Man of the Family by Ralph Moody Page A

Eva and I took Pinto back to the schoolhouse where her little sisters were waiting. I walked and led Pinto, and let Eva carry the box of lollipops. I was a little bit worried about what their mother would say because I’d kept them so long after school. So, when I’d hitched Pinto to the buggy—and taken out a small handful of lollipops for the other youngsters at home—I gave Eva half a dollar for using Pinto, and told her to keep the box. I said she could give her mother some, and then pass the rest around at school the next day.
    She drove me past our house on her way home, and Mother was frightened when I went in. The first thing she saw was the dried blood on my face and my shirt, and she seemed to think I was half killed. She thought one of the cattle had done it, so I had to tell her that I’d fallen off Pinto. It was the wrong thing to say. I didn’t tell her he’d bucked me off, but I might just as well have. She pinched her mouth right up tight for a minute, then she said, “Ralph you are
not
going to rent or borrow anybody’s strange horse. I don’t know how you are going to make all our deliveries with Hal’s little gocart, but I will
not
have you killed by a bad horse.”
    There were tears in her eyes, and I knew she was thinking about Father’s getting hurt when he was breaking Lady’s colt, so I said, “I won’t borrow one and I won’t rent one till you say I can.” Then I gave her the six dollars I had left and the lollipops.
    It’s funny how different things make different people cry. Some people cry when they get hurt, my biggest trouble was when I got boiling mad, but Mother didn’t very often cry unless she was real happy. She cried when I gave her the six dollars. At first, she just looked at the money as if she didn’t believe it was real—it was a five-dollar gold piece and a cartwheel—then her eyes filled. She pressed the end of her thumb against her teeth for half a minute, as she always did when she was trying not to cry, and then she just bubbled over.
    She knelt down and hugged me against her so hard it made my ribs hurt. “Oh, Ralph, I don’t want you to have to be a man yet,” she cried. “I didn’t mean to scold you about the horse . . . but I’m so afraid. . . . I can’t have anything happen to you, Son, and you’re so impulsive.”
    Then she buried her face against my shoulder. “And it makes my heart ache to have you and Gracie carrying the loads of a grown man and woman . . . but I’m so, so proud of you.”
    Father always patted Mother on the back of her shoulder when she cried. I tried to do it the same way, and she stopped sobbing. Tears were still running down her cheeks, but her face was smiling when she looked up and said, “Do you realize, Son, this is as much money as lots of men earn in a week; it’s as much as Father earned at the time you were born. We’ll put it right away toward the rent. Think how proud he must be of a son who can keep a roof over his mother’s head. There, there, I’m not going to cry any more. Let me bathe your face; then you can milk Ducklegs while I’m fixing your supper. You must go to bed early after such a hard day.”
    We all went to bed right after the supper dishes were done, but I wasn’t a bit sleepy and my head wouldn’t stop working. Philip always slept with me. He wanted me to tell him all about the cattle drive, but he was asleep before I even got Pinto out of the schoolyard. I lay there for a long time trying to think of other jobs I could get to help make us a living. Then I began planning how I’d make our first food delivery. I couldn’t carry it in my hands, and without a horse I couldn’t use our spring wagon.

6
    Cookery and Coal
    A T FIRST I thought I could build Hal’s little gocart over into a wagon that would be big enough