Free Little Britches by Ralph Moody Page B

breathe. "Good gracious!" she said. "I'll wager I don't get more'n half a milking tonight. How a body's going to eke out a living from half milkings, I just don't know. Well, hmmmf, I suppose some allowance has to be made on account of him being city-raised. City-raised young ones ain't been learned to do things when they was young. They don't have the gumption of them that's raised in the country."
    Father reached his hand down and pulled me up back of him on Fanny. As he swung me up, he said, "We better be getting along, Son."
    I knew I was fired and got an ache in my throat. It had been a tough job, and I hadn't done very well, but I had been counting all day on the time Father would let me ride Fanny. I was sure I could manage all right with her, and now that I was fired from my first cowboy job, I was afraid Father would never let me ride her.
    We were pretty near out to the road when Mrs. Corcoran yelled after us, "You be sure you ain't late in the morning—right sharp on seven o'clock." Raspy as her voice was, it sounded good to me.
    Fanny could canter right along with Father and me on her. Sitting way back where I was, I couldn't get a knee hold, so I had to put my fingers under Father's belt. I held as easy as I could, so he wouldn't notice and think I was afraid of falling off. We were about halfway home when he said, "It's a pretty big job for a city-raised fellow; want to take another crack at it, or have you had enough cows?"
    I said, "I could do it all right if I only had Fanny."
    "Well, I guess I could spare her tomorrow," Father said—that was all.
    I don't think Father ever told Mother what Mrs. Corcoran said about city-raised young ones, because they kept right on being friends. When we got home, she let me put my quarter up in the new cupboard, in her Wedgwood sugar bowl. She knew about Father having to come over and help me, so when he came in from feeding the horses, she said, "Charlie, don't you think that is a job for a man, not for a boy of Ralph's age?"
    Father grinned, "They're certainly a breachy lot, but I have an idea he can make out. There's one old heifer up there that I don't think he could handle, but he won't have to ride herd on her."
    I couldn't figure out which one he meant, but I guess Mother knew, because she looked at Father out of the corner of her eye, and said, "Charlie, now you behave."
    Maybe my day's work didn't please Mrs. Corcoran very much, but it made me quite a hero with the other youngsters at home. That quarter was the first money any of us had earned, and it looked as big to them as it did to me. After the supper dishes were done—I didn't have to help with them now I was a working man—Grace got a pad of paper and a pencil. First she asked Father how much a cow would cost, and then she wanted to know how much it would take for a pony and a cart. She put them all down and added them up, then she divided the total by twenty-five cents. When she had the answer, she went for a calendar, but before she could do any more we had to find out if Mother would let me work on Sundays. We knew that would be a ticklish job, but Grace figured out the way to do it.
    She said, "Mother, is it sinful to cook on Sunday?"
    Mother was busy sewing a thick pad into the seat of my new flour-sack underpants. Father had told her about my getting the skin worn off on old Ned. She looked up, and said, "Why no, of course not. God made us so that our bodies need food on Sunday the same as any other day. Since He has just loaned us these bodies for the time we are here on earth, it is our responsibility to take the best care we can of them, so there is nothing sinful about preparing food for ourselves on Sunday. But what put any such question into your mind?"
    "Oh, I was just thinking. Mother, did God lend cows their bodies, too?"
    Mother didn't look up, but said, "Yes, dear."
    "Well, Mother, would it be sinful to feed cows on Sunday?"
    That time Mother did look up. "Why, of course it wouldn't be