Fields of Home (23 page)

When it was finished, I read it to Old Bess. The words sounded better aloud than they had when they were just in my mind. I read it again; but, that time, to the hemlock woods. I made each word as round and full as I could—the way Mother’s voice always sounded when she recited the last verse of
Thanatopsis
.

The last sounds were just echoing back from the hemlocks when, from right behind me, Grandfather said, “Gorry sakes, Ralphie, what you doing way off out here in the woods a-spouting poetry at this hour of the morning?”

When he spoke, I slid over and tried to cover the verse, but Grandfather had already seen it. “Gorry,” he said, “rit it yourself, did you? Hmmmm! Hmmmm! Poetizing is for poets and farming is for farmers. Every man can’t be a poet, no more’n a sheep can be a goet. The cows is bellering to be milked.” Grandfather pulled at the end of his whiskers a minute, then asked, “Wa’n’t writing that for Annie Littlehale, was you?”

“No,” I said, “I wasn’t. It just came into my head while I was sitting here, and I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it.”

“Ought to fetch out a chisel one day and cut it deeper. Rain and time will wear it away afore you know it.”

I had stood up, and Grandfather slipped one of his arms in under mine. For a minute or two, he stood looking down at the verse, but I don’t think he saw it. Then, he said, “Time wears lots of things out of a man’s mem’ry, too, Ralphie. Ones he hates to lose, and ones he yearns to. Father stood here on this selfsame outcropping with me the day afore I went off to war. Ninety-four, he was, and commencing to feeble a mite. He passed away whilst I was gone. Ain’t come to mind for years, but now I recollect us a-standing here as if’t was only yesterday. Father a-telling me how he come to this outcropping whenst first he blazed his way up through the woods from Bath in the year of 1793.”

“1793!” I broke in. “Why, there wasn’t any State of Maine in 1793.”

“Wa’n’t no United States whenst Father was born. He was in his twenty-first year whenst George Washington was swore in to be the first president. No, there wa’n’t no State of Maine, Ralphie, but the land was here; been here ever since the Almighty smote on the waters and raised the land above ’em.

“Father, he come onto this outcropping whenst him and his first wife was seeking out a place to rear up a family. Where yonder hummock stands was a tarnal great white oak. Father clim to the top of it and could see all the country roundabouts. ’Twas solid woods and wilderness then, Ralphie. Not a tarnal tree left of them that was standing, save the two virgin pines in the beech woods.

“’Twas a cloudy day in early spring. Whilst Father was atop the tree, a rift come in the clouds, and the sunshine lit on this whole side the ridge and out onto the valley beneath. Ralphie, ’twas the hand of the Almighty parted them clouds and marked the land for Father. He come down the oak and blazed his mark on the trees roundabouts the land the Almighty marked to him. There’ll come a day, Ralphie, you’ll love it the same as Father and me. The feel of the land is in your hands. There’ll come a day you’ll clear the wilderness field yonder. I and Levi, we cleared it once—hauled the stone off with three-spanned yoke of oxen, laid up the foundation of the big barn out of ’em; cut off the timber, hewed the beams, and framed the biggest barn in all the country hereabouts.”

I felt Grandfather’s arm weighing down on mine. His head was bowed, and his shoulders slumped forward a little. It was a minute or two before he went on. When he did, his voice was low and thick. “Then the clouds closed in, Ralphie. Levi, he went off a-homesteading, the malaria come on me heavy, and the children. I lost your grandma and the fire come and the woods and wilderness commenced a-pushing back into the fields Father had cleared. ’Tain’t been easy to watch it a-slipping back. Ain’t been able to keep enough stock to dress the fields. Hated awful to see ’em petering out, but now we’ll save ’em, Ralphie. I’m cal’lating on filling what barn there is with cows. With you to help me, we’ll fetch back what fields is left, and whenst I’m gone, you’ll claim back them I ain’t been able to save.”

My throat hurt. I forgot what Uncle Levi had said about not giving Grandfather the pill, and blurted out, “I won’t either! We’ll claim them back while we can do it together. I like hard work. This is my home now, and you’re no older than your father was when you were born. If he could clear the land he did, I guess we can clear the wilderness field again and build the piece back on the barn.”

While I was speaking, the weight of Grandfather’s arm eased on mine. He drew the sag out of his shoulders, and his head lifted till his whiskers stood away from his chest. When I’d finished he was facing me. His hands reached out for the muscles in my arms. As his fingers closed tighter and tighter, he looked up into my face, and said, “I
ain’t
too old, Ralphie! I
ain’t
too old! There’s still power left in them old hands! The way you’ve skun the stones off’n the high field, I don’t cal’late there’s nothing we couldn’t do betwixt us. Come on! Let’s get at them chores! We’re a-going to walk the field today; there’s a thousand things I got to show you, boy.”

25

Grandfather Sets His Cap for ’Bijah

G
RANDFATHER
had never helped me with the chores, but Monday morning he was at the barn when I came downstairs at sunrise. He must have been up since four o’clock. A skillet of baked beans was simmering on the back of the stove, the oven door was open, and a plate of johnnycake and one of Annie’s pies were warming on the top shelf.

He was pitching hay down from the mow when I went to the barn, and he peeked over the edge like a squirrel looking down from a tree. “Got the hogs all slopped,” he called out to me. “By gorry, Ralphie, we’ll get an early start at it this morning. We ain’t going to stop for nothing till the rocks is all off the high field. By fire, ’twixt the two of us, we’ll make ’em fly! We’ll show ’em what kind of logs makes wide shingles! Provender the hosses, and we’ll eat our victuals afore you do the milking.”

As I fed the horses, Grandfather came down the ladder, and hurried away to the house. He still had his hat on, had set the table, and was dishing out beans when I got there. “By gorry, them ain’t bad looking beans,” he called to me as I was washing. “Pie looks uncommon good, too. Strawb’ries in it, ain’t there, Ralphie?”

“Yes, sir,” I told him. “I think Annie is a pretty good cook, don’t you? She taught me how to make biscuits and johnnycake.”

“Wastin’! Wastin’!” Grandfather snapped. Then, as he drew his chair up to the table, he said, “Well, what’s done is done. No sense a-wastin’ the victuals now they’re cooked. Fetch a couple of them little cupcakes, Ralphie. Goes awful nice with hot tea.”

Grandfather ate more for breakfast than he had for any meal since Millie left. He seemed to enjoy every mouthful, but when I tried to swing the talk around to Annie’s coming again, he snapped, “Eat your victuals, Ralphie! Time flies, and we got a tarnal heap of work to do afore the snow flies.”

All during milking, Grandfather kept coming into the tie-up and telling me that time flew. I always saved the brindle cow till the last. She still kicked as much as ever and, if anything, the milk sprayed worse. Grandfather watched me fight the milk from her for a few minutes, and said, “Leave be! Leave be, Ralphie! There ain’t no time for fiddle-faddling.”

“If I do, her bag will cake, and it will ruin her,” I told him.

“Ruin her! Cal’late she’s tarnal nigh ruined for a milker a’ready. Let me see . . . Who be there I might trade her off to?” Grandfather walked up and down the length of the tie-up three or four times, just pulling the end of his whiskers and looking at the floor. Suddenly, he sang out, “By fire, I got him! I got him, Ralphie! ’Bijah Swale! Don’t know a man I’d sooner trade her off to.”

“I know him,” I said. “I rode up from Lisbon Falls with him the first day I came here.”

Grandfather stopped walking, and looked at me closely, “Don’t cal’late he said nothing good of me,” he said.

“Well, I don’t remember just what he did say.”

“Wager you ’twa’n’t good. ’Bijah, he ain’t told the truth yet if a lie would do. Meanest man this side the Androscoggin River.

“Cheat a widow woman out of her last hen! Skun me out of four cords of wood. By fire, Ralphie, I cal’late to set my cap for ’Bijah. Hmmm, hmmm. There’s an auction over Pajepscot way this afternoon. ’Bijah, he don’t buy nothing, but he don’t never miss an auction. Goes for the free victuals. Gorry sakes! If we wa’n’t so all-fired busy, I’d go set the wheels a-rolling to get him het up for a trade.”

“I don’t see any reason for your not going to the auction,” I told him. “By eleven o’clock, you and Old Nell could rake all the stones the yella colt and I could haul in a day. I’d be awfully glad if we could get rid of the brindle.”

“Gorry sakes! Cal’late maybe I best! Cal’late maybe I best!” Grandfather sang out. “I’ll drive the cows to pasture whilst you set the milk and fetch the hosses to the high field.”

If stone hauling had been fun when I was working alone, it was ten times as much fun with Grandfather along. He handled Old Nell as if she’d been a team of oxen, and anyone could have heard him a mile away. She couldn’t take six steps without his hollering, “Gee off! Haw to! Gitap! Whoa back! Whoa, you tarnal fool hoss!”

The yella colt knew every move of stone hauling as well as I, so I had no use for the reins, and kept them tied on the hame knobs. When I was forking or lifting stones onto the drag, he’d move forward a step or two at my cluck, or stop at a hiss. Because I always gave him a piece of apple after every pull on the dumping tackle, there was nothing for me to do but to switch his singletree over to the tote-rope hook and let him go. He’d swing around for a straight pull, throw his weight into the collar, then, when he heard the stones roll, come back to the drag for his apple.

I’d noticed that Grandfather stopped shouting at Old Nell each time the yella colt and I took a load of stones to the wall. On about the sixth trip, I looked up and saw him watching us. “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie!” he called out. “You got the old hoss to reading your mind. How in thunderation does he know what to do without neither voice nor line? By fire! Never thought to tell you! The colt, he won’t work single! Never would! Never do nothing but balk and rare!”

If Grandfather had told me that a month before, it would have made me awfully mad. The first thing that came into my head was his making me use the colt on the tote rope that day in haying when I’d broken the ridgepole in the barn. Even though I wasn’t mad, I wanted Grandfather to know that I knew, so I called back, “He does all right now. I’ll bet we could even use him on the tote rope for the horsefork.”

“Like as not! Like as not!” Grandfather snapped quickly; then, “Gitap! Gitap, Nell!”

By the time he’d made another trip across the field and back, Grandfather’s voice was pleasant again. “By gorry, Ralphie,” he called, “mark how the rocks is coming a-tumbling out back of this little harrow! Come the Sabbath, I cal’late we’ll have this field skun clean as a whistle. Gorry sakes! Won’t have nothing left to do but the dressing afore we tackle the wilderness field.”

The mailman had come and gone before Grandfather would stop raking stones and go to the auction. I didn’t expect him home until after dark and, all afternoon, kept planning the things I’d say to Annie when she came for her cows. I couldn’t tell her what Grandfather had said about not letting her come to the house again, and I wouldn’t tell her he’d said I couldn’t see her any more. When the sun was dropping behind the pines on the ridge, I went down to the valley and waited for her. I just told her that Grandfather expected Millie home in a few days and wanted to save the butter making for her. Then I said we had enough pie and cake to last that long, that it was the best I’d ever tasted, and that I’d come down to see her again the first chance I had.

Grandfather came home that night while I was milking. I didn’t know he was there until he’d unharnessed Old Nell, and came into the tie-up shouting, “I got him, Ralphie! I got him! Old ’Bijah riz up for the bait like a horned pout for a night crawler.”

All the while I was milking, he gloated over the trade he was planning to make with Mr. Swale, and followed me from cow to cow, telling me stories of dozens of different trades he’d made. “Ain’t no two ways about it, Ralphie,” he told me as I stripped the brindle, “a farmer ain’t a farmer less’n he’s a good trader. There’s traders and traders, but there’s tarnal few good ones. Father, he was one of the best. Wouldn’t no more lie to you in a trade than he’d steal off’n you, but you could put what meaning you might on what he said, and you was lucky if you come away with your boots on. What I know of trading, I learnt from Father. Don’t cheat ary man in a trade, Ralphie. If it comes about that he wants to cheat hisself, I don’t cal’late that’s none of your affairs. Don’t never be anxious, and don’t never hurry a trade. Good trades has to be sot up afore the dickering commences. Take ’Bijah Swale now. The hook’s in old ’Bijah so deep there ain’t no chance of his spitting it out. Cal’late we’ll be seeing something of ’Bijah afore sundown tomorrow. If chance should happen I and you ain’t together, you come a-running whenst he heaves in sight. Your old grampa’ll learn you how to make a powerful good trade, Ralphie.”

Along in the middle of the next afternoon, Grandfather and I had stopped to rest the horses. The stones had been cleared from more than three-quarters of the field, and Grandfather called to me, “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie! Getting tarnal nigh the end of it, ain’t we? S’posing I and you cast about a bit and cal’late what best we might do with this old field.” I was sure he was going to say something about strawberries, and wanted to throw my arms up and shout, but I didn’t. I lifted one more stone onto the drag, and then walked over to him slowly as if I was just going for a drink of water.

We’d walked a little way, quartering across the top of the hill, when Grandfather knelt and scooped up a handful of dirt. “Just about petered out, ain’t it?” he said, as it sifted through his fingers. “Your old grampa ain’t kept stock enough these last ten years to feed the soil proper. Mark how yella and spindling the nigh side the crown is? Needs a power more of dressing to fetch it back. T’other slope’s browner; you take note? Don’t need quite so much. Yonder, ’twixt the orchard wall and the pasture bars, you mark that black streak? ’Twon’t need next to none.”

I nodded my head, because I couldn’t trust my voice not to sound too happy if I spoke.

“Cal’late you could ration out thirty loads more dressing, nice and even, ’cording to the color of the soil?”

I was so excited that I started to speak before I’d thought what I was going to say. “I could if . . . ”

Grandfather looked up at me with a half smile, and said, “Could you if you had a . . . Mark! Mark, Ralphie!”

There was a ring of metal against stone, then the chuckle of a loose wagon hub on a spindle, and I looked around to see a gray horse’s head come above the hill at the top of the orchard.

“It’s somebody with a gray horse,” I told Grandfather.

“Cal’lated ’twould be,” he said, and went on sifting dirt.

He didn’t look up or move from his knees, and I didn’t want to be staring, so I kept watching the sifting dirt. In a minute or two, a man called, “Howdy, Tom. How be you?”

Grandfather looked around, but didn’t get up. “Tol’able, ’Bijah. Tol’able,” he said, and reached for another handful of dirt.

I glanced over my shoulder to be sure it was the man who had given me a ride the day I came. It was, and he was driving the same horse, hitched to the same blue dumpcart. Tied by her horns to the back of it, was a long-legged, slab-sided, red cow. Her head was twisted sideways, and she was pulling back on the rope.

“Just a-driving by, and stopped in to pass the time o’day with you.” Mr. Swale shouted.

“Nice one, ain’t it?” Grandfather said, and let the dirt trickle through his fingers.

Mr. Swale waited a minute or two, and then called back, “Mite early for fall plowing, ain’t it, Tom?”

Grandfather nodded his head.

“See you got a boy to help you. Your daughter Mary’s boy, ain’t it?”

Grandfather nodded again.

Mr. Swale waited two or three minutes that time, and shouted, “One boy can be a big help to a man; two ain’t worth shucks. Learning him to pick rock? Cal’lating on sowing back to timothy?”

That time, Grandfather said, “Mmmhmm,” as he nodded.

My heart jumped quickly. And then I felt empty inside. When I looked up from the ground, the red cow was twisting her neck and pulling back on the rope. “So, boss, so.” Mr. Swale said, just loud enough I could barely hear him, then shouted, “Hear you got a new bull, Tom.”

“All-fired good one,” Grandfather said that time, and stood up. “Gorry, ’Bijah! See you fetched a cow.”

“Heifer,” Mr. Swale shouted back. “Milking Shorthorn. Close to purebred.”

“Bull’s Holstein. All-fired big one,” Grandfather told him, as he started toward the dumpcart.

I felt so bad about his planning to plant timothy hay again that I wanted to be alone, so I turned toward the wall where I’d left the yella colt. I’d only taken two steps when Grandfather said, in a real low voice, “Let be, Ralphie! Come watch the fun.”

“What you a-standing him at, Tom?” Mr. Swale shouted before Grandfather was through speaking to me.

“Fifty cents,” Grandfather called, and reached down for another handful of dirt. As I bent with him, he said into his whiskers, “Cow ain’t in. He’s here for trading.”

“Trifle steep, ain’t you, Tom? Eb Kennedy hain’t asking but thutty-five for his Jersey.”

“Ain’t far up to Eben’s,” Grandfather said, as he walked on toward the dumpcart.

I’d seen plenty of Shorthorn cattle in Colorado, but I’d never seen one that looked like Mr. Swale’s cow. Her horns turned in like a Jersey’s, and her head was nearly as wide at the muzzle as it was at her eyes. Her neck was scrawny, and she kept twisting it as she pulled at the rope. Mr. Swale noticed Grandfather looking at the cow, and said, “Heifer’s a leetle timid. Hain’t used to being drug on a rope. Mighty gentle spirited critter.”

Grandfather walked around the cow with his hands folded behind his back. “Breechy, ain’t she?” he asked, as she slatted around to keep an eye on him.

“Lord sakes, no! Hain’t a breechy bone in her hide. Timid, Tom! Timid! ’N awful good milking heifer. Wouldn’t swap her off for the world if my pasture wa’n’t so nigh the county road. Them automobiles a-passing worries the jeeslin’ out’n her. Throws her off her feed.”

“Dite ganted, ain’t she?” Grandfather asked, as he looked at the deep hollows under her hip bones.

Mr. Swale climbed down off the dumpcart and started to walk around the cow, too. “Yes, siree, Tom. Ganted out. Pore critter; them automo. . . . Heavens to B . . .!”

It happened so fast that I hardly saw it. Mr. Swale was right beside the cow’s hip when he said, “Pore critter,” and she kicked as he reached a hand out toward her. Her hoof flashed through the air like a stone from a slingshot, and there was a click as it hit his leg just below the knee. He caught himself quickly, but there was a hurt sound in his voice when he went on: “. . . etsy wouldn’t have a pore critter scairt so. Needs a big quiet pasture, the like of yourn, Tom.”