Early Harvest
Now it was haying-time. Father brought out the scythes, and Almanzo turned the grindstone with one hand and poured a little stream of water on it with the other hand, while Father held the steel edges delicately against the whirring stone.

Independence Day
Almanzo was eating breakfast before he remembered that this was the Fourth of July. He felt more cheerful.

Springtime
Now breakfast was eaten before dawn, and the sun was rising beyond the dewy meadows when Almanzo drove his team from the barns.

Birthday
Next morning while Almanzo was eating his oatmeal, Father said this was his birthday. Almanzo had forgotten it. He was nine years old, that cold winter morning.
“There’s something for you in the woodshed,” Father said.

Farmer Boy
Laura Ingalls Wilder
School Days
It was January in northern New York State, sixty-seven years ago. Snow lay deep everywhere. It loaded the bare limbs of oaks and maples and beeches, it bent the green boughs of cedars and spruces down into the drifts. Billows of snow covered the fields and the stone fences.