It's Monday.

Chapter eleven: FRESH WATER TO DRINK

Pa had made the bedstead. He had smoothed the oak slabs till there was not a splinter on them. Then he pegged them firmly together. Four slabs made a box to hold the strawtick. Across the bottom of it Pa stretched a rope, zigzagged from side to side and pulled tight. One end of the bedstead Pa pegged solidly to the wall, in the corner of the house. Only one corner of the bed was not against the wall. At this corner, Pa set up a tall slab. He pegged it to the bedstead. As high up as he could reach, he pegged two strips of oak to the walls and to the tall slab. Then he climbed up on them, and pegged the top of tall slab solidly to a rafter. And on the strips of oak he laid a shelf, above the bed. He told Ma that it was. Ma said that she couldn’t wait see it made up and asked Pa to help her bring in the strawtick. She had filled the strawtick that morning. There was no straw on the High Prairie, so she had filled it with dry, clean, dead grass. It was hot from the sunshine and it had a grassy, sweet smell. Pa helped her bring it into the house and lay it in the bedstead. She tucked the sheets in, and spread her prettiest patchwork quilt over them. At the head of the bed she set up the goose-feather pillows, and spread the pillow-shams against them. On each white pillow-sham two little birds were outlined with red thread. Then Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary stood and looked at the bed. It was a very nice bed. The zigzag rope was softer than the floor to sleep on. The strawtick was plump with the sweet-smelling grass, the quilt lay smooth, and the pretty pillow shams stood up crispy. The shelf was a good place to store things. The whole house had quite an air, with such a bed in it.