Although strong and active, I was rather short, even for a ten-year-old, and to reach the plow handles I was obliged to lift my hands above my shoulders; and so with the guiding lines crossed over my back and my worn straw hat bobbing just above the cross-brace I must have made a 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 brought me a cookie and a glass of milk, a deed which helped to shorten the forenoon. And yet 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 rage. Their tails were continually getting over the lines, and in stopping to kick their tormentors 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 way.
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, crunching, ripping sound which I rather liked to hear. In truth, the 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, 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.