Farmer Boy (Little House 3) - Page 25
When Almanzo came back to the sheepfold, six fleeces were waiting, and Father spoke to him sternly.
“Son,” he said, “see to it you keep up with us after this.”
“Yes, Father,” Almanzo answered, hurrying. But he heard Lazy John say:
“He can’t do it. We’ll be through before he is.”
Then Father laughed and said:
“That’s so, John. He can’t keep up with us.”
Almanzo made up his mind that he’d show them. If he hurried fast enough, he could keep up. Before noon he had caught up with Royal, and had to wait while a fleece was tied. So he said:
“You see I can keep up with you!”
“Oh no, you can’t!” said John. “We’ll beat you. We’ll be through before you are. Wait and see.”
Then they all laughed at Almanzo.
They were laughing when they heard the dinner horn. Father and John finished the sheep they were shearing, and went to the house. Royal tied the last fleece and left it, and Almanzo still had to carry
it upstairs. Now he understood what they meant. But he thought:
“I won’t let them beat me.”
He found a short rope and tied it around the neck of a sheep that wasn’t sheared. He led the sheep to the stairs, and then step by step he tugged and boosted her upward. She bleated all the way, but he got her into the loft. He tied her near the fleeces and gave her some hay to keep her quiet. Then he went to dinner.
All that afternoon Lazy John and Royal kept telling him to hurry or they’d beat him. Almanzo answered:
“No, you won’t. I can keep up with you.”
Then they laughed at him.
He snatched up every fleece as soon as Royal tied it, and hurried upstairs and ran down again. They laughed to see him hurrying and they kept saying:
“Oh no, you won’t beat us! We’ll be through first!”
Just before chore-time, Father and John raced to shear the last two sheep. Father beat. Almanzo ran with the fleece, and was back before the last one was ready. Royal tied it, and then he said:
“We’re all through! Almanzo, we beat you! We beat you!” Royal and John burst into a great roar of laughter, and even Father laughed.
Then Almanzo said:
“No, you haven’t beat me. I’ve got a fleece upstairs that you haven’t sheared yet.”
They stopped laughing, surprised. At that very minute the sheep in the loft, hearing all the other sheep let out to pasture, cried, “Baa-aa-aa!” Almanzo shouted: “There’s the fleece! I’ve got it upstairs and you haven’t sheared it! I beat you! I beat you!”
John and Royal looked so funny that he couldn’t stop laughing. Father roared with laughter.
“The joke’s on you, John!” Father shouted. “He laughs best who laughs last!”
Chapter 15
Cold Snap
That was a cold, late spring. The dawns were chilly, and at noon the sunlight was cool. The trees unfolded their leaves slowly; the peas and beans, the carrots and corn, stood waiting for warmth and did not grow. When the rush of spring’s work was over, Almanzo had to go to school again. Only small children went to the spring term of school, and he wished he were old enough to stay home. He didn’t like to sit and study a book when there were so many interesting things to do.
Father hauled the fleeces to the carding-machine in Malone, and brought home the soft, long rolls of wool, combed out straight and fine. Mother didn’t card her own wool any more, since there was a machine that did it on shares. But she dyed it.
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