corner of her mouth and studied the board. She didn't see the point in learning arithmetic. History and English captured her attention.

After a while, Lena began kicking at her chair's leg. Her thick brogans made a clunk, clunk sound. Yvonne nudged her and began clunking her boots too. The girls picked up a rhythm and began swaying slightly. Lena tapped her pencil against the desktop. Yvonne beat her palm on the smooth surface.

Miss Dill rapped her ruler on the big desk's edge. The girls ignored her. The new sound blended into the music session. Other than their noise, the schoolroom became eerily silent. Lena bent her head, and her braids flapped around her ears. She grinned at Yvonne.

"Girls!" Miss Dill shouted, grabbing Lena's pencil. The teacher broke it in half and returned it to the startled girl. "You will both remain after school and write 'I will not interrupt my class' one hundred times."

"Aw, Miss Dill," Lena complained loudly. Yvonne shrunk down in her seat.

The teacher made them clean the blackboard before they started writing. It was laborious and repetitive work. By the time she finished, Lena's hand was cramped and covered with white chalk powder. She burst out of the schoolhouse with Yvonne. Darla stood in the path with her hands on her hips.

"Satisfied?" Darla asked.

Lena shrugged. She knew Darla would wait for her. Pa had warned them against walking alone in the woods at dusk. As they walked homeward, the setting sun sparkled through the Wisconsin woods. It looked like a kaleidoscope. She couldn't help gaping at it in wonder. Yvonne walked beside her, their shoes crunching in fallen leaves.

Lena stopped and listened. Beside the path, another set of footsteps shadowed them. She noticed a form moving among the trees. Wild animals lived in the woods like bears and cougars. Gnawing her lower lips, Lena ran to catch up with Darla and Yvonne.

"Darla," Lena said nervously, "there's something following us. It's in the woods."

"You should have thought about that before your concert," Darla remarked, widening her stride.

Lena frowned and lowered her head. She hadn't meant to disrupt the class. Yvonne grasped her hand and squeezed it. She appeared nervous also.

The Cox family lived a mile further into the woods from the Scott house. Darla and Lena would soon turn into their dooryard, but Yvonne had to walk on from there alone. Lena noticed the concerned look on her friend's face.

"If Pa's home, he'll walk you to your house," Lena suggested hopefully.

"Pa might not come home," Darla snapped.