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Twelve-year-old Laura Ingalls had just gotten Carrie to go to bed (a feat all to itself as her younger sister was skilled at prolonging the process) and came around the corner to find her brother in their Pa’s chair, reading the paper as if he were Pa. A tendril of smoke billowed above the boy’s head and Laura gasped.
“Albert!”
“Yes, child?” her brother replied, lowering the paper to peer over it at her. Their father’s pipe was clutched between his teeth.
“Take that pipe out of your mouth this instant!” Laura demanded.
Albert rolled his eyes and set the paper down. He was done with it anyway. “There’s nothing wrong with a man enjoying his pipe after a hard day,” he said.
“Well you’re not a man and that’s not your pipe!” Laura maintained.
“Pa wouldn’t mind,” Albert returned.
“You want to ask him?” Laura scoffed. She could imagine how well that would go over—Albert would find himself over Pa’s sawhorse out in the barn, his bare bottom turned skyward, ready and waiting for the first of many licks from their father’s worn leather strap.
“I would if he were here,” Albert said confidently.
Laura shook her head. “Well he’s not here, so you put it right back up on the mantle.” The girl pointed to the place in question.
“You’re my sister, not my ma, and you can’t tell me what to do!”
“Alright, go ahead and smoke that pipe, but you better hurry up before Ma comes home or the man of the house is going to get a whuppin’,” Laura said. Albert would just have to learn the hard way, it seemed.
A smug smile spread across the ten year old boy’s face. He had expected Laura to keep pestering him and eventually take the pipe from him. So for her to drop the matter was a big win for the boy. “So, how do I look with a pipe?”
“The same as I’d look,” Laura began, her own smirk forming on her lips. Before she could add ‘silly’, the door opened and Ma stepped into the warm glow of the house.
“Albert Ingalls!” Caroline shouted.
Startled, Albert dropped the pipe. It clattered to the table as the boy spun to face his angry mother. “M-Ma—”
“Just what do you think you’re doing, young man?” Caroline demanded. She was at her son’s side in an instant, yanking him to his feet.
“I wasn’t doing anything Pa wouldn’t do! He said I was the Man of the House while he’s gone so I was just doing like Pa would!” Albert hollered as he wiggled to free himself from his ma’s hold. He was unsuccessful.
Caroline let out a bark of a laugh that was anything but gleeful. “Your Pa meant for you to be responsible and to help out around the house! Playing at being a man wasn’t part of that!” she scolded, marching the pair of them toward the kitchen.
“I’m not playing at being a man! I am a man!” Albert sputtered, stumbling along at his mother’s side.
“ You are a little boy who has stepped into quite a mess. And if you use that tone of voice with me again, you’ll be a little boy with a mouthful of soap.”
Albert’s cheeks grew warm at his mother’s words, but it was nothing compared to the heat that crept up his face as he suddenly found himself staring at the wide-planked floor of the kitchen, tucked under his Ma’s arm. Heat exploded across his bottom and the boy let out a startled gasp.
Caroline snapped her hefty wooden spoon down across the seat of Albert’s trousers in quick succession, earning pained grunts and hisses from the bent-over boy.
“You are lucky your Pa isn’t here to have seen you smoking his pipe, Albert Ingalls. He’d have you bare-bottomed in the barn getting a heavy dose of his strap at this very moment if he were!”
“Ah! Oof! Ma—AH! Ow!” Albert yelped, stomping his feet against the fierce sting. Who knew spoons could pack such a wallop?!
Laura, for her part, could do nothing except stand rooted to her spot and watch the scene unfold before her. She had been just as shocked when Ma came home at that precise moment, catching Albert red-handed. Now the boy was well on his way to red-bottomed. Laura did try to warn him that this would happen. Bet he’s wishing he listened to me now , she thought.
Laura winced at a particularly nasty sounding crack from the spoon. She herself had felt its awful bite more times than she’d care to admit. Albert’s pained cries grew louder and more tearful as the seconds passed.
“Ah, Ma! Sor—Sorry! ‘M sorry! OW!” Albert squealed, tears splattering to the floor beneath his head.
“You should be sorry, Albert Ingalls! I don’t know what has gotten into you, but if you think you can do as you please just because your pa is gone, you are sorely mistaken!” Caroline lectured.
“Ah! Ow! M—Ma, I don’t think that, I—Ow—I swear!”
“Your father will no doubt want to have a discussion out in the barn with you when he gets home and learns of this,” Caroline continued.
“N—No! Don’t tell P-Pa!” Albert cried, his heart jumping to his throat. He’d been with the Ingalls family for some time now and had avoided any trips to the barn so far. Oh, Charles had taken the boy over his knee for a good old-fashioned spankin’ every once in a while, but that was nothing to fret over. All the boys Albert knew were spanked often. It was the lickin’s in the barn you wanted to really avoid.
“I will absolutely tell your father!” Caroline reiterated, her tone firm. “What he chooses to do after that is his decision—though you’d deserve every lick from your father’s strap if that’s what he has a mind to do.”
She finished her impromptu spanking and stood Albert back up, her hands encircling the boy’s biceps as she bent down to be more at his level. “I don’t want to ever see you smoking a pipe again, Albert Ingalls, do you hear me? When you’re grown and actually a man, you can do as you’d like. Until then you are my ten year old son and I expect you to mind me.”
“Yes’m,” Albert sniffed, his big brown eyes shining with tears. He blinked and a few broke free, trailing down his cheek in a slow meander. Caroline wiped them away with the pad of her thumb.
Standing back up to her full height, the mother then pulled her sniffling boy into her arms. Albert latched onto the comfort right away, burying his face in her blouse. When his tears ended, Caroline stepped back from the hug. She then regarded both of her children before her.
“It’s time for you both to get to bed. You have school in the morning,” she said. Her children nodded and, one after the other, they offered her a kiss and said their goodnights. “Goodnight, you two.”
She watched them climb the ladder up into the loft and then sat with a heavy sigh at the seat Albert had been in several minutes ago. Her eyes fell on the pipe on the table and Caroline couldn’t help the smile that broke out across her face.
Man of the house, indeed, she thought.