It's Thursday.
A little crack was left between the highest slabs. So Pa made a little trough of two slabs, and he nailed this trough firmly, upside down over the crack. The roof was done. The house was darker than it had been, because no light came through the slabs. There was not one single crack that could let rain come in. Ma told Pa that he had done a splendid job and she was thankful to have a good roof over her head. Pa replied that she should have furnitures, too, as fine as he could make it. He told Ma that he would make a bedstead as soon as the floor was laid. He began again to haul logs. Day after day he hauled logs. He did not even stop hauling logs to go hunting; he took his gun on the wagon and brought back at night whatever meat he had shot from the wagon-seat. When he had hauled enough logs to make the floor, he began to split them. He split each log straight down the middle. Laura liked to sit on the woodpile and watch him. First, with a mighty blow of his ax he split the butt of the log. Into the crack he slipped the thin edge of an iron wedge. Then he wrenched the ax out of the log, and he drove the wedge deeper into the crack. The tough wood split a little farther. All the way up the log Pa fought that tough oak. He struck with his ax into the crack. He drove blocks of wood into it, and moved the iron wedge higher. Little by little he followed the crack up the log. He swung the ax high, and brought it down with a great swing and a grunt from his chest. The ax whizzed and struck, plung! It always struck exactly where Pa wanted it to. At last, with a tearing, cracking sound, the whole log split. Its two halves lay on the ground, showing the tree’s pale inside and the darker streak up its middle.
