The Egg and I (25 page)

The Swensens and Sharkey I didn't mind, but I did not like the other Indians, and when they came to call I filled up Stove's reservoir with water and after they had left I scrubbed the house from top to bottom with Lysol. Birdie Hicks the Second, Bob called me.

I didn't care. Little red brothers or not, I didn't like Indians, and the more I saw of them the more I thought what an excellent thing it was to take that beautiful country away from them. They had come a long way from Hiawatha.

All Our Kids Have Fits

M
y baby had sun baths, vegetables, meat and cod-liver oil. My neighbors viewed these practices in the same light as charms and asafetida bags. Even though I showed Mrs. Kettle the printed instructions in the Government bulletins I had sent for, she was convinced that it was more crooked work on the part of "them politicians" and would bring my baby to an early grave. Her babies and her children's babies—all the babies she had ever had anything to do with—had been fed pork gravy, mashed potatoes, pickles, beer—and had "fits." The number of "fits" (actually convulsions) a child survived was the measuring stick of the father's virility, the mother's knowledge of dietetics and the child's superior physique.

The Kettles sat around their fire in the evening and Maw would say, "Let's see, was it Charlie or Bertha that had seventeen fits in one day? God, was that a day!" She'd sigh reminiscently and the children would urge her on. "Go on, Maw, tell us. And don't forget the time Elwin was blue in the face for two hours."

Maw would begin. "Let's see, Elwin was most a year old and I was well along in the family way with Ernest. It was a real hot night, and Elwin had had summer complaint bad all day. He was fretful and I took him up right after supper and was rockin' him in the kitchen when all of a sudden he stiffened out and begun to foam and get black and I seen he was in a fit, so I put a wet rag on his head and pretty soon he come out of it. He was all right for about an hour then he got another one—then another—then finally he got one so bad I got scairt and sent Paw for the doctor, but the car had four flat tires—" ("I'd been meanin' to fix them tireth all week," Paw would interrupt.) "And Elwin turned kinda blue and his eyes rolled back and he looked awful, and I thought he was dyin' and I begin to bawl, but Paw filled the washtub with real hot water and he dumped Elwin in clothes and all and just kep' his head outta the water, and after a long while he begun to come out of it. Jesus, that kid was limp—just like a rag doll. And white! He looked just like a hunk of sowbelly."

I would glance at Elwin to see how he reacted to this unflattering description, but like many younger children in a large family, he was so delighted to be the center of attention that he wouldn't have cared if Maw had said he looked like pig's intestines. Elbows on knees, chin propped in his dirty hands, his large blue eyes gazing at Maw through the shock of hair hanging over his face, with the intensity of a sheep dog waiting for a bone, he would sit in happy expectation.

Maw continued: "Well, I finally got that kid ready for bed and then I looked at the kitchen clock"—all heads would turn toward the kitchen clock on the shelf over the sink—"and Jeeeeeeesus Keeeeeeeerist that kid had been in that fit for two hours."

At this Elwin would straighten up and look proudly at the assemblage. He would stand and turn around several times and his family would agree that Elwin was a fine specimen and to think he had been blue for two hours.

One summer morning I pushed Anne's crib on to the front porch and put Anne without any clothes in it for her sun bath. Mrs. Kettle came through the orchard just then to borrow some eggs because the chickens had taken to laying in the deep forest down by the creek. When she saw the baby she was horrified. "You ain't gonta leave that kid out here, are you?" she asked incredulously.

"Of course I am," I said. "She has a sun bath every morning."

Mrs. Kettle said, "Joe's wife has a baby just two days older'n that one and he'd make two of her. She don't give him no sun baths." She poked disapprovingly at Anne's fat, firm dimpled back. "Yup, Jeanie's baby would make two of that one."

Perhaps a week later, I had an opportunity to compare Jeanie's baby with Anne. Joe Kettle was hired to install a gasoline engine and water pump for Bob. Joe arrived about ten o'clock one summer morning—bringing with him to spend the day his wife, Jeanie, and Georgie, their big white baby. Jeanie was a beautiful girl, about nineteen, with soft brown hair, dancing eyes and dimples; Georgie was eight months old and looked as if he had been molded out of dough. He was certainly large and rolling in fat, but he was logy and fretful and every time he squeaked Jeanie ripped open the front of her dress and nursed him. She fed him six times between ten and five, and when she wasn't nursing him she was tossing him in the air, jiggling, tickling, bouncing and shaking him and giving forth a torrential flow of gossip.

When I gave Anne her vegetables, cod-liver oil and applesauce, Jeanie was horrified. She said, "Jesus, kid, I think you're takin' a awful chanct. Georgie don't get nothin' but my milk, a bite of potato and gravy oncet in a while and sometimes a little candy. Look how big and fat he is."

I asked Jeanie if Georgie had ever had a fit. She said, "No, he ain't had one yet, but I guess he will. All kids have fits."

The day was warm and muggy, but Georgie had on knitted bootees, shirt, diaper, flannel petticoat, white petticoat, dress, and knitted jacket; and when Jeanie took him out of doors she put a blanket over his large white head, for babies were not supposed to be exposed to air in any form. When a baby was taken out even on hot summer days, he was bundled up like an Eskimo. His bedroom, usually shared with several other people, was filled with its original quota of air and sealed tight against any intruding draughts.

Apparently the babies liked the life, though, for they lived to grow up; and certainly their lives were more fascinating than those of modern babies with their regular hours, sterile bottles and hands-off policy. The farm baby went where his mother went, and when she had coffee, he got some; when she had beer, so did the baby and he spent many of his happiest hours in the movies, at the dances, or being passed from lap to lap in some warm gossipy kitchen.

That was a great country for babies. People were always having them in spite of home-aborting. More often than not the babies were dirty, runny-nosed and smelly; sometimes they were not bright—but they were fondled and loved just the same. Even the men, who were frequently brutal to their wives and usually cruel to animals, were not ashamed of loving babies and stopped to admire other people's and took their own, drooling and wet, with them when they went calling.

Anne, with her red curls and fat dimpled rosy cheeks, drew an admiring crowd wherever we took her, and it was only owing to my strong will that she did not develop a weakness for pickles, beer, coffee, and "fits."

Timbah!

O
n summer days while I was out of doors weeding in the garden, picking fruit, gathering vegetables or hanging out a washing, I could hear the short sharp Toot! or Toot, toot! or Toot, toot, toot! from the logging camp nearest us. These toots were the signals given by the "whistle punk" to direct the operations of the skidder bringing in the logs. It was a cheerful sound and made a pleasant break in the great blanket of silence which hung over the mountains on summer days. Occasionally, though, the whistle would give a long mournful wail which lasted for several minutes and meant that a man had been hurt or killed. This sound crept up my back with icy fingers and made me vow I would never let Bob work in the woods, as did many of the other farmers.

All the Kettle boys worked in the woods and they told me gruesome tales of crushed legs, smashed hands, high riggers falling from the tops of great trees, fallers being killed by falling limbs and logging-truck drivers tipping over their trucks and being crushed by their own loads. The Kettles worked for the small outfits that logged with steam donkey engines and hauled their logs to the mills on trucks. The logging camp whose whistle I could hear was a very large concern; they ran three sides—which meant they had three great skidders, to which ran three railroad spurs—so they could log three mountains at a time. Bob had several very good friends among the loggers. There were Tom and Mike Murphy (both since killed in accidents in the woods) who "ran sides" for this logging company. They were actually superintendents. Both were unmarried, very quiet, terrific drinkers and painfully shy. There was also Cecil Morehead, six feet seven inches tall, considered the best "faller" in the country, also unmarried, very quiet, a terrific drinker and painfully shy. Whenever any of these three got drunk enough they might drive up to see us. Once Tom decided he would like an eggnog and came up to ask me if I would make it. Of course I said that I would, whereupon he went out to his car and returned with a water bucket of eggs, a gallon of cream and a gallon of whiskey.

I said, "Do you want me to make enough for the whole camp, Tom?"

"Oh, no, Betty," he said. "I have kind of a headache and thought an eggnog would taste good. I thought I might as well bring enough stuff for us all to have one."

Mike was the same. Sometimes he would come up and bring steaks for me to cook. They were invariably two inches thick and each large enough for six hungry people. Mike always brought two apiece. The day after one such occasion I took one of the steaks to Mrs. Hicks and two to Mrs. Kettle and had to stand helplessly by and watch each good lady place the beautiful tender steaks in a cold skillet over a slow fire with lots of chopped onions and carrots. I knew without being there that by dinner every speck of juice would have been drawn out and the steaks would be gray and chewy like pieces of a thick wet blanket. Once I suggested to Mrs. Kettle that steak put into a very hot pan and cooked over a hot fire was more tender and kept its juices. She said, "Not for me, lady. I've et steaks cooked that way in restaurants and they was all bloody. We likes our meat cooked through. Clean through!"

One time Tom took Bob and me to a poker game at a company house. We watched for a while; then Tom took out a roll of bills about six inches in diameter, peeled off fifty dollars and said mildly to the banker, "She wants to sit in a hand." I drew to an inside straight, made it and won seventy-two dollars. Everyone groaned when I showed them what I had done and several left in disgust. Bob took my place and lost all but three of my seventy-two dollars.

Late that summer, when there was already beginning to be a tingly feeling of fall in the air, Tom invited us to visit the logging camp and to see his "side" in action. I left Anne with Mrs. Hicks, and Bob and I drove through the mountains to the camp where they were logging. On the way we passed barren ugly hills which had once been beautiful green mountains and saw mile after mile of slashings, ugly, dry as tinder and inexcusable. The small companies were careless and wasteful in their logging, but their attempts at destruction were feeble and unimportant compared to the wholesale devastation this company left in its wake.

I was surprised at the size of the camp. It was like a small town. There were stores, bunkhouses, mess halls, equipment sheds, shower houses and offices on one side of the road. On the other were forty or fifty company houses for married men and their families. All of the buildings were brown with white trimmings and many of the houses had white picket fences around their yards.

Tom was waiting for us and introduced us to the general superintendent, the timekeeper and several other officials. Then we climbed aboard the train and rode up into the mountains. The train was a long string of flat cars which hauled logs from the woods to Docktown Bay. We stood on the steps of the cab while the loggers rode on the cars. The skidder was a very large steam donkey run by oil instead of wood—as were the small donkeys—and mounted on track. The skidder had a spar and there was a spar tree in the woods. By means of steel cables and drums the logs were whisked into the air and loaded on the flat cars. There was a man in the cab of the skidder, who, according to the signals from the whistle punk, "backed up easy," "held everything" and "highballed." There may have been other signals I have since forgotten. I watched the choker men and the hooktender fasten the chokers on a log as the hooktender yelled signals to the whistle punk. "Whoo!" shouted the hooktender. The whistle punk snapped his clacker, which was connected to the skidder by an electric wire, and the whistle went "Toot!" The man in the cab let out a little more cable or backed up or did whatever the whistle directed.

When the chokers had been fastened and everything was ready, the chokermen and the hooktenders scrambled back out of the way, the hooktender yelled "Whoo, whoo, whoo!" The Whistle Punk clacked three times, the skidder answered "Toot, toot, toot!" and the great log was jerked into the air, where it swung and swayed for a few minutes. Then away it "highballed" toward the skidder and the train. It was very exciting to watch, but I was scared to death when Tom insisted that I take the electric signal from the whistle punk and operate it myself. I was so nervous that I signaled "highball" when the hooktender wanted a little slack and the chokers were not set. The men down by the log shouted and Tom grabbed the clacker and signaled "hold everything." I could hear the loggers shouting, "Well, of all the goddamned snivelling little . . ." Then Tom called out, "Watch the language, fellows, there's a lady here." I was very embarrassed and glad to leave before the loggers could scramble up to find out "what in hell was going on." As we walked up the road to the train I could hear the muted but vehement cursing of the men when they found out a "woman" had been monkeying with the whistle.

Working in my garden the next day, I heard the familiar "Toot, toot!" from the logging camp and I thought complacently, "A little too much line, jerk her back a foot or so." Later on I heard the mournful wail of the whistle signaling an accident and my distress was even more acute than before, because now I knew more of the men, had seen where they worked, had been shown some of the dangers. But I didn't know until two weeks later that the call had been for our dear friend Cecil who had been hit on the head by a falling limb. He came to see us when he got out of the hospital, his head still swathed in bandages. "Cracked my head like an egg," he told us cheerfully. "That limb hit me so hard on the head it drove my feet six inches into the ground, they tell me. All I remember is shouting 'Timbah!' then waking up in the hospital with a helluva headache." They patched his head with steel plates and, except for a more or less continuous headache, he was as good as new, but his logging days were over.