Laura Ingalls Wilder by The First Four Years

Author:The First Four Years
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-06-02T15:49:23+00:00

T H E FIRST FOUR YEARS

T H E FIRST FOUR YEARS

When the work was done after dinner, Laura would hitch Barnum to the road-cart and with Rose in her pink sunbonnet sitting in the box would drive away wherever she cared to go.

Sometimes she went to town, but more often to see her Ma and the girls.

At first Ma was afraid to have Rose travel that way, but soon she became used to it. Although Barnum was a fast driver, he was as gentle as a kitten, and the cart on its two wheels was light and safe. Rose could not fall out of the box, and Laura was a good driver. She never had a moment's uneasiness with Barnum hitched to the road-cart.

And Manly didn't care how often she went, just so she came home in time to get supper.

With housework, garden work, caring for and driving with Rose, the summer soon passed and it was haying time again. Now Rose sat in the shelter of a windrow of hay and watched while Laura drove Skip on the bull rake.

Laura and Manly both liked to stay out in the sunny hayfield, and leaving Rose asleep with the big dog watching over her, Laura sometimes 81

T H E FIRST FOUR YEARS

drove Skip and Barnum on the mowing machine while Manly raked hay with Fly and Trixy.

T h e r e were no threshers to cook for this fall, for the renters on the tree claim had the threshing done.

T h e yield of grain was not nearly so much as it should have been. T h e season had been too dry.

And the price of wheat was lower—only fifty cents a bushel.

Still there was money enough to pay all the interest and some of the smaller notes, those for the mowing machine and horse rake and for the sulky plow, and the first payment was made on the harvester. T h e r e were still the wagon note and the five hundred dollars due on the house and the eight-hundred-dollar mortgage on the homestead.

Seed must be kept for the next sowing, taxes must be paid, the coal must be bought, and they must live until after the next harvest.

T h e r e would also be the hay again, and this year there were two steers to sell. T h e y were nice large two-year-olds, and they would sell for twelve dollars each; twenty-four dollars would help buy groceries.

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T H E FIRST FOUR YEARS

T h e y hadn't done so badly, considering the season.

T h e twenty-fifth of August had come again, and this winter and summer were the second year.

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