comical figure. At any rate nothing like it had been seen in the
neighborhood and the people on the road to town looking across the
field, laughed and called to me, and neighbor Button said to my father
in my hearing, "That chap's too young to run a plow," a judgment which
pleased and flattered me greatly.

Harriet cheered me by running out occasionally to meet me as I turned
the nearest corner, and sometimes Frank consented to go all the way
around, chatting breathlessly as he trotted along behind. At other times
he was prevailed upon to bring to me a cookie and a glass of milk, a
deed which helped to shorten the forenoon. And yet, notwithstanding all
these ameliorations, plowing became tedious.

The flies were savage, especially in the middle of the day, and the
horses, tortured by their lances, drove badly, twisting and turning in
their despairing rage. Their tails were continually getting over the
lines, and in stopping to kick their tormentors from their bellies they
often got astride the traces, and in other ways made trouble for me.
Only in the early morning or when the sun sank low at night were they
able to move quietly along their ways.

The soil was the kind my father had been seeking, a smooth dark sandy
loam, which made it possible for a lad to do the work of a man. Often
the share would go the entire "round" without striking a root or a
pebble as big as a walnut, the steel running steadily with a crisp
craunching ripping sound which I rather liked to hear. In truth work
would have been quite tolerable had it not been so long drawn out. Ten
hours of it even on a fine day made about twice too many for a boy.

Meanwhile I cheered myself in every imaginable way. I whistled. I sang.
I studied the clouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed
vessels which hung upon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie
chickens as they began to come together in winter flocks running through
the stubble in search of food. I stopped now and again to examine the
lizards unhoused by the share, tormenting them to make them sweat their
milky drops (they were curiously repulsive to me), and I measured the
little granaries of wheat which the mice and gophers had deposited deep
under the ground, storehouses which the plow had violated. My eyes dwelt
enviously upon the sailing hawk, and on the passing of ducks. The
occasional shadowy figure of a prairie wolf made me wish for Uncle David
and his rifle.

On certain