This was a two-story schoolhouse, with two teachers. The small children were in the downstairs room, and the older ones upstairs. Laura and Carrie were in the upstairs room. It seemed strangely large and empty, without the small children. Yet almost all the seats were filled with boys and girls whom they did not know. Only a few back seats were empty, and these would be filled when the weather grew too cold for farm work and the big boys came to school. At recess Ida and Laura stood at an upstairs window, looking down at the children playing outdoors, and talking with Mary Power and Minnie Johnson. Ida and 201 Elmer were coming to the singing school Friday night, and so were Minnie and her brother, Arthur, and Mary Power with her new beau, Ed. “I wonder why Nellie Oleson isn't coming to school,” Laura wondered, and Ida said, "Oh, hadn't you heard? She's gone back to New York." “Not really!”
