“’Ma-a-a-nzo!”
She had seen him. That night she told Father. Almanzo said he hadn’t done a thing, honest he hadn’t, but Father said:
“Let me catch you fooling with that colt again and I’ll tan your jacket. That’s too good a colt to be spoiled. I won’t have you teaching it tricks that I’ll have to train out of it.”
The summer days were long and hot now, and Mother said this was good growing weather. But Almanzo felt that everything was growing but him. Day after day went by, and nothing seemed to change. Almanzo weeded and hoed the garden, he helped mend the stone fences, he chopped wood and did the chores. In the hot afternoons when there wasn’t much to do, he went swimming.
Sometimes he woke in the morning and heard rain drumming on the roof. That meant he and Father might go fishing.
He didn’t dare speak to Father about fishing, because it was wrong to waste time in idleness. Even on rainy days there was plenty to do. Father might mend harness, or sharpen tools, or shave shingles. Silently Almanzo ate breakfast, knowing that Father was struggling against temptation. He was afraid Father’s conscience would win.
“Well, what are you going to do today?” Mother would ask. Father might answer, slowly:
“I did lay out to cultivate the carrots and mend fence.”
“You can’t do that, in this rain.”
“No,” father would say. After breakfast he would stand looking at the falling rain, till at last he would say:
“Well! It’s too wet to work outdoors. What say we go fishing, Almanzo?”
Then Almanzo ran to get the hoe and the bait-can, and he dug worms for bait. The rain drummed on his old straw hat, it ran down his arms and back, and the mud squeezed cool between his toes. He was already sopping wet when he and Father took their rods and went down across the pasture to Trout River.
Nothing ever smelled so good as the rain on clover. Nothing ever felt so good as raindrops on Almanzo’s face, and the wet grass swishing around his legs. Nothing ever sounded so pleasant as the drops pattering on the bushes along Trout River, and the rush of the water over the rocks.
They stole quietly along the bank, not making a sound, and they dropped their hooks into the pool. Father stood under a hemlock tree, and Almanzo sat under a tent of cedar boughs, and watched the raindrops dimpling the water.
Suddenly he saw a silver flash in the air. Father had hooked a trout! It slithered and gleamed through the falling rain as Father flipped it to the grassy bank. Almanzo jumped up, and remembered just in time not to shout.
Then he felt a tug at his line, the tip of his rod bent almost to the water, and he jerked it upward with all his might. A shimmering big fish came up on the end of his line! It struggled and slipped in his hands, but he got it off the hook—a beautiful speckled trout, even larger than Father’s. He held it up for Father to see. Then he baited his hook and flung out his line again.
Fish always bite well when raindrops are falling on the river. Father got another one, then Almanzo got two; then Father pulled out two more, and Almanzo got another one even bigger than the first. In no time at all they had two strings of good trout. Father admired Almanzo’s, and Almanzo admired Father’s, and they tramped home through the clover in the rain.
They were so wet they couldn’t be wetter, and their skins were glowing warm. Out in the rain, by the chopping-block at the woodpile, they cut off the heads of the fish and they scraped off the silvery scales, and they cut the fish open and stripped out their insides. The big milk-pan was full of trout, and Mother dipped them in cornmeal and fried them for dinner.
“Now this afternoon, Almanzo can help me churn,” said Mother.
The cows were giving so much milk that churning must be done twice a week. Mother and the girls were tired of churning, and on rainy days Almanzo had to do it.
In the whitewashed cellar the big wooden barrel churn stood on its wooden legs, half full of cream. Almanzo turned the handle, and the churn rocked. Inside it the cream went chug! splash, chug! splash. Almanzo had to keep rocking the churn till the chugging broke the cream into grains of butter swimming in buttermilk.
Then Almanzo drank a mug of acid-creamy buttermilk and ate cookies, while Mother skimmed out the grainy butter and washed it in the round wooden butter-bowl. She washed every bit of buttermilk out of it, then she salted it, and packed the firm golden butter in her butter-tubs.
Fishing wasn’t the only summer fun. Some July evening Father would say:
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Tomorrow we’ll go berrying.”
Almanzo didn’t say anything, but inside he was all one joyful yell.
Before dawn next day they were all riding away in the lumber-wagon, wearing their oldest clothes and taking pails and bushel baskets and a big picnic lunch. They drove far into the mountains near Lake Chateaugay, where the wild huckleberries and blueberries grew.
The woods were full of other wagons, and other families berrying. They laughed and sang, and all among the trees you could hear their talking. Every year they all met friends here, that they didn’t see at any other time. But all of them were busily picking berries; they talked while they worked.
The leafy low bushes covered the ground in open spaces among the trees. Blue-black berries clustered thickly under the leaves, and there was a syrupy smell in the hot, still sunshine.
Birds had come to feast in the berry-patches; the air was aflutter with wings, and angry blue jays flew scolding at the heads of the pickers. Once two blue jays attacked Alice’s sunbonnet, and Almanzo had to beat them off. And once he was picking by himself, and behind a cedar tree he met a black bear.
The bear was standing on his hind legs, stuffing berries into his mouth with both furry paws. Almanzo stood stock still, and so did the bear. Almanzo stared, and the bear stared back at him with little, scared eyes above his motionless paws. Then the bear dropped on all fours and ran waddling away into the woods.
At noon the picnic baskets were opened by a spring, and all around in the cool shade people ate and talked. Then they drank at the spring and went back to the berry-patches.
Early in the afternoon the bushel baskets and all the pails were full, and Father drove home. They were all a little sleepy, soaked in sunshine and breathing the fruity smell of berries.
For days Mother and the girls made jellies and jams and preserves, and for every meal there was huckleberry pie or blueberry pudding.
Then one evening at supper Father said:
“It’s time Mother and I had a vacation. We’re thinking of spending a week at Uncle Andrew’s. Can you children take care of things and behave yourselves while we’re gone?”
“I’m sure Eliza Jane and Royal can look after the place for a week,” Mother said, “with Alice and Almanzo to help them.”
Almanzo looked at Alice, and then they both looked at Eliza Jane. Then they all looked at Father and said:
“Yes, Father.”
Chapter 18
Keeping House
Uncle Andrew lived ten miles away. For a week Father and Mother were getting ready to go, and all the time they were thinking of things that must be done while they were away.
Even when Mother was climbing into the buggy, she was talking.
“Be sure to gather the eggs every night,” she said, “and I depend on you, Eliza Jane, to take care of the churning. Don’t salt the butter too much, pack it in the small tub and be sure you cover it. Remember not to pick the beans and peas I’m saving for seed. Now you all be good while we’re gone—”
She was tucking her hoops down between the seat and the dashboard. Father spread the lap robe.
“—and mind, Eliza Jane. Be careful of fires; don’t you leave the house while there’s fire in the cookstove, and don’t get to scuffling with lighted candles, whatever you do, and—”
Father tightened the reins and the horses started.
“—don’t eat all the sugar!” Mother called back.
The buggy turned in
to the road. The horses began to trot, rapidly taking Father and Mother away. In a little while the sound of the buggy wheels ceased. Father and Mother were gone.
Nobody said anything. Even Eliza Jane looked a little scared. The house and the barns and the fields seemed very big and empty. For a whole week Father and Mother would be ten miles away.
Suddenly Almanzo threw his hat into the air and yelled. Alice hugged herself and cried:
“What’ll we do first?”
They could do anything they liked. There was nobody to stop them.
“We’ll do the dishes and make the beds,” Eliza Jane said, bossy.
“Let’s make ice-cream!” Royal shouted.
Eliza Jane loved ice-cream. She hesitated, and said, “Well—”
Almanzo ran after Royal to the ice-house. They dug a block of ice out of the sawdust and put it in a grain sack. They laid the sack on the back porch and pounded it with hatchets till the ice was crushed. Alice came out to watch them while she whipped egg-whites on a platter. She beat them with a fork, till they were too stiff to slip when she tilted the platter.
Eliza Jane measured milk and cream, and dipped up sugar from the barrel in the pantry. It was not common maple sugar, but white sugar bought from the store. Mother used it only when company came. Eliza Jane dipped six cupfuls, then she smoothed the sugar that was left, and you would hardly have missed any.
She made a big milk-pail full of yellow custard. They set the pail in a tub and packed the snowy crushed ice around it, with salt, and they covered it all with a blanket. Every few minutes they took off the blanket and uncovered the pail, and stirred the freezing ice-cream.
When it was frozen, Alice brought saucers and spoons, and Almanzo brought out a cake and the butcher knife. He cut enormous pieces of cake, while Eliza Jane heaped the saucers. They could eat all the ice-cream and cake they wanted to; no one would stop them.
At noon they had eaten the whole cake, and almost all the ice-cream. Eliza Jane said it was time to get dinner, but the others didn’t want any dinner. Almanzo said:
“All I want is a watermelon.”
Alice jumped up. “Goody! Let’s go get one!”
“Alice!” Eliza Jane cried. “You come right back here and do the breakfast dishes!”
“I will,” Alice called out, “when I come back.”
Alice and Almanzo went into the hot melon field, where the melons lay round above their wilting flat leaves. Almanzo snapped his finger against the green rinds, and listened. When a melon sounded ripe, it was ripe, and when it sounded green, it was green. But when Almanzo said a melon sounded ripe, Alice thought it sounded green. There wasn’t really any way to know, though Almanzo was sure he knew more about melons than any girl. So in the end they picked six of the biggest melons, and they lugged them one by one to the ice-house and put them on the damp, cold sawdust.
Then Alice went to the house to do the dishes. Almanzo said he wasn’t going to do anything; maybe he’d go swimming. But as soon as Alice was out of sight, he skipped through the barns and stole into the pasture where the colts were.
The pasture was big and the sun was very hot. The air shimmered and wavered with heat, and little insects made a shrill sound. Bess and Beauty were lying down in the shade of a tree, and their little colts stood near them, waggling their small bushy tails and straddling a little on their long, gangling legs. The yearlings and the two-year-olds and the three-year-olds were grazing. All of them lifted their heads and stared at Almanzo.
He went slowly toward them, holding out his hand. There wasn’t anything in his hand, but they didn’t know that. He didn’t mean to do anything, he only wanted to get near enough to pet them. Starlight and the other little colt ran wabbling to their mothers, and Bess and Beauty lifted up their heads and looked, then laid them down again. The big colts all pricked up their ears.
One big colt stepped toward Almanzo, then another. The six big colts were all coming. Almanzo wished he had brought carrots for them. They were so beautiful and free and big, tossing their manes and showing the whites of their eyes. The sunshine glistened on their strong, arched necks and on the muscles of their chests. Suddenly one of them said:
“Whoosh!”
One of them kicked, one of them squealed, and all at once their heads went up, their tails went up, and their hoofs thundered on the ground. All their brown haunches and high black tails were turned to Almanzo. Like a thundering whirlwind those six colts went around the tree, and Almanzo heard them behind him.
He whirled around. He saw their pounding hoofs and big chests coming straight at him. They were running too fast to stop. There wasn’t time to get out of the way. Almanzo’s eyes shut; he yelled:
“Whoa!”
The air and the ground shook. His eyes opened. He saw brown knees rising up in the air, a round belly and hind legs rushed overhead. Brown sides went by him like thunder. His hat flew off. He felt stunned. One of the three-year-olds had jumped over him. The colts were thundering down across the pasture, and Almanzo saw Royal coming.
“Leave those colts be!” Royal shouted. He came up and said that for a cent he’d give Almanzo a licking he’d remember.
“You know better than to fool with those colts,” Royal said. He took Almanzo by the ear. Almanzo trotted, but his ear was pulled all the way to the barns. He said he hadn’t done anything; Royal wouldn’t listen.
“Let me catch you in that pasture again and I’ll whale the hide off you,” Royal said. “I’ll tell Father, too.”
Almanzo went away, rubbing his ear. He went down to Trout River and swam in the swimming-hole till he felt better. But he thought it wasn’t fair that he was the youngest in the family.
That afternoon the melons were cold, and Almanzo carried them to the grass under the balsam tree in the yard. Royal stuck the butcher knife into the dewy green rinds, and every melon was so ripe that the rinds cracked open.
Almanzo and Alice and Eliza Jane and Royal bit deep into the juicy, cold slices, and they ate till they could eat no more. Almanzo pinched the sleek black seeds, popping them at Eliza Jane until she made him quit. Then he slowly ate the last slice of melon, and he said:
“I’m going to fetch Lucy to eat up the rinds.”
“You will not do any such thing!” Eliza Jane said. “The idea! A dirty old pig in the front yard!”
“She is not, either, a dirty old pig!” said Almanzo. “Lucy’s a little, young, clean pig, and pigs are the cleanest animals there are! You just ought to see the way Lucy keeps her bed clean, and turns it and airs it and makes it up every day. Horses won’t do that, nor cows, nor sheep, nor anything. Pigs—”
“I guess I know that! I guess I know as much about pigs as you do!” Eliza Jane said.
“Then don’t you call Lucy dirty! She’s just as clean as you be!”
“Well, Mother told you to obey me,” Eliza Jane answered. “And I’m not going to waste melon rinds on any pig! I’m going to make watermelon-rind preserves.”
“I guess they’re as much my rinds as they are yours,” Almanzo began, but Royal got up and said:
“Come along, ’Manzo. It’s chore-time.”
Almanzo said no more, but when the chores were done he let Lucy out of her pen. The little pig was as white as a lamb, and she liked Almanzo; her little curled tail quirked whenever she saw him. She followed him to the house, grunting happily, and she squealed for him at the door till Eliza Jane said she couldn’t hear herself think.
After supper Almanzo took a plate of scraps and fed them to Lucy. He sat on the back steps and scratched her prickly back. Pigs enjoy that. In the kitchen Eliza Jane and Royal were arguing about candy. Royal wanted some, but Eliza Jane said that candy-pulls were only for winter evenings. Royal said he didn’t see why candy wouldn’t be just as good in the summer. Almanzo thought so, too, and he went in and sided with Royal.
Alice said she knew how to make candy. Eliza Jane wouldn’t do it, but Alice mixed sugar and molasses and water, and boiled th
em; then she poured the candy on buttered platters and set it on the porch to cool. They rolled up their sleeves and buttered their hands, ready to pull it, and Eliza Jane buttered her hands, too.
All the time, Lucy was squealing for Almanzo. He went out to see if the candy was cool enough, and he thought his little pig should have some. The candy was cool. No one was watching, so he took a big wad of the soft, brown candy and dropped it over the edge of the porch into Lucy’s wide-open mouth.
Then they all pulled candy. They pulled it into long strands, and doubled the strands, and pulled again. Every time they doubled it, they took a bite.
It was very sticky. It stuck to their teeth and their fingers and their faces, somehow it got in their hair and stuck there. It should have become hard and brittle, but it didn’t. They pulled and they pulled; still it was soft and sticky. Long past bedtime, they gave it up and went to bed.
Next morning when Almanzo started to do chores, Lucy was standing in the yard. Her tail hung limp and her head hung down. She did not squeal when she saw him. She shook her head sadly and wrinkled her nose.
Where her white teeth should have been, there was a smooth, brown streak.
Lucy’s teeth were stuck together with candy! She could not eat, she could not drink, she could not even squeal. She could not grunt. But when she saw Almanzo coming, she ran.
Almanzo yelled for Royal. They chased Lucy all around the house, under the snowball bushes and the lilacs. They chased her all over the garden. Lucy whirled and dodged and ducked and ran like anything. All the time she didn’t make a sound; she couldn’t. Her mouth was full of candy.
She ran between Royal’s legs and upset him. Almanzo almost grabbed her, and went sprawling on his nose. She tore through the peas, and squashed the ripe tomatoes, and uprooted the green round cabbages. Eliza Jane kept telling Royal and Almanzo to catch her. Alice ran after her.
At last they cornered her. She dashed around Alice’s skirts. Almanzo fell on her and grabbed. She kicked, and tore a long hole down the front of his blouse.