Chuckie Cottontail
"Bandit!" Laura poked her head out the front door of Cottage Ingalls early one morning. "BANDIT!"
Bandit did not come running up, leaping on Laura and licking her nose, so Laura, wrinkling her face, retreated inside.
Since Caroline had just given birth to Grace Ingalls, Mary was doing the cooking. And Laura wanted to palm off her breakfast to Bandit, and now, because of his lack of presence, she could not.
Charles and Carrie had lesser problems with eating Mary's palatable, if not delectable dishes. With Mary filling in for Mrs Simms, Laura took Carrie along with Mary to school.
After a day of lessons – interspaced with a lunch for Laura prepared by Mary, Laura returned home.
"Bandit!" Laura bellowed after doing her afternoon chores. "Where art thou?"
"Where art thou?" Mary asked.
"We're doing Ye Olde English in school.'
"No we're not."
"Yes we are!"
"No we're not. I should know, I'm the teacher."
"Darn it!" Laura conceded, throwing down a metaphorical towel.
"BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Charles Ingalls put his two cents in.
Mary rolled her eyes and continued inside, intended on grading papers and preparing lessons in a teacherly fashion.
"Come hither thou mangy mutt!" Laura commanded. Bandit did not comply.
"Pa, have you seen Bandit?" Laura asked.
"No, I can't say I have, Half- Pint. At least, I can't say I have today, because I saw him yesterday. And I'm pretty sure I saw him the day before that. And the day before that. There would be some days I didn't see him, I'm sure, but I can't recollect the occasions off hand." Charles started to count his fingers to calculate days when he didn't see Bandit.
"Err, thanks Pa." Laura said. "I'm sure I'll find him."
But Laura searched all afternoon, all around the Ingalls farm, with no success.
And so, Laura, cloaked in a dirty dress and muddy boots, trudged to the front door of the Ingalls home.
"Don't dirty the floor!" Mary told her, in a voice that sounded like a screech to Laura.
"Alright little Miss Bossy Teacher!" Laura responded, but trudged off to the creek to wash her boots and returned to ask Mary for a change of clothes, then went into the barn to change.
The next day, a similar tale occurred. Charles, upon hearing this, was filled with sympathy which Laura plotted to take advantage of.
"Pa?" Laura asked that evening.
"Yes Half-Pint?"
"Err, you know I haven't been able to find Bandit, and I've searched for two afternoons already."
"Ah, he's fine Laura. Probably bumped into a hedgehog. Or a skunk." Charles interrupted. "Hehehehehehe!"
"Err…well, what I wanted to ask you Pa, is whether I can restart the firm of Garvey and Ingalls. I've spoken to Andy, and he'll help me look if you and his Pa agree that we can."
Charles comically froze in the act of raising his coffee cup to his lips.
Mary looked up from scratching notes on the papers.
"Please Pa?" Laura begged.
Charles looked at Mary, begging for her support and guidance, but Mary, disguising a small smile, merely lowered her head again and continued on with her work.
"Pleeease?"
Charles sighed. "Alright." Charles conceded, and Laura leapt out of her chair. "But just look! Don't do anything if you find him stuck up a tree or something."
Mary looked up again, her thoughtful face plainly thinking of the unlikeliness of such an occurrence.
"Sure Pa!" Laura said, embracing her father in joyous gratitude. Charles gingerly returned the embrace, while rolling his eyes up, looking at the fringe of his brown hair.
'This isn't going to end well.' Mary thought to herself.
The next day, the momentous occasion that was the return of the firm of Ingalls and Garvey was met with – not a lot of fanfare. Andy and Laura split up and searched all around the town – and since it was Saturday, they had plenty of time. By mid-afternoon, the two had joined together again, as they had decided to do so when they had exhausted searching the area in close proximity to the town of Walnut Grove, and began to search further afield.
But Andy had to go home to help Jonathon with something…
"PA!" Laura bellowed. "I've found Bandit!"
Charles braced himself for a cheek-wetting barrage of dog slobber.
It never came. "Well, where is he?" Charles asked.
"I saw him over by the thicket near the woods, Pa, but I couldn't get near him!" Laura began dramatically. "Because there was a pack of vicious, howling dogs surrounding him!"
"They must have taken Bandit prisoner!" Charles declared. "He's probably there, wounded and in terrible agony! I must do something!"
Upon this dramatic proclamation, Charles charged inside, with Laura hot on his heels.
Mary, innocently minding her own business, wondered what Charles needed a firearm for, as she asked when she saw her father wrench his rifle off its wall mount.
"Is everything okay, Pa?"
Mary's words seemed to have a calming effect on Charles. He replaced his rifle, while Laura and Mary's eager eyes watched for his next move.
"No…No, there is no immediate danger. Violence is not the answer." Charles climbed the ladder into the loft, muttering to himself.
He sat himself, posed guru style, up on the ladder-less side of the loft.
After minutes of contemplation, Charles leapt up.
"Eureka!" Charles cried, leaping over the banister, landing on the floor below with a terrific thud that sent baby Grace howling with wails of distress.
"What's he got?" Laura asked.
"Search me." Mary replied.
Charles returned in about an hour.
"Gather around!" Charles commanded Laura and Carrie, who eagerly awaited Charles's instructions. Mary continued with her own studies for her upcoming teachers' examination.
Charles, standing in front of – or behind the, depending on your perspective, of the closed front door of Cottage Ingalls, told Laura, Carrie, and by extension Mary of all his plan.
"Do you not see the simplistic genius of my plan?" Charles asked.
"Err, could you run that by us one more time?" Laura said.
"Alright, we all put on these costumes." Charles held up the bundles he was holding. "And then we lure the dogs away from Bandit, and then one of us darts in and rescues him. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Charles told her.
"Hmm, good plan Pa," Laura said, impressed. "But Carrie – she's pretty useless. I want someone with sense backing me up – someone other than you, Pa, of course."
"Yes, I see what you mean." Charles said. "Oh, don't worry Carrie, we still have use for you." Charles assured his second-youngest daughter. "You'll make excellent bait. But who could we use as our competent ally?" Charles wondered.
Six eyes all looked at an innocent, bespectacled face, who had been minding her own business up until then.
Mary became aware of all the looking, grinning, bothering faces staring at her.
When she turned her head, she saw, for the first time, the costumes she was expected to wear, and Mary was filled with a sense of terror.
"I'm not putting those things on!" Mary cried in righteous outrage.
"Mary…" Charles said in a fatherly manner. "Do it for Bandit!"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because that thing is ghastly!"
"Mary…" Charles said, smirking as he gave her a final warning.
"Pa, you know I'd do anything reasonable for you." Mary told him, and returned to her work, clearly showing Charles her opinion of the reasonableness of his plan.
That didn't last long, as Mary found herself unable to continue.
"Pa! Give me back my glasses!" Mary leapt up from her seat, while Charles leapt around, and charged and pranced around the fireplace, repeatedly chanting "I shan't, I shan't, I shan't!"
To avoid the reawakening of Grace, whom an exhausted Caroline had only just managed to settle down, Mary surrendered.
"Fine Pa, I'll help."
Charles smirked victoriously at his middle daughters.
/
"Okay." Charles said, rehashing the plan one last time as he, Mary, Laura and Carrie sheltered behind a gentle swell of dirt overlooking the den of dogs. "Let's go over this one more time."
"I feel so stupid." Said one of his daughters, fingering her attached, elongated, synthetic rabbit's ears. It was Mary, naturally.
"Alright, got it!" Laura said, and with that, herself, Carrie and Charles charged out from their hiding spot.
The dogs soon spotted them, and Carrie, screaming all the way, managed to climb up a tree, but not before Mary was forced to leap out of her hiding place to attempt a rescue.
Charles and Laura continued on, dressed as rabbits too, overshooting the place in the thicket where Bandit lay.
Which left Mary to complete the mission.
She darted into the thickest thicket of all, and hearing whimpers, investigated further. She was almost at the source of sound when she heard a low growling from behind her.
Mary spun on her heels as a large dog, snarling and gnashing, leapt through the air towards her.
It let out a piteous howl as a forked branch's inside of the fork connected with its neck, sending the beast flying in another direction.
Mary turned her head to look for her saviour, expecting Chuckie Cottontail to emerge victoriously.
A stranger walked straight past Mary as if she wasn't there, and bent down next to the dog he had pinned to the ground.
"I'm always hitting the wrong thing." The stranger admitting, shaking his handsome head. "Oh well, there you go fellow." He said, releasing the beast, who whimpered and did not renew his attempt to attack Mary.
The stranger walked on, leaving Mary quite puzzled and grateful.
"Mary? Are you okay?" Laura asked.
"Of course she's okay! Charles Ingalls to the rescue once more!"
"I'm fine. And I think I've found Bandit."
Mary pushed open a dense brush. Charles and his three daughters peered inside.
"Why that corned beef fed Casanova!" Charles said, surveying Bandit and his little Banditos.
