He now joined his uncle and they began the annual cleaning of the cow
stable and barnyard. The stable was not hard work, although the long
corn stalks that were tramped deep into the floor were troublesome and
required much labor to pry loose. They finished the cleaning of the
cow stable by noon, but when they started on the barnyard in the
afternoon they found it was frozen almost solid, so they made slow
headway and Bob's arms and back ached from the unaccustomed heavy
work.

"When shall I quit to do the milking?" he inquired, as he noticed the
sun getting low.

"Oh, we'll be knocking off pretty soon," was his uncle's indefinite
answer.

It was nearly six o'clock and getting dark when his uncle finally
decided they had done enough work for one day.

"Guess you'd better hustle, Bob," he said. "I didn't notice it was so
late. Your grandmother will wait supper for you."

Bob jumped down stiffly from the seat of the wagon and, after cleaning
his shoes, went to the house, as his uncle had directed, and washed
up.

"Are you tired?" asked his grandmother, as he came into the kitchen
where she was busy cooking by lamp light. "Your Uncle Joe's starting
right in to have you do all the work on the farm in a day; he should
have let you stop an hour ago to do the milking."