"i'm buying some wheat from you boys"

"Here's some wheat to go on with, Caroline," Pa said, setting the pail down beside her. She reached down to it and felt the kernels.

"Oh, Charles. Oh, Charles," she said, rocking. "I might have known you'd provide for us, but wherever did you get it? I thought there was no wheat left in town."

"I wasn't sure there was or I'd have told you. But I didn't want to raise hopes to be disappointed," Pa explained. "I agreed not to tell where I got it, but don't worry, Caroline. There's more where that came from."

Almanzo figures that the wheat Pa took amounted to "a peck, a peck and a quarter," and that it wouldn't go long to feed a family of six. One peck equals eight quarts (dry measure). A quart is four cups, and it takes about three cups of flour to make a loaf of bread. I've yet to measure the "before" product to see how much seed wheat it takes to make a cup of flour, but I'd guess that the pail of wheat only lasted a few days.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:36 PM