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my old man.
    Ma glanced up at me standing on the porch.
    “Stop that going-on, William,” she said crossly. “Sometimes I think you’re just as bad as your Pa.”
    My old man cut his eyes around and looked up at me. He winked with his right eye and went across the yard to Ida’s stall, following Ma as meek as a pup. Just before they went into the shed, my old man stooped down and picked up a chicken feather that one of the hens had shed. While Ma was leading Ida inside, he stuffed the feather into his pocket out of sight.

V. The Time Ma Spent the Day at Aunt Bessie’s
    M A GOT UP EARLY and cooked our breakfast and left it warming on the stove for us. I was awake, but my old man still had his head buried under the covers when she rode off with Uncle Ben to spend the day with Aunt Bessie in the country. As soon as she had left, Pa looked out from under the quilt and asked me if Ma said anything before she got in with Uncle Ben and drove away. I told him she didn’t say a word, because she thought both of us were still asleep.
    While we were getting dressed, Pa said we would have to try to manage to get along somehow by ourselves the best we could until Ma came back that night. Ma always went out to spend the day with her sister once during the summer, and sometimes twice. She said it was the only real vacation she ever got, and that she would like to go more often if she wasn’t afraid of what might happen while she was away.
    “There’s nothing like keeping batch,” Pa said, “even if it’s only for one day. It’s a real treat sometimes not to have any womenfolk around.”
    After breakfast my old man went out into the sunshine and stretched. It was already hot that morning, and there wasn’t a cloud anywhere in sight.
    “This sure is a fine day,” he said, turning around and looking at me. “The sun’s shining, and we’ve got the whole wide world before us. It’s a pity your Ma can’t get the chance to spend the day a lot more often with your Aunt Bessie.”
    He went over to the fence and leaned against it. I saw him looking out across the garden, watching some sparrows scratching under the cabbages. After a while he picked up a rock and threw it at them.
    “Let’s go fishing, son,” he said turning around. “This is a fine time to go. Hitch up Ida.”
    I went out to the stable right away and led Ida out into the yard and began brushing her down with the currycomb. Pa told me to curry her good and then to hitch her to the cart.
    “I’ll be ready to leave as soon as I get back from the store,” he said. “I’ve got to get me a sack of smoking tobacco.”
    He went into the henhouse and took a couple of eggs from the nests and put them into his pocket to trade for tobacco.
    “Curry Ida down until she looks spick-and-span, son,” he said starting down the street. “I want Ida to look good on a fine day like this.”
    “Who’s going to dig the bait, Pa?” I asked him.
    He stopped and thought a minute, and he said to tell Handsome Brown to dig the worms.
    My old man went down the street to the store and I called Handsome. Handsome was smiling all over when he came out where I was currying Ida.
    “I sure am glad Mr. Morris said we’re going fishing,” Handsome said. “I’ve been itching to go fishing for a good long while.”
    He got a spade and went behind the stable where the earth was damp in the shade of the chinaberry tree. He started digging for fishing worms right away.
    Handsome dug a tomato can full of worms while I was hitching Ida to the cart. We climbed in and sat down to wait for Pa to get back. He wasn’t long in coming, but he was hurrying faster than I had seen him walk in a long time. He was almost running.
    He came rushing up to the cart and I was about to hand him the reins when he took Ida by the bridle and led her to a fence post. He tied her up in a hurry.
    “What’s the matter, Pa?” I asked.
    “Never mind about going fishing now,” he said. “Fishing can wait.