Fields of Home (14 page)

Really, it wasn’t Grandfather that I cared so much about; it was Uncle Levi. He might think I’d done a good job on the haying just because Grandfather was there to drive me along, and that I was no good unless I was driven. Thinking about Uncle Levi and haying, made me remember the horsefork, and I wished there was some sort of a horsefork for loading manure. Then I had an idea. Riding up on the trolley car from Bath, I’d seen a man spreading manure with a machine. I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but lying there in the dark, I could almost see it working again. At the back of the wagon there had been a big cylinder that spun and threw out an even spray of dressing. I knew that, between the wagon wheels and the cylinder, there had to be some sort of a hook-up to make it spin. And I knew there had to be some way of pushing the load back against the cylinder. I lay there for a long time, trying to figure it out, then I got another idea.

There was a Sears-Roebuck catalog hanging on a string in the corner of the privy, and there were pictures of manure spreaders in it. I felt for the commode, found a sulphur match and struck it. The swelling in my eyes had gone down enough that I could see the flame clearly with either one of them. I got up, pulled on my overalls, took the card of matches, and tiptoed downstairs. I took the lantern from the summer kitchen, but didn’t light it until I was around the corner of the woodshed.

Old Bess came out, licked the ends of my fingers, and begged soft in her throat to be petted. I just stopped long enough to pat her head a couple of times, and went on to the privy.

There were half a dozen pictures of manure spreaders in the catalog, all different, but from them I could see just what made the machines work. The cylinder part wouldn’t be too hard to rig up, but I couldn’t figure out any way to make a moving wagon bottom to push the load back. All I could do was to rig a cylinder at the back end of the dumpcart, then, by tipping it up a little, let the load slide back by itself. Since I was left-handed, my swollen right one wouldn’t bother me too much in doing work with hand tools. And, with a manure spreader, I might get thirty or thirty-six loads hauled before Grandfather came home. I took the lantern and went prowling around to see what I could find for a cylinder, an axle shaft for it, and drive chains to make it spin.

The only thing I could find that was round enough and the right size for a cylinder was an old oak log. It was ten or twelve feet long, lying propped up on a couple of pieces of cord wood, and was pretty heavy. I’d only need about four feet of it, and thought the weight would help in keeping the cart body tipped back. After I’d gone down to the barn cellar and measured the dumpcart, I got the big crosscut saw from the carriage house, and cut a piece just the right length off the end of the log. The sawing took quite a while. It made my right hand hurt, but I didn’t have to use my fingers, and got along all right.

The sky was getting gray in the east when I figured out a way to make the shaft and bearings. There was an old buggy with the other wrecked equipment behind the sheep barn. The wheels were all broken, but the hubs were whole, and it had a steel rear axle. By hacksawing a foot off each end of it, I could mount the hubs in the sideboards of the dumpcart and use them for bearings. Then I’d only have to bore the right-sized hole into the center of each end of the log, drive in the pieces of steel buggy axle, and I’d have as good a shaft as anyone could ask for.

I had one end sawed off the buggy axle when Millie came out and caught me. She raised more hullabaloo and called me more kinds of fool boy than Grandfather ever had. Before she’d quiet down and say she’d help me, I had to remind her that she’d thought the horsefork was a fool idea, too. I even had to make her believe that the bees’ getting away was mostly her fault, that I’d have had the dressing all hauled by the end of the week if I hadn’t been stung, and that I couldn’t get the job done now without a machine.

We worked hard enough during the day that we didn’t have much time to think about bee stings, and by late afternoon we had a manure spreader. It wasn’t a fancy one, but it would work. We’d driven more than a hundred spikes into the cylinder log for teeth, had rigged a sprocket on a wheel hub to turn the spinning chain, and had fastened blocks and tackle on the front end of the cart body so we could adjust the amount of the tip-up we needed. The only real trouble came when I tried to spread the first load. As soon as all the weight had slid back behind the wagon axle, it lifted the front wheels higher than the horses’ backs. We had to chain what was left of the oak log over the front axle to hold the wheels down. Aside from the yella colt’s raising Cain until he got used to the spinning cylinder, we didn’t have any more real trouble with the spreader, but Millie had to drive while I tended the tackle and kept the load sliding right.

Millie was so worried about all the time I’d lost that she would have helped me pitch dressing if I’d let her. She did all the chores, both morning and evening, and held the lantern for me after dark. With the spreader doing all the real work of unloading, I got a twenty-minute rest after each load I had to pitch on. In that way, I could work about as fast as I could swing a fork, and, both of the first two nights, we kept right at it till ten o’clock. On our third day—the last one we had to go—we hauled our forty-seventh load out of the barn cellar just at sunset. When we had it spread, the high stony field was covered from wall to wall with a smooth, even blanket of dressing.

15

Grandfather Sends Me Home

I
’D PLANNED
to back the dumpcart into the farthest corner of the barn cellar, take the spreader part off, and have it hidden out of sight before we quit work, but we didn’t get it done. Both Millie and I were so tired we were ready to fall asleep, and we still had the evening chores to finish. Grandfather’s train wouldn’t be in until half-past eight in the morning. That would give us a couple of hours of daylight before I left to meet him, and would be all the time needed.

Millie got supper ready while I took care of the horses, and did the milking while I finished the rest of the chores. After we’d washed the dishes, we took our lamps and started to bed. I’d only gone halfway up the stairs when I heard Grandfather call, “Hi, hi, hi, children!” from the driveway. I set my lamp down on the stairs, and Millie and I went running out to meet him. He was trudging up the driveway with his valise in one hand and a big bundle in the other. “Gorry sakes alive, children,” he called out, “it’s tarnal good to be home again. Fred Folsom fetched me out and left me off at the roadway. Took an early train. Couldn’t stay no longer.”

He didn’t answer when I asked if he’d had a good time, but dropped his bundle and bag, drew a deep breath, and said, “By thunder, don’t that smell good? Don’t see why folks wants to live way off in them nasty-smelling cities.”

I had hauled enough dressing that I didn’t think I’d ever smell anything else again, but I took a long deep breath. There was hay and pine and a whiff of wood smoke mixed in with the barn smell. It did smell good, and I said, “I don’t know, either. I don’t like cities.”

Grandfather put an arm around each of us, squeezed a little, and said, “Millie girl, I fetched you an all-fired pretty present.” Then he looked up at me, and said, “Seen Mary whilst I was gone. Told her you was doing first-rate.”

Mother had written me three letters, but she’d never told me what she’d written to Grandfather, so I asked, “Did she tell you why I came down here?”

“Tell me?” he snapped. “Why so’s your old grampa could make a man out of you. Why else? Now you fetch my stuff along, Ralphie. That’s where the presents is.” Then he dropped his arm from my waist and walked on with Millie.

They’d reached the back corner of the house when Old Bess came running from the direction of the barn. She must have been out hunting when she heard Grandfather’s voice. She was panting, and smelled pretty strong of skunk, but he dropped to his knees and held his arms out for her. She came into them with a rush, and it looked exactly as if she were hugging him. Both her forepaws were on his shoulders, and she nuzzled her head close against his neck. He wasn’t saying any words to her, but they were both making the same sort of crooning sounds in their throats.

Millie hurried right into the kitchen to push the teapot forward on the stove and poke up the fire, and I followed her with Grandfather’s things. I’d brought my lamp from the stairs, and steam was rising from the teapot before he came in. The moon had gone behind a cloud and it was dark enough outside that I hadn’t noticed anything strange about Grandfather. When he stepped into the lamplight, he almost frightened me for a moment. He looked as if he’d been hung out in the hot sun until he’d shrunk nine sizes. Millie saw him the same second I did. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she just stood there by the stove and stared at him.

It took me a couple of minutes to realize what had happened. His bushy whiskers had been trimmed close to his cheeks, and into a little pointed cone at his chin. His hair was clipped so short that his Grand Army hat pushed the tops of his ears out, and his eyebrows were just rows of sandy stubble. He had on a blue suit that was big enough for a man once and a half his size. The collar stood away from his neck an inch, and only the tips of his fingers showed at the ends of his sleeves. The bottoms of the pants were under the heels of his shoes, and the extra cloth in the legs hung in folds like the loose skin on an elephant. White dog hair was plastered all over his chest and shoulders, and his knees looked as though he’d crawled up from the Falls on them.

“I’ve et! I’ve et! I’ve et!” he was saying, as he came into the kitchen doorway, but when he saw us staring at him, he stopped and looked up and down the front of himself. “Gorry,” he said, as he shook the sleeves back from his hands and dabbed at the dog hair. “Old Bess must be a-shedding.” Then he peeked up and grinned, “Bought me a new suit of clo’se. Got a real good trade on it off to Portland. Didn’t want to go down to encampment not looking prosperous.”

I couldn’t tell him the suit looked good, and all I could think to say was, “You got a haircut, too, didn’t you?”

Grandfather brushed his hands up across his cheeks so that the stubble whistled, “Neat, ain’t it?” he asked. “Fred Folsom, he kept after me, and I got it in the station at Philadelphy. Barber was asking half a dollar and wouldn’t make no better trade, so I dealt for a close job.”

Millie had reached for the corn broom on the fireplace mantel. As Grandfather was telling about his haircut, she made a couple of brushes at the dirty knees of his pants, but he stopped her. “Leave be! Leave be!” he snapped, and went over to the sofa. “Here, Ralphie! Fetch me my parcel! That’s where the presents is.”

I was pretty sure Grandfather always brought Millie a present whenever he went away. Her eyes were as bright as new pennies, and she could hardly keep her fingers from helping him as he picked the knots. I think he was teasing her a little. The knots didn’t look too tight, but he kept fiddling with them till Millie put her hands out and said, “Let me do it, Thomas.”

“Take care! Take care!” he snapped, but he followed it with a cackling laugh and slipped the knot apart. Inside the bundle, his old suit was folded with the pants around the coat. The lapels were short and stubby, and he must have had it long before I was born. When he’d turned the wrapping paper back, he rubbed his hand over the cloth, and seemed to be talking more to himself than to Millie and me. “Ain’t scarcely wore out at all,” he said. “Didn’t need a new suit of clo’se . . . but I couldn’t go a-wearing Rebel gray to Union encampment.”

Then he peeked up again at Millie, grinned, and threw the coat open to show the doubled fold of bright red and white calico. The piece was four or five yards long. Before Grandfather gave it to Millie, he sort of measured it out with his hands and looked it all over. There was a peculiar smell about it, and a black smudge near one end. Grandfather rubbed the smudge on the front of his coat, and looked at it again. “’Tain’t nothing that won’t wash right out,” he said, “and I got a powerful good trade on it, Millie. There’s buttons somewheres. Made him throw ’em in to close the deal.” He moved the cloth along to a clean place, held it up against Millie’s apron, and nodded his head in a little quick jerk, as he said, “By gorry, Millie girl, you’re a-going to look awful pretty when you get that made up into a dress. Let me see. Let me see what he done with them buttons . . . pearl, they was.”

Millie was as tickled with the calico as if it had been pure silk. While Grandfather was rummaging for the buttons, she draped the cloth around her shoulders, rolled the edge back like a collar, and held it in a low V on her chest. She did look pretty, and I was watching her peer into the darkened window-pane, when Grandfather shouted, “There, by thunder, Ralphie! I fetched you a present will be awful comforting come winter. Heft ’em in your hand. Them’ll be powerful warm inside felt boots come zero weather.” When I looked back, he was holding up a pair of white wool socks by the toes. They weren’t exactly white; there were big gray blotches on them and they smelled stronger of smoke than the calico. But they were heavy and I knew they would be warm. Grandfather wrinkled up his nose a little. “Stink, don’t they?” he said, “but a good airing’ll fix that. Made a mighty fine trade on ’em . . . twenty-two cents . . . couldn’t raise the wool for that.” All the time he was holding my socks up with one hand, he was fishing in the bundle with the other. At last he pulled the card of pearl buttons out of the old coat pocket and held them up. Millie was still looking at herself in the windowpane and moving the calico into different shapes, when Grandfather sang out, “There! There! There they be, Millie girl! Mark how they catch the light. By gorry, you’ll be pretty as ary queen.”

In between helping me in the field, Millie had spent the whole day cooking and baking things Grandfather liked to eat. The red Astrachan apples had just begun to ripen. She’d picked wild strawberries to put in them, and made pies that were pink all the way through. She didn’t pay any attention to Grandfather’s having said he’d eaten, but put cups and plates on the table and brought one of her pies from the back kitchen. While she was doing it, I was trying to get Grandfather to tell me about Gettysburg. “Gettysburg?” he said, “Why ’tain’t changed none to speak about. Same hills and valleys . . . same stonewalls . . . Ralphie, did ever you ride on them subway cars off to Boston?”

“Sure,” I told him. “That’s the only quick way to get anywhere in Boston.”

“Gorry!” he said, “Go like sixty, don’t they? Mary took I and Fred on ’em . . . miles and miles.” He sat for two or three full minutes, looking at a pine knot that stood higher than the rest of the floor. Then, more to himself than to me, he said, “What in thunder you cal’late they done with all the dirt?”

Millie had cut half a dozen shapes like strawberries in the top crust of the pie, and the pink juice showing through made them look almost real. Before she set it on the table, she tipped the pie down for Grandfather to see. “Gorry sakes alive, strawb’ry pie!” he sang out and jumped for his chair at the table.

We sat there till the clock on the fireplace mantel struck twelve. Grandfather didn’t want to go to bed without telling us all about encampment. But, as it grew later, it was harder for him to keep awake, and easier for him to get the encampment mixed with the other times he had been at Gettysburg. Right in the middle of telling us about a new museum; his head nodded forward a few inches. He jerked it up quick, and said, “I seen him, Ralphie! Nigh as here to the barn . . . tall, with sparse whiskers . . . riding a big black mare . . . awkward-like . . . A parson, name of Hale, done most the talking . . . ” When we were sure he was sound asleep, his head came halfway up, and he mumbled, “Ralphie, did ever you ride them subway cars off to Boston?”

After Grandfather went to bed, Millie and I had decided to get up at the crack of dawn, take the spreader parts off the dumpcart, hide them, and not tell him anything about the bees till he’d seen what a good job we’d done spreading dressing. It didn’t work that way. He got up as soon as I came downstairs in the morning, and the first place he went was to the beehives. I was slopping the hogs when he yelled, “Wa’n’t the last thing I told you, to watch them bees ’cause they was nigh onto swarming?”

“No, sir,” I said. “The last thing you told me was that you expected me to haul forty or fifty loads of . . . ”

“Don’t tell me what I said! Where’s Millie at? Where’s my bee hat? Where’d they go off to?”

If he hadn’t been so mad, he’d have seen Millie climbing down over the yard wall, and heard her trying to tell him that we’d done all we could to save the swarm. Instead, he was storming at me, “Scatterbrain, woolgathering boy! Why don’t you give heed to what I tell you? Where’s Millie? Where in thunder’s my bee hat?”

He didn’t wait to see if I was going to answer him, and he didn’t even look at Millie as he brushed past her and clambered up over the yard wall. When he reached the top, he shouted, “What in the great thunderation’s been going on here whilst I been gone? Where’s that oak log out of the parent tree Father clim?”

I looked at Millie, and she looked scared. There was nothing else to do, so I said, “I had to use it for the manure spreader.”

“You
what
?” he shouted back.

“I had to use it for the cylinder on the man . . . ”

That, and the foot of the yard wall, was as far as I got. Grandfather’s face was as red as fire and the point of his beard stuck out like a quivering spearhead. “You done
what
?”

I didn’t like having him yell that way, and I said—good and loud—“I had to fix a manure spreader so it would be easier to . . . ”

“Easier! Easier!” he howled. “Wuthless, good-for-nothing boy! Can’t think of nothing but easier!”

We’d left the dumpcart well outside the barn-cellar doors, and I think Grandfather spied it just as I hollered back at him, “If you’d just wait and see . . . ”

“See! See!” he shouted. “What do you think I be? Blind?”

The yard wall was nearly as high as my head, but Grandfather jerked the axe out of the chopping block, jumped off over the edge with it and headed straight for the dumpcart.

“Can’t you wait till you see how much better job it does than you can do by hand?” I called after him.

He didn’t say a word till he had bent over half the spikes; knocked one bearing all to pieces, and broken the chain.

“I been farming this place for nigh onto fifty years, and I don’t need no tarnal fool boy a-telling me what’s better and how to do it. Get out of here! Go off! Go off home afore you stave up the whole tarnal place!”