Farmer Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

between the runners, for his feet.
    “Get along with you!” Mother said, laughing.
    “Take that sled outdoors where it belongs.”
    The cold stood steadily at forty below zero, but the sun was shining, and all afternoon Almanzo played with his sled. Of course it would not slide in the soft, deep snow, but in the road the bobsled's runners had made two sleek, hard tracks. At the top of the hill, Almanzo started the sled and flung himself on it, and away he went.
    Only the track was curving and narrow, so sooner or later he spilled into the drifts. End over end went the flying sled, and headlong went Almanzo. But he floundered out, and climbed the hill again.
    Several times he went into the house for apples and doughnuts and cookies. Downstairs was still warm and empty. Upstairs there was the thud-thud of Mother's loom and the clickety-clack of the flying shuttle. Almanzo opened the woodshed door and heard the slithery, soft sound of a shaving-knife, and the flap of a turned shingle.
    He climbed the stairs to Father's attic workroom. His snowy mittens hung by their string around his neck; in his right hand he held a doughnut, and in his left hand two cookies. He took a bite of doughnut and then a bite of cookie.
    Father sat astraddle on the end of the shaving-bench, by the window. The bench slanted upward toward him, and at the top of the slant two pegs stood up. At his right hand was a pile of rough shingles which he had split with his ax from short lengths of oak logs.
    He picked up a shingle, laid its end against the pegs, and then drew the shaving-knife up its side.
    One stroke smoothed it, another stroke shaved the upper end thinner than the lower end. Father flipped the shingle over. Two strokes on that side, and it was done. Father laid it on the pile of finished shingles, and set another rough one against the pegs.
    His hands moved smoothly and quickly. They did not stop even when he looked up and twinkled at Almanzo.
    “Be you having a good time, son?” he asked.
    “Father, can I do that?” said Almanzo.
    Father slid back on the bench to make room in front of him.
    Almanzo straddled, it, and crammed the rest of the doughnut into his mouth. He took the handles of the long knife in his hands and shaved carefully up the shingle. It wasn't as easy as it looked. So Father put his big hands over Almanzo's, and together they shaved the shingle smooth.
    Then Almanzo turned it over, and they shaved the other side. That was all he wanted to do. He got off the bench and went in to see Mother.
    Her hands were flying and her right foot was tapping on the treadle of the loom. Back and forth the shuttle flew from her right hand to her left and back again, between the even threads of warp, and swiftly the threads of warp criss-crossed each other, catching fast the thread that the shuttle left behind it.
    Thud! said the treadle. Clackety-clack! said the shuttle. Thump! said the hand-bar, and back flew the shuttle.
    Mother's workroom was large and bright, and warm from the heating-stove's chimney. Mother's little rocking-chair was by one window, and beside it a basket of carpet-rags, torn for sewing. In a corner stood the idle spinning-wheel. All along one wall were shelves full of hanks of red and brown and blue and yellow yarn, which Mother had dyed last summer.
    But the cloth on the loom was sheep's-gray.
    Mother was weaving undyed wool from a white sheep and wool from a black sheep, twisted together.
    “What's that for?” said Almanzo.
    “Don't point, Almanzo,” Mother said. “That's not good manners.” She spoke loudly, above the noise of the loom.
    “Who is it for?” asked Almanzo, not pointing this time.
    “Royal. It's his Academy suit,” said Mother.
    Royal was going to the Academy in Malone next winter, and Mother was weaving the cloth for his new suit.
    So everything was snug and comfortable in the house, and Almanzo went downstairs and took two more doughnuts from the doughnut-jar, and then he played outdoors