It's Saturday.

Laura asked Pa to get her that little Indian baby. Pa told her to be quiet sternly. The little baby was going by. Its head turned and its eyes kept looking into Laura's eyes. Laura begged that she wanted it. The baby was going farther and farther away, but it did not stop looking back at Laura. Laura said that it wanted to stay with her, and she begged again and again. Pa asked her to be quiet again and told her that the Indian woman wanted to keep her baby. Laura pleaded, and then she began to cry. It was shameful to cry, but she couldn't help it. The little Indian baby was gone. She knew she would never see it any more. Ma said she had never heard of such a thing. Ma told Laura that was shameful, but Laura could not stop crying. Ma asked her why on earth she wanted an Indian baby, of all things. Laura sobbed that its eyes were so black. She could not say what she meant. Ma told her that she didn't want another baby and they had a baby, their own baby. Laura sobbed loudly that she wanted the other one, too. Ma exclaimed no and Pa asked Laura to look at the Indians, and look west, and then look east, and see what she saw. Laura could hardly see at first. Her eyes were full of tears and sobs kept jerking out of her throat. But she obeyed Pa as best she could, and in a moment she was still. As far as she could see to the west and as far as she could see to the east there were Indians. There was no end to that long, long line. Pa said that that was an awful lot of Indians. More and more and more Indians came riding by. Baby Carrie grew tired of looking at Indians and played by herself on the floor. But Laura sat on the doorstep, Pa stood close beside her, and Ma and Mary stood in the doorway. They looked and looked and looked at Indians riding by. It was dinnertime, and no one thought of dinner. Indian ponies were still going by, carrying bundles of skins and tent-poles and dangling baskets and cooking pots. There were a few more women and a few more naked Indian children. Then the very last pony went by. But Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary still stayed in the doorway, looking, till that long line of Indians slowly pulled itself over the western edge of the world. And nothing was left but silence and emptiness. All the world seemed very quiet and lonely. Ma said she didn't feel like doing anything, she was so let down. Pa told her not to do anything but rest. Ma told Pa that he must eat something. Pa said no and he didn't feel hungry. He went soberly to hitch up Pet and Patty, and he began again to break the tough sod with the plow. Laura could not eat anything, either. She sat a long time on the doorstep, looking into the empty west where the Indians had gone. She seemed still to see waving feathers and black eyes and to hear the sound of ponies' feet.