The green in the east turned pink. Every moment the light brightened. At first the dark had been like a mist over the endless field, now Almanzo could see to the end of the long rows. He tried to work faster.
In an instant the earth turned from black to gray. The sun was coming to kill the corn.
Almanzo ran to fill his pail; he ran back. He ran down the rows, splashing water on the hills of corn. His shoulders ached and his arm ached and there was a pain in his side. The soft earth hung on to his feet. He was terribly hungry. But every splash of water saved a hill of corn.
In the gray light the corn had faint shadows now. All at once pale sunshine came over the field.
“Keep on!” Father shouted. So they all kept on; they didn’t stop.
But in a little while, Father gave up. “No use!” he called. Nothing would save the corn after the sunshine touched it.
Almanzo set down his pail and straightened up against the ache in his back. All the others stood and looked, too, and did not say anything. They had watered almost three acres. A quarter of an acre had not been watered. It was lost.
Almanzo trudged back to the wagon and climbed in. Father said:
“Let’s be thankful we saved most of it.”
They rode sleepily down to the barns. Almanzo was not quite awake yet, and he was tired and cold and hungry. His hands were clumsy, doing the chores. But most of the corn was saved.
Chapter 16
Independence Day
Almanzo was eating breakfast before he remembered that this was the Fourth of July. He felt more cheerful.
It was like Sunday morning. After breakfast he scrubbed his face with soft-soap till it shone, and he parted his wet hair and combed it sleekly down. He put on his sheep’s-gray trousers and his shirt of French calico, and his vest and his short round coat.
Mother had made his new suit in the new style. The coat fastened at the throat with a little flap of cloth, then the two sides slanted back to show his vest, and they rounded off over his trousers’ pockets.
He put on his round straw hat, which Mother had made of braided oat-straws, and he was all dressed up for Independence Day. He felt very fine.
Father’s shining horses were hitched to the shining, red-wheeled buggy, and they all drove away in the cool sunshine. All the country had a holiday air. Nobody was working in the fields, and along the road the people in their Sunday clothes were driving to town.
Father’s swift horses passed them all. They passed by wagons and carts and buggies. They passed gray horses and black horses and dappled-gray horses. Almanzo waved his hat whenever he sailed past anyone he knew, and he would have been perfectly happy if only he had been driving that swift, beautiful team.
At the church sheds in Malone he helped Father unhitch. Mother and the girls and Royal hurried away. But Almanzo would rather help with the horses than do anything else. He couldn’t drive them, but he could tie their halters and buckle on their blankets, and stroke their soft noses and give them hay.
Then he went out with Father and they walked on the crowded sidewalks. All the stores were closed, but ladies and gentlemen were walking up and down and talking. Ruffled little girls carried parasols, and all the boys were dressed up, like Almanzo. Flags were everywhere, and in the Square the band was playing “Yankee Doodle.” The fifes tooted and the flutes shrilled and the drums came in with rub-a-dub-dub.
Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony,
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni!
Even grown-ups had to keep time to it. And there, in the corner of the square, were the two brass cannons!
The Square was not really square. The railroad made it three-cornered. But everybody called it the Square, anyway. It was fenced, and grass grew there. Benches stood in rows on the grass, and people were filing between the benches and sitting down as they did in church.
Almanzo went with Father to one of the best front seats. All the important men stopped to shake hands with Father. The crowd kept coming till all the seats were full, and still there were people outside the fence.
The band stopped playing, and the minister prayed. Then the band tuned up again and everybody rose. Men and boys took off their hats. The band played, and everybody sang.
“Oh, say, can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,