Pierre and Louis screamed and kept screaming. Almanzo couldn’t get up. The log was on top of him. Father and John lifted it, and Almanzo crawled out. He managed to get up on his feet.
“Hurt, son?” Father asked him.
Almanzo was afraid he was going to be sick at his stomach. He managed to say, “No, Father.”
Father felt his shoulders and arms.
“Well, well, no bones broken!” Father said cheerfully.
“Lucky the snow’s deep,” said John. “Or he might have been hurt bad.”
“Accidents will happen, son,” Father said. “Take more care next time. Men must look out for themselves in the timber.”
Almanzo wanted to lie down. His head hurt and his stomach hurt and his right foot hurt dreadfully. But he helped Pierre and Louis straighten the log, and he did not try to hurry this time. They got the log on the sled all right, but not before Father was gone with his load.
Almanzo decided not to load any more logs now. He climbed onto the load and cracked his whip and shouted:
“Giddap!”
Star and Bright pulled, but the sled did not move. Then Star tried to pull, and quit trying. Bright tried, and gave up just as Star tried again. They both stopped, discouraged.
“Giddap! Giddap!” Almanzo kept shouting, cracking his whip.
Star tried again, then Bright, then Star. The sled did not move. Star and Bright stood still, puffing out the breath from their noses. Almanzo felt like crying and swearing. He shouted: “Giddap! Giddap!”
John and Joe stopped sawing, and Joe came over to the sled.
“You’re too heavy loaded,” he said. “You boys get down and walk. And Almanzo, you talk to your team and gentle them along. You’ll make them steers balky if you don’t be careful.”
Almanzo climbed down. He rubbed the yearlings’ throats and scratched around their horns. He lifted the yoke a little and ran his hand under it, and settled it gently in place. All the time he talked to the little steers. Then he stood beside Star and cracked his whip and shouted:
“Giddap!”
Star and Bright pulled together, and the sled moved.
Almanzo trudged all the way home. Pierre and Louis walked in the smooth tracks behind the runners, but Almanzo had to struggle through the soft, deep snow beside Star.
When he reached the woodpile at home, Father said he had done well to get out of the timber.
“Next time, son, you’ll know better than to put on such a heavy load before the road’s broken,” Father said. “You spoil a team if you let them seesaw. They get the idea they can’t pull the load, and they quit trying. After that, they’re no good.”
Almanzo could not eat dinner. He felt sick, and his foot ached. Mother thought perhaps he should stop work, but Almanzo would not let a little accident stop him.
Still, he was slow. Before he reached the timber he met Father coming back with a load. He knew that an empty sled must always give the road to a loaded sled, so he cracked his whip and shouted:
“Gee!”
Star and Bright swerved to the right, and before Almanzo could even yell they were sinking in the deep snow in the ditch. They did not know how to break road like big oxen. They snorted and floundered and plunged, and the sled was sinking under the snow. The little steers tried to turn around; the twisted yoke was almost choking them.
Almanzo struggled in the snow, trying to reach the yearlings’ heads. Father turned and watched, while he went by. Then he faced forward again and drove on toward home.
Almanzo got hold of Star’s head and spoke to him gently. Pierre and Louis had hold of Bright, and the yearlings stopped plunging. Only their heads and their backs showed above the snow. Almanzo swore:
“Gol ding it!”
They had to dig out the steers and the sled. They had no shovel. They had to move all that snow with their hands and feet. There was nothing else they could do.
It took them a long time. But they kicked and pawed all the snow away from in front of the sled and the steers. They tramped it hard and smooth in front of the runners. Almanzo straightened the tongue and the chain and the yoke.