Read Online Man of the Family by Ralph Moody - Free Book Online

the ladies were at home, and they all paid me. It was up on the hill that things started going wrong. At three of the houses there wasn’t anybody at home. And at two others the ladies took the things I had written down for them, but told me to come back some other time for the money. Then two others had changed their minds and only wanted part of the stuff they’d ordered.
    It was after dark before we stopped going back to the houses where the people were away, and Philip had got so hungry he had to eat a couple of doughnuts. We did stop at quite a few houses where I hadn’t tried to take orders, though, and sold most of the leftovers. Then, on our way down to Shellabarger’s, we met Sheriff McGrath. He wanted to know what we were doing and where we got the wagon. After I’d told him, I gave him one of the doughnuts we had left over. He liked it, and bought a dozen and a loaf of brown bread, but he couldn’t take any beans because he didn’t have anything to carry them in.
    Mr. Shellabarger was a nice man. He was big and fat, with a red face and a white mustache. After he’d marked the bills “Paid,” he looked at me over the tops of his glasses, and said, “You gotta dog at home? . . . I give you some scraps.” Then he went into his meat box and brought me out a package about as big as my head. I told him, “Thank you,” and I held onto Philip’s hand tight. I was afraid he might say something about the grocery man in Fort Logan giving us candy when we paid our bill.
    We had three or four quarts of beans and three loaves of brown bread left over, besides an apple pie and a few doughnuts. I asked Mr. Shellabarger if he could let me have an empty two-pound lard pail and a piece of brown paper. As soon as we were out to the wagon I filled the pail with beans, and wrapped a loaf of brown bread in the paper. It was about seven o’clock and I knew Mr. Langworthy would just be closing the blacksmith shop, so I took them by and told him Mother had sent them for his wife. Of course, she hadn’t, but it wasn’t really a lie, because she would have if she’d been in my place—and had known what he said about Father.
    After I’d paid Mr. Shellabarger’s bill, there had been only two dollars and fifteen cents left. I hated to go home and tell Mother. She didn’t feel bad about it, though. We were all standing by the kitchen table, where I had poured out the money that was left. Mother stooped down and put her arms around the whole five of us, the way a hen puts her wings around her chickens when it starts to rain. “Don’t you see,” she said; “we have had all our own groceries for the week . . . and it’s all paid for . . . and we have money left over. Think how proud Father must be of us.”
    Then Mother opened the “scraps” Mr. Shellabarger had given me for King. It was all chunks of good red beef—about as big as eggs. When she pulled the paper back, she said, “Why! Ralph, you’ve picked up someone else’s package.”
    â€œNo,” I told her, “I didn’t. He put it right in my hands and I put it right in the wagon.”
    â€œBut it’s all good clear meat,” Mother said. “He didn’t intend it for King at all. . . . Oh, everybody is so good to us.”
    The next week we all worked in the garden—except Grace and Mother—and Mother told us what to do. “We must plant mostly things we can keep for winter, such as carrots, beets, and turnips,” she told us. “I saved some Kentucky Wonder bean seeds. We’ll plant lots of those—and tomatoes—for canning. Father didn’t think this land would be good for potatoes, so we’ll put in lots of carrots and three or four rows of corn.”
    Saturday morning, Mother came out to show us how to mix radish and turnip seeds with sand and spread them