The waist’s collar buttoned snugly up to his chin, and so did his long coat of brown fullcloth. It was light and warm and beautifully red.Īlmanzo’s long brown pants buttoned to his red waist with a row of bright brass buttons, all around his middle. For Almanzo’s waist she had dyed fine wool as red as a cherry, and she had woven a soft, thin cloth. Not wind nor cold nor even a drenching rain could go through the good fullcloth that Mother made. Then Mother had woven it, and she had soaked and shrunk the cloth into heavy, thick fullcloth. Butternut hulls had dyed the thread for his coat and his long trousers.

His underwear was creamy white, but Mother had dyed the wool for his outside clothes. They were all made from the wool of his father’s sheep. The cold nipped Almanzo’s eyelids and numbed his nose, but inside his good woolen clothes he was warm. The road went down a long slope, then it crossed a little bridge and went on for a mile through the frozen woods to the schoolhouse. On each side the soft snow was piled high. She always knew what was best to do, and she made Almanzo and Alice do it.Īlmanzo hurried behind Royal, and Alice hurried behind Eliza Jane, in the deep paths made by bobsled runners. It’s your turn to carry it now, because you’re the littlest.” Eliza Jane was bossy.

“He’s bigger than I be.” Royal strode ahead, big and manly in boots, and Eliza Jane said: “No, ‘Manzo. He had to walk fast to keep up with the others, and he had to carry the dinner-pail. Almanzo was the youngest of all, and this was his first going-to-school, because he was not quite nine years old. Royal was thirteen years old, Eliza Jane was twelve, and Alice was ten. Billows of snow covered the fields and the stone fences.ĭown a long road through the woods a little boy trudged to school, with his big brother Royal and his two sisters, Eliza Jane and Alice. It loaded the bare limbs of oaks and maples and beeches, it bent the green boughs of cedars and spruces down into the drifts. It was January in northern New York State, sixty-seven years ago.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder