2018.05.12

It's Saturday.

Ma said cheerfully that a sprain was soon mended and she asked Pa not be so upset. Pa said that he blamed himself and he should have use skids. He helped Ma to the tent. He built up the fire and heated water. When the water was as hot as Ma could bear, she put her swollen foot into it. It was Providential that the foot was not crushed. Only a little hollow in the ground had saved it. Pa kept pouring more hot water into the tub in which Ma’s foot was soaking. Her foot was red from the heat and the puffed ankle began to turn purple. Ma took her foot out of the water and bound strips of rag tightly around and around the ankle. She said that she could manage. She could not get her shoe on. But she tied more rags around her foot, and she hobbled on it. She got supper as usual, only a little more slowly. But Pa said she could not help to build the house until her ankle was well. He hewed out skids. These were long, flat slabs. One end rested on the ground, and the other end rested on the log wall. He was not going to lift any more logs; he and Ma would roll them up these skids. But Ma’s ankle was not well yet. When she unwrapped it in the evenings, to soak it in hot water, it was all purple and black and green and yellow. The house must wait. Then one afternoon Pa came merrily whistling up the creek road. They had not expected him home from hunting so soon. As soon as he saw them he shouted good news. They had a neighbor, only two miles away on the other side of the creek. Pa had met him in the woods. They were going to trade work and that would make it easier for everyone. Pa said that he was a bachelor and the bachelor said he could get along without a house better than Ma and the girls could, so he was going to help Pa first. And as soon as he got his logs ready, Pa would go over and help him.