“Be you going to need help?”
Father’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, son,” he said. “You can stay home from school. You won’t learn hay-baling any younger.”
Early next morning Mr. Weed, the hay-baler, came with his press and Almanzo helped to set it up on the Big-Barn Floor. It was a stout wooden box, as long and wide as a bale of hay, but ten feet high. Its cover could be fastened on tightly, and its bottom was loose. Two iron levers were hinged to the loose bottom, and the levers ran on little wheels on iron tracks going out from each end of the box.
The tracks were like small railroad tracks, and the press was called a railroad press. It was a new, fine machine for baling hay.
In the barnyard Father and Mr. Webb set up a capstan, with a long sweep on it. A rope from the capstan went through a ring under the hay-press, and was tied to another rope that went to the wheels at the end of the levers.
When everything was ready, Almanzo hitched Bess to the sweep. Father pitched hay into the box, and Mr. Weed stood in the box and trampled it down, till the box would hold no more. Then he fastened the cover on the box, and Father called:
“All right, Almanzo!”
Almanzo slapped Bess with the lines and shouted:
“Giddap, Bess!”
Bess began to walk around the capstan, and the capstan began to wind up the rope. The rope pulled the ends of the levers toward the press, and the inner ends of the levers pushed its loose bottom upward. The bottom slowly rose, squeezing the hay. The rope creaked and the box groaned, till the hay was pressed so tight it couldn’t be pressed tighter. Then Father shouted, “Whoa!” And Almanzo shouted, “Whoa, Bess!”
Father climbed up the hay-press and ran ash withes through narrow cracks in the box. He pulled them tight around the bale of hay, and knotted them firmly.
Mr. Weed unfastened the cover, and up popped the bale of hay, bulging between tight ash-withes. It weighed 250 pounds, but Father lifted it easily. Then Father and Mr. Weed re-set the press, Almanzo unwound the rope from the capstan, and they began again to make another bale of hay. All day they worked, and that night Father said they had baled enough.
Almanzo sat at the supper table, wishing he did not have to go back to school. He thought about figuring, and he was thinking so hard that words came out of his mouth before he knew it. “Thirty bales to a load, at two dollars a bale,” he said. “That’s sixty dollars a lo—”
He stopped, scared. He knew better than to speak at the table, when he wasn’t spoken to. “Mercy on us, listen to the boy!” Mother said.
“Well, well, son!” said Father. “I see you’ve been studying to some purpose.” He drank the tea out of his saucer, set it down, and looked again at Almanzo. “Learning is best put into practice. What say you ride to town with me tomorrow, and sell that load of hay?”
“Oh yes! Please, Father!” Almanzo almost shouted.
He did not have to go to school next morning. He climbed high up on top of the load of hay, and lay there on his stomach and kicked up his heels. Father’s hat was down below him, and beyond were the plump backs of the horses. He was as high up as if he were in a tree.
The load swayed a little, and the wagon creaked, and the horses’ feet made dull sounds on the hard snow. The air was clear and cold, the sky was very blue, and all the snowy fields were sparkling.
Just beyond the bridge over Trout River, Almanzo saw a small black thing lying beside the road. When the wagon passed, he leaned over the edge of the hay and saw that it was a pocketbook. He yelled, and Father stopped the horses to let him climb down and pick it up. It was a fat, black wallet.
Almanzo shinnied up the bales of hay and the horses went on. He looked at the pocketbook. He opened it, and it was full of banknotes. There was nothing to show who owned them.
He handed it down to Father, and Father gave him the reins. The team seemed far below, with the lines slanting down to the hames, and Almanzo felt very small. But he liked to drive. He held the lines carefully and the horses went steadily along. Father was looking at the pocketbook and the money.
“There’s fifteen hundred dollars here,” Father said. “Now who does it belong to? He’s a man who’s afraid of banks, or he wouldn’t carry so much money around. You can see by the creases in the bills, he’s carried them for some time. They’re big bills, and folded together, so likely he got them all at once. Now who’s suspicious, and stingy, and sold something valuable lately?”
Almanzo didn’t know, but Father didn’t expect him to answer. The horses went around a curve in the road as well as if Father had been driving them.
“Thompson!” Father exclaimed. “He sold some land last fall. He’s afraid of banks, and he’s suspicious, and so stingy he’d skin a flea for its hide and tallow. Thompson’s the man!”
He put the pocketbook in his pocket and took the lines from Almanzo. “We’ll see if we can find him in town,” he said.
Father drove first to the Livery, Sale and Feed Stable. The liveryman came out, and sure enough Father let Almanzo sell the hay. He stood back and did not say anything, while Almanzo showed the liveryman that the hay was good timothy and clover, clean and bright, and every bale solid and full weight.
“How much do you want for it?” the liveryman asked.
“Two dollars and a quarter a bale,” Almanzo said.
“I won’t pay that price,” said the liveryman. “It isn’t worth it.”
“What would you call a fair price?” Almanzo asked him.