A Part of the Sky (3 page)

Walking toward the house, I felt shameful that there’d be no milk for Mama’s coffee, or for Aunt Carrie’s. They would have to suffer it black. Ahead of me, a frail yellow lantern light in the kitchen said that both women were up, stoking the stove, fixing breakfast. I hoped it’d be fried apples and corn bread. Over my shoulder, I looked back to our little gray barn. How would we afford another cow? We should’ve kept Daisy’s last calf. But it got sold off before Papa died, for ten dollars; part of the bank payment. Into Mama’s teapot.

After breakfast, I went out to the meadow to fetch Solomon, our Holstein ox. Like usual, he grazed near Daisy.

“Come on, Solomon. It’s May. The ground’s free of frost, so today you and I have to turn the cornfield soil for seeding.”

Leading him to the barn was no problem, as my hand on one curving horn was all it took. Our ox was as gentle as he was burly. Even though he weighed closer to two tons than one. About 3200 pounds.

I couldn’t remember a time without Solomon. He was always there, working, sweating, leaning to his single yoke without fit or falter. Solid as barn timber, and more oak than animal. With a shrug
of my shoulders, I don’t guess I could imagine his age. Close to twenty.

Yoked, our big black-and-white ox coasted the plow on its side with no effort, as it was sliding along easy on the dewy meadow grass. In the early morning light, tiny silver spider webs lay every few feet. It was like looking down at a starry sky. Crop ground wasn’t meadowland. Meadow was pasture; its turf was a green quilt of short mounded grass for grazing. But crop acres lay brown and barren, freckled by last season’s corn stubble, like a man needing a shave.

Solomon stood patient while I righted the plow to set the blade. Beneath my bare feet, the ground felt damp, soft, and yielding.

Papa said the earth was a loving woman who wanted seed. Kneeling, I picked up a clod of moist loam and balled it. The soil smelled cool and friendly. Even though it dirtied my hands, as a Shaker I truly respected it; so many ways it fed our family.

Other than almost two acres for hay, we had two acres to plow for a field-corn crop, silage, so plowing didn’t use better than five or six hours of steady work. From a six o’clock first light until noon.

Solomon pulled. Behind his mighty hindquarters,
the silvery plowshare swam through the brown land smooth as a shiner fish. To help guide Solomon, I did something more’n unusual; I fixed a brace of long black-leather reins to the outer tips of his yoke, right and left, and tied the two loose ends behind my back. There was no way to grip them. Both my hands had to guide the curved plow handles.

For forward motion, I barked out a “Hup” to pull, and a “Ho” to whoa him. Like any trained Vermont ox, Solomon would “Gee” right, and “Haw” left.

Yet that wasn’t all Solomon understood. Papa always claimed that he was as wise as King Solomon in our Bible. For me, Solomon seemed to know what to do and how to do it, and suffer the added chore of breaking in a clumsy boy for a workmate.

“Last row,” I later told him under a high sun.

Solomon snorted, as if to say he blessed the idea of a noonday feed with a yoke off, beneath a meadow elm. Some farmers don’t unyoke at noon. Papa always did. He said it was a Shaker’s way, to honor work and all workers. Maybe that was the cause that we Pecks seemed as dear to Solomon as he was to us.

But we didn’t quite complete the final furrow.
Solomon stopped and wouldn’t budge. “Yup,” I commanded him. No response. So I repeated the order in a louder voice, trying to make my thirteen years sound something like Papa’s sixty. “Heeeee-yup!”

Solomon didn’t take another step.

Instead, he mere lowered his head, as though the yoke was sudden too weighty to heft, and fell. Turning loose of the plow handles and then slipping out of the leather rein loop, I hurried to where his big head rested on the yet unplowed ground. He was alive, still breathing, but I sudden realized that old Solomon wouldn’t be pulling a plow, or a wagon, another inch. The ox’s eyes were open. But then, looking closer at them, I saw the graying clouds of winter, and age.

Solomon was near to blind.

Once, and only one time, he turned his soft face toward me, as if to tell me that he was sorry not to finish the furrow. Hurriedly, I yanked out the pair of cotter keys, loosened the bow, and pulled the heavy yoke off his neck. Slowly, barely moving, his proud head lowered to the ground as if to grace its goodness. One deep breath, and then nothing more.

I forgot about my plowing.

All I could make myself do was kneel in the dirt and hold his giant head close to my sweaty-wet shirt. His heat matched the late morning.

“Solomon.” I whispered his name very softly, as if spoken to a violet, so that only God could hear. There was no way to know if oxen have souls. But if any ox did, it was Solomon. Touching him, stroking the sweaty curls on his massive head, I wanted to tell him that to have worked with him wasn’t a task. It was a privilege.

Looking to my left, I could see our little gray shack of a house. Home. Yet inside, Mama and Carrie would be fixing dinner, for noon, and then coming outside to locate me. They’d see us here for certain. But I couldn’t allow that, because the sight would hit them too hard.

I ran. Up, over the hill, all the way down to Mr. and Mrs. Tanner’s big, prosperous farm, to pound at their front door with a mud-stained fist. Mrs. Tanner answered my knock. The door opened. She read my face.

“Rob,” she said. “What is it?”

“It’s our ox,” I panted. “Solomon’s down. And I can’t abide having Mama or Aunt Carrie see him lying so still and turning cold. They both knowed him a spate longer than they knowed me. So, if
it’s all right with you, I’d like to yoke up your two and borrow ’em long enough to drag Solomon off into the trees, out of sight. I can shovel a hole for him, then cover him up proper, under earth. May I please?” I sucked in a breath. “Please. Before all the flies and ants and crows come to peck at him.”

However, before Bess Tanner could answer me, it hit me that I’d failed to ask about Ben, and how he was mending.

“Manners,” I heard Papa’s voice tell me. “A man begins with his manners.”

It was one of his longest sermons. Haven Peck was hardly a man of many words. Yet, at the rare moments he spoke, people (meaning me) seemed to listen up and record it.

“How’s Ben?” I asked Bess, sounding like a feeble apology.

“More ornery than a wet cat,” Bess said. “If you’d cotton to brighten my day, don’t mention his name. He’s the most unpatient patient that Satan ever afflicted.” Bess sighed. “Enough of that. I’m sorry about your ox. Now then, will you be able to yoke Bob and Bib by your lonesome?”

“Yes,” I said, “I have to.”

“Come,” she said, heading for their barn. “I’ll show you where the yoke is. And,” she paused,
“perhaps lend you a hand. Their new yoke is solid hickory. Ben could barely manage it himself, and you know he’s sturdy as a lumber-camp outhouse.”

We almost trotted.

“Rob, go out meadow and bring the oxen in. Remember now, Bob’s always to the left. Bib right. If you lead ’em, that’s how. Walk between ’em and they’ll respond comfortable. Hear?”

“I hear.”

On the grass of meadow pasture, oxen will usual stand in the same fashion they pull. Bob, I figured, was grazing with Bib, his twin, on his right. Neither was full-out growed, but at over a year, both be ample large. Bob slightly blacker. They knew me. After all, the first pull in Bob’s life was when, up on the ridge, I’d pulled him out of Apron’s rump.

Bess helped me yoke, and locate a long metal drag chain. Thanking her, I headed her oxen up and over the ridge to our farm.

It took time. Papa once said, “When a man tries to hurry oxen, he only hurries hisself.”

Mama and Carrie beat me to where Solomon lay cooling. Both of them were stooping near to him, to touch him a good-bye.

“I’m sorry you had to witness him,” I said.

Mama nodded. “Soon’s we did, Carrie and I reasoned where you’d gone to, and why.”

It wasn’t an easy pull for Bob and Bib, because of Solomon’s mature size. Yet the two young Holsteins did for me, willingly, with little urging. We only had two shovels. But my mother and aunt turned stubborn about Solomon’s grave and wouldn’t allow me to dig lonesome. We took turns. You’ll never see women work earth as they done that day.

Nobody spoke.

The three of us dug in a silent acceptance.

Then, after Ben’s oxen dragged Solomon at and into the hole, we spaded dirt over him, adding two crossed twigs for a marker.

But we couldn’t turn our backs on the grave and walk out of our little woods. The May afternoon seemed so quiet, as if adding its own silent psalm. A thrush warbled from high in a red-budding maple. The three of us held hands, dirt and all. Their fingers felt gritty in mine. Frail strength.

Daisy, I was facing up to, might die next. But this weren’t no proper moment to tell my mother and her older sister.

As we stood by the massive mound of earth, Mama, in a quiet voice, spoke a few Shaker words
about how farmers and animals live together, and die together on a shared plot. She recited it all like a hymn that was missing its music.

“The resting of death,” Mama said, “becomes a part of the land, as clouds are a part of the sky.”

4

“Sit still,” my mother ordered.

“I don’t need a haircut. Not tonight.”

Our kitchen was supper hot. Stuffed into Mr. Tanner’s black church shoes and Will Henry’s out-growed blue suit (a gift), I felt hotter.

“And do stop scratching yourself,” said Aunt Matty, who had come to help prepare me for battle. “You’ll disturb the lice.”

“It’s my underwear. It itches like it’s alive and crawling. Going to this dance weren’t
my
idea. Becky Lee Tate promised me that if I took her, she’d somehow coach me so’s I won’t flunk English.”

Years ago, Papa had warned me, “Never go into a kitchen where women are canning.” Well, these three women were doing worse, making me
boil like a clamped mason jar of processing peas.

Behind me, clicking her sewing scissors at my thatch of hair, Mama sighed. “Your first dance.”

“Wrong. My last. I could throttle Will Henry for outliving these duds. Maybe I ought to stand out in a cornfield and play a scarecrow. Besides, I’ve never danced a step. So I hope Becky is wearing shin guards and hard-toe mill shoes.”

Mama said, “It’ll test her courage.”

I winced.

“You’ll have fun,” Mama said, snipping another lock so it would fall inside my collar.

“Will ought to be taking her. After all, it’s sort of his suit. Or used to be. I bet that Grange Hall will be hotter than the Devil’s drawers.”

Aunt Matty, who wasn’t really my aunt, snickered. Aunt Carrie (who was) didn’t. Mama pinched my ear.

“Robert,” she said, “enough of that kind of talking.”

“Sorry, ladies. It’s because my shirt is already sweaty, and I haven’t danced a square inch. Mama, do you
have
to chop my hair? Nobody’s going to notice.”

“Miss Becky might.”

“Stand up,” said Aunt Carrie, approaching me, “so I can right your necktie.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well,” she said, fussing at me, “you’ve got the little end hanging lower than the big end. And your knot’s too bashful.”

“Bashful?”

“Yes. The knot’s trying to hide underneath one of your collar points. It’s too loose. Here, I’ll snug it up.”

“You’re choking me. How’ll I ever kick up a polka, or whatever, if I can’t breathe?”

“For somebody short of breath,” Mama told me, “you certain say more than vespers.”

There I stood, working up a fever, shifting my weight from one borrowed shoe to the other, with Aunt Carrie tugging my tie, and Mama behind, whacking away at my hair. Aunt Matty circled us in a supervising manner, like a cat ready to spring. All this, plus one more worry.

“Golly, maybe Becky is going to recognize Will Henry’s suit. Suppose she does? I’ll die.”

“Now, now,” said my mother. “If she’s a lady, Becky Lee won’t notice. But if she happens to, she won’t let on, or bother.”

“Never did I figure,” I said, “that a dance is
worse than a dentist.” I moaned. “Will’s a good dancer.”

“That’ll be helpful,” said Mama, examining a loose button on my sleeve. “Quite helpful.”

“How so?”

“Because his suit is used to being graceful, no matter who’s inside. So, forget your feet, and allow Will’s talented pantlegs to guide you.”

Her joke made us smile.

Meanwhile, below me on her knees, Aunt Matty stuck another pin in my leg and my trouser cuff. “Your socks don’t match,” she said. “You’re wearing one blue and one green. Yes, I know. You have another pair just like these. And your pants could be let down at least two more inches. They look as if a flood’s coming.”

I grunted. “I ought to go naked.”

“Good idea, Robert,” my mother said. “With no clothes on, nobody’ll notice you at all. Except the constable.”

“All I’m lacking,” I said, “is a sign on my back that reads … 
If you have any gripes on this suit, tell ’em to Will Henry
.”