Read Online Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Free Book Online

went back to his place beside Star. He cracked his whip and shouted, “Giddap!” and he drove Star and Bright straight out of the safe barnyard into the big, wide, glittering world outside.
    He shouted, “Haw!” and he shouted, “Gee!”
    and he drove them past the house. He drove them out to the road. They stopped when he shouted “Whoa!”
    Pierre and Louis were excited now. They piled onto the sled, but Almanzo made them slide back.
    He was going to ride, too. He sat in front; Pierre held on to him, and Louis held onto Pierre. Their legs stuck out, and they held them stiffly up above the snow. Almanzo proudly cracked his whip and shouted, “Giddap!”
    Up went Star's tail, up went Bright's tail, up went their heels. The sled bounced into the air, and then everything happened all at once.
    “Baw-aw-aw!” said Star. “Baw-aw-aw-aw!”
    said Bright. Right in Almanzo's face were flying hoofs and swishing tails, and close overhead were galumphing hindquarters. “Whoa!” yelled Almanzo. “Whoa!”
    “Baw-aw!” said Bright. “Baw-aw-aw!” said Star. It was far swifter than sliding downhill.
    Trees and snow and calves' hindlegs were all mixed up. Every time the sled came down Almanzo's teeth crashed together.
    Bright was running faster than Star. They were going off the road. The sled was turning over.
    Almanzo yelled, “Haw! Haw!” He went headlong into deep snow, yelling, “Haw!”
    His open mouth was full of snow. He spit it out, and wallowed, scrambled up.
    Everything was still. The road was empty. The calves were gone, the sled was gone. Pierre and Louis were coming up out of the snow. Louis was swearing in French, but Almanzo paid no atten-tion to him. Pierre sputtered and wiped the snow from his face, and said:
    “Sacre bleu! I think you say you drive your calves. They not run away, eh?”
    Far down the road, almost buried in the deep drifts by the mound of snow over the stone fence, Almanzo saw the calves' red backs.
    “They did not run away,” he said to Pierre.
    “They only ran. There they be.”
    He went down to look at them. Their heads and their backs were above the snow. The yoke was crooked and their necks were askew in the bows.
    Their noses were together and their eyes were large and wondering. They seemed to be asking each other, “What happened?”
    Pierre and Louis helped dig the snow away from them and the sled. Almanzo straightened the yoke and the chain. Then he stood in front of them and said, “Giddap!” while Pierre and Louis pushed them from behind. The calves climbed into the road, and Almanzo headed them toward the barn. They went willingly.
    Almanzo walked beside Star, cracking his whip and shouting, and everything he told them to do, they did. Pierre and Louis walked behind. They would not ride.
    Almanzo put the calves in their stall and gave them each a nubbin of corn. He wiped the yoke carefully and hung it up; he put the whip on its nail, and he wiped the chain and the lynch-pin and put them where Father had left them. Then he told Pierre and Louis that they could sit behind him, and they slid downhill on the sled till chore-time.
    That night Father asked him:
    “You have some trouble this afternoon, son?”
    “No,” Almanzo said. “I just found out I have to break Star and Bright to drive when I ride.”
    So he did that, in the barnyard.

THE TURN OF THE YEAR
    he days were growing longer, but the cold was more intense. Father said:
    “When the days begin to lengthen The cold begins to strengthen.”
    At last the snow softened a little on the south and west slopes. At noon the icicles dripped. Sap was rising in the trees, and it was time to make sugar.
    In the cold mornings just before sunrise, Almanzo and Father set out to the maple grove.
    Father had a big wooden yoke on his shoulders and Almanzo had a little yoke. From the ends of the yokes hung strips of moosewood bark, with large iron hooks on them, and a big wooden bucket swung from each hook.
    In every maple