It's Thursday.

Ma said that Pa hadn’t get himself a thing. Pa said that he had got himself a plow and warm weather would be here soon now, and he would be plowing. That was the happiest supper they had had for a long time. Pa was safely home again. The fried salt pork was very good, after so many months of eating ducks and geese and turkeys and venison. And nothing had ever tasted so good as those crackers and the little green sour pickles. Pa told them about all the seeds. He had got seeds of turnips and carrots and onions and cabbage. He had got peas and beans. And corn and wheat and tobacco and the seed potatoes. And watermelon seeds. He said to Ma that he told her when they began getting crops off this rich land of theirs, they would be living like kings. They had almost forgotten the noise from the Indian camp. The window shutters were closed now, and the wind was moaning in the chimney and whining around the house. They were so used to the wind that they did not hear it. But when the wind was silent an instant, Laura heard again that wild, shrill, fast-beating sound from the Indian camps. Then Pa said something to Ma that made Laura sit very still and listen carefully. He said that folks in Independence said that the government was going to put the white settlers out of the Indian Territory. He said the Indians had got that answer from Washington. Ma said no, when they had done so much. Pa said he didn’t believe it. He said that they always had let settlers keep the land, and they would make the Indians move on again. He asked if he hadn’t get word straight from Washington that this country was going to be opened for settlement any time now. Ma said that she wished they would settle it and stop taking about it. After Laura was in bed? she lay awake a long time, and so did Mary. Pa and Ma sat in the firelight and candlelight, reading.? Pa had brought a newspaper from Kansas, and he read it to Ma. It proved that he was right, the government would not do anything to the white settlers. Whenever the sound of the wind died away, Laura could faintly hear the noise of that wild jamboree in the Indian camp. Sometimes even above the howling of the wind she thought she still heard those fierce yells of jubilation. Faster, faster, faster they made her heart beat. "Hi! Hi! Hi-yi! Hah! Hi! Hah!"