Today is Monday.

In the long winter evenings Pa talked to Ma about the Western country. In the West the land was level, and there were no trees. The grass grew thick and high. There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no settlers. Only Indians lived there. One day in the very last of the winter Pa said to Ma that seeing she didn’t object he had decided to go see the West and he had had an offer for that place and they could sell it at that time for as much as they were ever likely to get, enough to give them a start in a new country. Ma asked if they must go at that time. The weather was so cold and the snug house was so comfortable. Pa said that if they were going that year, they must go at that time, because they couldn’t get across the Mississippi after the ice broke. So Pa sold the little house. He sold the cow and calf. He made hickory bows and fastened them upright to the wagon box. Ma helped him to stretch white canvas over them. In the thin dark before morning Ma gently shook Mary and Laura till they got up. In firelight and candlelight she washed and combed them and dressed them warmly. Over their long red-flannel underwear she put wool petticoats and wool dresses and long wool stockings. She put their coats on them, and their rabbit-skin hoods and their red yarn mittens.