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Then one Sunday while Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura were all sitting at the dinner table, talking about that day’s Sunday school, Pa said, “If I’ ou
t aet a pair of new boots Look”
He stretched out his foot His mended boot was cracked clear across the toes
They all looked at his red knitted sock showing through that gaping slit The edges of leather were thin and curling back between little cracks Pa said, “It won’t hold another patch”
“Oh, I wanted you to get boots, Charles,” Ma said “And you brought home that calico for my dress”
Pa o to town next Saturday They will cost three dollars, but we’ll make out somehow till I harvest the wheat”
All that week Pa washay He had helped put up Mr Nelson’s hay and earned the use of Mr Nelson’s fine, quickhay He had never known such a dry, sunny summer
Laura hated to go to school She wanted to be out in the hay-field with Pa, watching thebehind the wheels, cutting through great swathes of grass
Saturday on, and helped Pa bring in the last load of hay They looked at the wheat-field, standing up taller than Laura above the h heat-heads, bent with the weight of ripening wheat They picked three long, fat ones and took them to the house to show Ma
When that crop was harvested, Pa said, they’d be out of debt and have y, Ma would have a silk dress, they’d all have new shoes and eat beef every Sunday
After dinner he put on a clean shirt and took three dollars out of the fiddle-box He was going to town to get his new boots He walked, because the horses had been working all that week and he left them at home to rest
It was late that afternoon when Pa ca home Laura saw him on the knoll and she and Jack ran up from the old crab’s home in the creek and into the house behind him
Ma turned around fro of bread out of the oven
“Where are your boots, Charles?” she asked
“Well, Caroline,” Pa said “I saw Brother Alden and he told h to put a bell in the belfry The folks in town had all given every cent they could, and he lacked just three dollars So I gave him the money”