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Chapter 9

Breaking the Calves

Al the icehouse that he had no ti he said:

“Father, I can’t go to school today, can I? If I don’t work those calves, they will forget how to act”

Father tugged his beard and twinkled his eyes “Seeet his lesson, too,” he said

Alht a minute and said:

“Well, I have had er than I be”

Father looked solemn, but his beard had a smile under it, and Mother exclaimed:

“Oh, let the boy stay home if he wants! It won’t hurt hiht, the calves do need breaking”

So Almanzo went to the barn and called the little calves out into the frosty air He fitted the little yoke over their necks and he held up the bows and put the bow-pins in, and tied a rope around Star’s small nubs of horns He did this all by himself

All thathe backed, little by little, around the barnyard, shouting, “Giddap!” and then, “Whoa!” Star and Bright caerly when he yelled, “Giddap!” and they stopped when he said, “Whoa!” and licked up the pieces of carrot from his woolly mittens

Now and then he ate a piece of raw carrot, himself The outside part is best It co, and it is sweet The inside part is juicier, and clear like yellow ice, but it has a thin, sharp taste

At noon, Father said the calves had been worked enough for one day, and that afternoon he would show Almanzo how to make a whip

They went into the woods, and Father cut sohs Almanzo carried them up to Father’s workroom over the woodshed, and Father showed him how to peel off the bark in strips, and then how to braid a whiplash First he tied the ends of five strips together, and then he braided them in a round, solid braid

All that afternoon he sat beside Father’s bench Father shaved shingles and Almanzo carefully braided his whip, just as Father braided the big blacksnake whips of leather While he turned and twisted the strips, the thin outer bark fell off in flakes, leaving the soft, white, inside bark The ould have been white, except that Ales