Almanzo couldn’t help saying again: “It isn’t fair. He can’t fight all five of them.”
“I wouldn’t wonder if you’d be surprised, son,” Father said. “Now you boys get a hustle on; these chores can’t wait all night.”
So Almanzo went to work and did not say any more.
All next morning, while he sat holding up his primer, he could not study. He was dreading what was going to happen to Mr. Corse. When the primer class was called, he could not read the lesson. He had to stay in with the girls at recess, and he wished he could lick Bill Ritchie.
At noon he went out to play, and he saw Mr. Ritchie, Bill’s father, coming down the hill on his loaded bobsled. All the boys stood where they were and watched Mr. Ritchie. He was a big, rough man, with a loud voice and a loud laugh. He was proud of Bill because Bill could thrash school-teachers and break up the school.
Nobody ran to fasten a sled behind Mr. Ritchie’s bobsled, but Bill and the other big boys climbed up on his load of wood. They rode, loudly talking, around the bend of the road and out of sight. The other boys did not play any more; they stood and talked about what would happen.
When Mr. Corse rapped on the window, they went in soberly and soberly sat down.
That afternoon nobody knew the lessons. Mr. Corse called up class after class, and they lined up with their toes on a crack in the floor, but they could not answer his questions. Mr. Corse did not punish anybody. He said:
“We will have the same lesson again tomorrow.”
Everybody knew that Mr. Corse would not be there tomorrow. One of the little girls began to cry, then three or four of them put their heads down on their desks and sobbed. Almanzo had to sit still in his seat and look at his primer.
After a long time Mr. Corse called him to the desk, to see if he could read the lesson now. Almanzo knew every word of it, but there was a lump in his throat that would not let the words out. He stood looking at the page while Mr. Corse waited. Then they heard the big boys coming.
Mr. Corse stood up and put his thin hand gently on Almanzo’s shoulder. He turned him around and said:
“Go to your seat, Almanzo.”
The room was still. Everybody was waiting. The big boys came up the path and clattered into the entry, hooting and jostling one another. The door banged open, and Big Bill Ritchie swaggered in. The other big boys were behind him.
Mr. Corse looked at them and did not say anything. Bill Ritchie laughed in his face, and still he did not speak. The big boys jostled Bill, and he jeered again at Mr. Corse. Then he led them all tramping loudly down the aisle to their seats.
Mr. Corse lifted the lid of his desk and dropped one hand out of sight behind the raised lid. He said:
“Bill Ritchie, come up here.”
Big Bill jumped up and tore off his coat, yelling:
“Come on, boys!” He rushed up the aisle. Almanzo felt sick inside; he didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t help it.
Mr. Corse stepped away from his desk. His hand came from behind the desk lid, and a long, thin, black streak hissed through the air.
It was a blacksnake ox-whip fifteen feet long. Mr. Corse held the short handle, loaded with iron, that could kill an ox. The thin, long lash coiled around Bill’s legs, and Mr. Corse jerked. Bill lurched and almost fell. Quick as black lightening the lash circled and stuck and coiled again, and again Mr. Corse jerked.
“Come up here, Bill Ritchie,” he said, jerking Bill toward him, and backing away.
Bill could not reach him. Faster and faster the lash was hissing and crackling, coiling and jerking, and more and more quickly Mr. Corse backed away, jerking Bill almost off his feet. Up and down they went in the open space in front of the desk. The lash kept coiling and tripping Bill, Mr. Corse kept running backward and striking.
Bill’s trousers were cut through, his shirt was slashed, his arms bleeding from the bite of the lash. It came and went, hissing, too fast to be seen. Bill rushed, and the floor shook when the whiplash jerked him over backward. He got up swearing and tried to reach the teacher’s chair, to throw it. The lash jerked him around. He began to bawl like a calf. He blubbered and begged. The lash kept on hissing, circling, jerking. Bit by bit it jerked Bill to the door. Mr. Corse threw him headlong into the entry and slammed and locked the door. Turning quickly, he said:
“Now, John, come on up.”
John was in the aisle, staring. He whirled around and tried to get away, but Mr. Corse took a quick step, caught him with the whiplash and jerked him forward.
“Oh, please, please, please, Teacher!” John begged. Mr. Corse did not answer. He was panting and sweat trickled down his cheek. The whiplash was coiling and hissing, jerking John to the door. Mr. Corse threw him out and slammed the door, and turned.
The other big boys had got the window open. One, two, three, they jumped out into the deep snow and floundered away.
Mr. Corse coiled the whip neatly and laid it in his desk. He wiped his face with his handkerchief, straightened his collar, and said:
“Royal, will you please close the window?”
Royal tiptoed to the window and shut it. Then Mr. Corse called the arithmetic class. Nobody knew the lesson. All the rest of the afternoon, no one knew a lesson. And there was no recess that afternoon. Everybody had forgotten it.
Almanzo could hardly wait till school was dismissed and he could rush out with the other boys and yell. The big boys were licked! Mr. Corse had licked Bill Ritchie’s gang from Hardscrabble Settlement!
But Almanzo did not know the best part of it till he listened to his father talking to Mr. Corse that night at supper.
“The boys didn’t throw you out, Royal tells me,” Father said.
“No,” said Mr. Corse. “Thanks to your blacksnake whip.”
Almanzo stopped eating. He sat and looked at Father. Father had known, all the time. It was Father’s blacksnake whip that had bested Big Bill Ritchie. Almanzo was sure that Father was the smartest man in the world, as well as the biggest and strongest.
Father was talking. He said that while the big boys were riding on Mr. Ritchie’s bobsled they had told Mr. Ritchie that they were going to thrash the teacher that afternoon. Mr. Ritchie thought it was a good joke. He was so sure the boys would do it that he told everyone in town they had done it, and on his way home he had stopped to tell Father that Bill had thrashed Mr. Corse and broken up the school again.
Almanzo thought how surprised Mr. Ritchie must have been when he got home and saw Bill.
Chapter 5
Birthday
Next morning while Almanzo was eating his oatmeal, Father said this was his birthday. Almanzo had forgotten it. He was nine years old, that cold winter morning.
“There’s something for you in the woodshed,” Father said.
Almanzo wanted to see it right away. But Mother said if he did not eat his breakfast he was sick, and must take medicine. Then he ate as fast as he could, and she said:
“Don’t take such big mouthfuls.”
Mothers always fuss about the way you eat. You can hardly eat any way that pleases them.
But at last breakfast was over and Almanzo got to the woodshed. There was a little calf-yoke! Father had made it of red cedar, so it was strong and yet light. It was Almanzo’s very own, and Father said:
“Yes, son, you are old enough now to break the calves.”
Almanzo did not go to school that day. He did not have to go to school when there were more important things to do. He carried the little yoke to the barn, and Father went with him. Almanzo thought that if he handled the calves perfectly, perhaps Father might let him help with the colts next year.
Star and Bright were in their warm stall in the South Barn. Their little red sides were sleek and silky from all the curryings Almanzo had given them. They crowded against him when he went into the stall, and licked at him with their wet, rough tongues. They thought he had brought them carrots. They did not know he was going to teach them how to behave like big oxen.
Fathe
r showed him how to fit the yoke carefully to their soft necks. He must scrape its inside curves with a bit of broken glass, till the yoke fitted perfectly and the wood was silky-smooth. Then Almanzo let down the bars of the stall, and the wondering calves followed him into the dazzling, cold, snowy barnyard.
Father held up one end of the yoke while Almanzo laid the other end on Bright’s neck. Then Almanzo lifted up the bow under Bright’s throat and pushed its ends through the holes made for them in the yoke. He slipped a wooden bow-pin through one end of the bow, above the yoke, and it held the bow in place.
Bright kept twisting his head and trying to see the strange thing on his neck. But Almanzo had made him so gentle that he stood quietly, and Almanzo gave him a piece of carrot.
Star heard him crunching it and came to get his share. Father pushed him around beside Bright, under the other end of the yoke, and Almanzo pushed the other bow up under his throat and fastened it with its bow-pin. There, already, he had his little yoke of oxen.
Then Father tied a rope around Star’s nubs of horns and Almanzo took the rope. He stood in front of the calves and shouted:
“Giddap!”
Star’s neck stretched out longer and longer. Almanzo pulled, till finally Star stepped forward. Bright snorted and pulled back. The yoke twisted Star’s head around and stopped him, and the two calves stood wondering what it was all about. Father helped Almanzo push them, till they stood properly side by side again. Then he said:
“Well, son, I’ll leave you to figure it out.” And he went into the barn.
Then Almanzo knew that he was really old enough to do important things all by himself.
He stood in the snow and looked at the calves, and they stared innocently at him. He wondered how to teach them what “Giddap!” meant. There wasn’t any way to tell them. But he must find some way to tell them:
“When I say, ‘Giddap!” you must walk straight ahead.”
Almanzo thought awhile, and then he left the calves and went to the cows’ feed-box, and filled his pockets with carrots. He came back and stood as far in front of the calves as he could, holding the rope in his left hand. He put his right hand into the pocket of his barn jumper. Then he shouted, “Giddap!” and he showed Star and Bright a carrot in his hand.
They came eagerly.
“Whoa!” Almanzo shouted when they reached him, and they stopped for the carrot. He gave each of them a piece, and when they had eaten it he backed away again, and putting his hand in his pocket he shouted:
“Giddap!”
It was astonishing how quickly they learned that “Giddap!” meant to start forward, and “Whoa!” meant to stop. They were behaving as well as grown-up oxen when Father came to the barn door and said:
“That’s enough, son.”
Almanzo did not think it was enough, but of course he could not contradict Father.
“Calves will get sullen and stop minding you if you work them too long at first,” Father said. “Besides, it’s dinner-time.”
Almanzo could hardly believe it. The whole morning had gone in a minute.
He took out the bow-pins, let the bows down, and lifted the yoke off the calves’ necks. He put Star and Bright in their warm stall. Then Father showed him how to wipe the bows and yoke with wisps of clean hay, and hang them on their pegs. He must always clean them and keep them dry, or the calves would have sore necks.
In the Horse-Barn he stopped just a minute to look at the colts. He liked Star and Bright, but calves were clumsy and awkward compared with the slender, fine, quick colts. Their nostrils fluttered when they breathed, their ears moved as swiftly as birds. They tossed their heads with a flutter of manes, and daintily pawed with their slender legs and little hoofs, and their eyes were full of spirit.
“I’d like to help break a colt,” Almanzo ventured to say.
“It’s a man’s job, son,” Father said. “One little mistake’ll ruin a fine colt.”
Almanzo did not say any more. He went soberly into the house.
It was strange to be eating all alone with Father and Mother. They ate at the table in the kitchen, because there was no company today. The kitchen was bright with the glitter of snow outside. The floor and the tables were scrubbed bone white with lye and sand. The tin saucepans glittered silver, and the copper pots gleamed gold on the walls, the teakettle hummed, and the geraniums on the window-sill were redder than Mother’s red dress.
Almanzo was very hungry. He ate in silence, busily filling the big emptiness inside him, while Father and Mother talked. When they finished eating, Mother jumped up and began putting the dishes into the dishpan.
“You fill the wood-box, Almanzo,” she said. “And then there’s other things you can do.”
Almanzo opened the woodshed door by the stove. There, right before him, was a new handsled! He could hardly believe it was for him. The calf-yoke was his birthday present. He asked:
“Whose sled is that, Father? Is it—it isn’t for me?”
Mother laughed and Father twinkled his eyes and asked, “Do you know any other nine-year-old that wants it?”
It was a beautiful sled. Father had made it of hickory. It was long and slim and swift-looking; the hickory runners had been soaked and bent into long, clean curves that seemed ready to fly. Almanzo stroked the shiny-smooth wood. It was polished so perfectly that he could not feel even the tops of the wooden pegs that held it together. There was a bar between the runners, for his feet.
“Get along with you!” Mother said, laughing. “Take that sled outdoors where it belongs.”
The cold stood steadily at forty below zero, but the sun was shining, and all afternoon Almanzo played with his sled. Of course it would not slide in the soft, deep snow, but in the road the bobsled’s runners had made two sleek, hard tracks. At the top of the hill, Almanzo started the sled and flung himself on it, and away he went.
Only the track was curving and narrow, so sooner or later he spilled into the drifts. End over end went the flying sled, and headlong went Almanzo. But he floundered out, and climbed the hill again.
Several times he went into the house for apples and doughnuts and cookies. Downstairs was still warm and empty. Upstairs there was the thud-thud of Mother’s loom and the clickety-clack of the flying shuttle. Almanzo opened the woodshed door and heard the slithery, soft sound of a shaving-knife, and the flap of a turned shingle.
He climbed the stairs to Father’s attic workroom. His snowy mittens hung by their string around his neck; in his right hand he held a doughnut, and in his left hand two cookies. He took a bite of doughnut and then a bite of cookie.
Father sat astraddle on the end of the shaving-bench, by the window. The bench slanted upward toward him, and at the top of the slant two pegs stood up. At his right hand was a pile of rough shingles which he had split with his ax from short lengths of oak logs.
He picked up a shingle, laid its end against the pegs, and then drew the shaving-knife up its side.
One stroke smoothed it, another stroke shaved the upper end thinner than the lower end. Father flipped the shingle over. Two strokes on that side, and it was done. Father laid it on the pile of finished shingles, and set another rough one against the pegs.
His hands moved smoothly and quickly. They did not stop even when he looked up and twinkled at Almanzo.
“Be you having a good time, son?” he asked.
“Father, can I do that?” said Almanzo.
Father slid back on the bench to make room in front of him.
Almanzo straddled it, and crammed the rest of the doughnut into his mouth. He took the handles of the long knife in his hands and shaved carefully up the shingle. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. So Father put his big hands over Almanzo’s, and together they shaved the shingle smooth.
Then Almanzo turned it over, and they shaved the other side. That was all he wanted to do. He got off the bench and went in to see Mother.
Her hands were flying and her right foot was tapping on the treadle of the
loom. Back and forth the shuttle flew from her right hand to her left and back again, between the even threads of warp, and swiftly the threads of warp crisscrossed each other, catching fast the thread that the shuttle left behind it.
Thud! said the treadle. Clackety-clack! said the shuttle. Thump! said the hand-bar, and back flew the shuttle.
Mother’s workroom was large and bright, and warm from the heating-stove’s chimney. Mother’s little rocking-chair was by one window, and beside it a basket of carpet-rags, torn for sewing. In a corner stood the idle spinning-wheel. All along one wall were shelves full of hanks of red and brown and blue and yellow yarn, which Mother had dyed last summer.
But the cloth on the loom was sheep’s-gray. Mother was weaving undyed wool from a white sheep and wool from a black sheep, twisted together.
“What’s that for?” said Almanzo.
“Don’t point, Almanzo,” Mother said. “That’s not good manners.” She spoke loudly, above the noise of the loom.
“Who is it for?” asked Almanzo, not pointing this time.
“Royal. It’s his Academy suit,” said Mother.
Royal was going to the Academy in Malone next winter, and Mother was weaving the cloth for his new suit.
So everything was snug and comfortable in the house, and Almanzo went downstairs and took two more doughnuts from the doughnut-jar, and then he played outdoors again with his sled.
Too soon the shadows slanted down the eastward slopes, and he had to put his sled away and help water the stock, for it was chore-time.
The well was quite a long way from the barns. A little house stood over the pump, and the water ran down a trough through the wall and into the big watering-trough outside. The troughs were coated with ice, and the pump handle was so cold that it burned like fire if you touched it with a bare finger.
Boys sometimes dared other boys to lick a pump handle in cold weather. Almanzo knew better than to take the dare. Your tongue would freeze to the iron, and you must either starve to death or pull away and leave part of your tongue there.