Free Fields of Home by Ralph Moody

he rocked the chair back and forth, he began to tell me about the time the lightning had struck the big barn in the middle of the night and burned it flat to the ground. Uncle Levi was still asleep in the high-backed rocker and, for a few sentences, Grandfather talked above the drone of his snoring. Then his head nodded forward and he was asleep too.
    Millie brought the washbasin, half filled with warm water, salt, and soda. As she set it in front of me, she whispered, “Soak ’em good now. I’m going off to bed. You take the corner chamber, next beyond Levi’s. It’s all ready, and ain’t been slept in since I filled the tick anew last husking time. Lamps is filled and ready there on the mantel. Take care Thomas is awake enough so’s he don’t drop his lamp on the way to bed.”
    Millie slept downstairs in the parlor, and Grandfather had his room in the other front corner of the house, just off the dining room and next to the parlor. When I’d put my hands to soak, she took the lamp from the pantry, went first to Grandfather’s room, and then I heard her moving quietly in the parlor.
    After a few minutes, Grandfather’s head came up a little way, and he began talking about the fire again. He was still more asleep than awake. His voice was soft, and the words came in little gusts, like the sound of a summer breeze blowing through dry grass. “’Twa’n’t long after Frankie . . . Portland . . . learn a trade. Not a critter saved . . . Old Hannibal . . . bellered something awful. Twenty-odd feet shorter’n the big barn.” His head jerked right up straight for a minute. He looked over at me, and said, “One day I and you’ll build the piece back onto it, Ralphie.” He spoke loud enough that he woke Uncle Levi but in another minute they were both snoring again.
    The salt water made my hands sting to beat the band for a little while, and every muscle in my body ached, but I was awfully tired. The next thing I knew, Grandfather was shouting, “Levi! Ralphie!”
    I must have been sleeping there for a couple of hours, with my hands soaking in the pan and my head resting on the edge of the table. When I opened my eyes, the moon had moved around so it was coming in the south window. Grandfather was yawning and rubbing his bald spot. “Gorry sakes alive,” he yawned, “I must have nodded off a minute or two. Come, Levi! It’s time all honest folks was abed.”
    Grandfather was more awake than any of us, so I didn’t worry about his carrying his lamp, but lighted two from the mantel and went upstairs with Uncle Levi. His eyes were still only half open when I picked up my suitcase from beside his bed and went on to the next room.
    I had just crawled into bed when Uncle Levi pushed open the door between our rooms. He had undressed down to his long underwear, and had a little round nightcap on his head. He had his lamp in his hand, and peered at me from under his eyebrows as though he were looking over the top of glasses. “Sleep tight, boy,” he whispered. “Watch out Thomas don’t work the tail off you.” Then he went back into his own room.

8
    New Tricks
    T HE next morning I did the chores just the way I’d done them every morning since I’d been at Grandfather’s. First, I slopped the sow that had the little pigs, fed and watered the hogs in the barn cellar, and curried the bay mare while she ate her corn. Then I tackled the yella colt.
    While I’d been dressing I’d decided that I wouldn’t start to Colorado for another day or, maybe, two. Before I went, I wanted to let Uncle Levi see that I wasn’t quite as useless as Grandfather had told him I was. I couldn’t show him very well with a scythe but, if I could keep the yella colt under control, I could show him with the horses.
    Maybe I was thinking too much about keeping the yella colt under control when I went into his stall that morning, and maybe I was a little too rough with him. He fought me harder than he ever had, and there