‘Son,’ he said, ‘I had hoped you wouldn’t run into anything like this till you were older, but maybe it’s just as well. His voice didn’t shake then, but he talked low. He reached out and took hold of my knee hard. “He just stood there a minute, as if he didn’t know what he was going to say, then he put the stool right down in front of me and sat on it. His face was gray-white–even his lips were white–and his voice was shaky when he said, ‘Don’t you ever talk to that girl again.’ He jumped off his milking stool and came around behind Brindle. “I only saw Father mad two or three times, but that was one of them. “…While we were milking that night, I told Father what Lucy said about her father, and asked him why he didn’t try to do the same thing. “Then she told me that smart men like her father never did have to work hard, because they knew the world owed them a living and there were easier ways to get it than doing hard work. Then, before I could tell her, she said that only dolts and darn fools lived on ranches, because farmers didn’t need any brains and there was too much hard work to do…. She asked me if I thought her father looked like a darn fool. Then I said that the Aultlands had better things to eat than anybody else in the neighborhood, and I thought Fred would let them live right there if they did enough work. I remembered what Fred had told Father about needing food for us youngsters more than money, and I told Lucy about it. She said he’d been fired lots of times before so it didn’t make any difference. “ Her father had just been fired from a good office job in Denver, but Lucy didn’t care. They just finished a wonderful, large meal at a time when some families didn’t have enough to feed their families.
The young narrator, Ralph, is visiting with a girl, Lucy, while their fathers and some other men are helping a neighbor with his harvesting. I couldn’t help but share this part from Little Britches that I had heard just a day or two before. This morning we were reading in Mosiah 10 as a family, and we talked about how blaming others for our circumstances or believing that someone owes us something is a tool of the adversary. I can see why that viola student loved it. I listen to it now and then when I can, such as when I’m trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night!
We started it on during out Christmas trip to California, but didn’t get to finish it. She said it was her favorite book ever! I didn’t read it then, but purchased as well the audio version to listen to as a family. I bought this autobiography on a recommendation from a young viola student I was observing during my teacher’s training a few years ago.
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