He had to stand on a box to lift the heavy collars onto the horses' shoulders and to slip the bridles over their ears, but he knew how to drive. He had learned when he was little. Father wouldn't let him touch the colts, nor drive the spirited young horses, but now that he was old enough to work in the fields he could drive the old, gentle work-team, Bess and Beauty. They were wise, sober mares. When they were turned out to pasture they did not whinny and gallop like colts; they looked about them, lay down and rolled once or twice, and then fell to eating grass. When they were harnessed, they stepped sedately one behind the other over the sill of the barn door, sniffed the spring air, and waited patiently for the traces to be fastened. They were older than Almanzo, and he was going on ten. They knew how to plow without stepping on corn, or making the furrows crooked. They knew how to harrow, and to turn at the end of the field.
