Fields of Home (15 page)

16

I Learn to Draw a Temper

T
HE
first Monday morning after Grandfather sent me home, I found a job, delivering bundles for a store in Boston, but I didn’t work there long. Grandfather wrote both Mother and Uncle Levi that he was sick in bed and needed me. At the end of the first week, I said I’d go back to take care of the chores, but that I’d only stay till he was well again.

When I got off the trolley car in Lisbon Falls, I didn’t follow the road all the way to the fourcorners. I cut across the ridge, and came out into the lane at the top of Grandfather’s orchard. I hurried down the lane, through the barnyard, and rolled the back barn door open a couple of feet. There was a clattering of hoofs and shouting as I stepped in, and Grandfather’s head popped out of the yella colt’s stall. “Why, why, why, it’s Ralphie!” he sang out, dropped the bridle, and came running toward me. “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie! Your old grampa’s powerful glad to see you, boy! How be you? How’s Mary? How’s the children? Gorry sakes! I was just a-fixing to hitch up the hosses and go to plowing.”

I didn’t know just what to say, and blurted out, “I thought you were sick in bed.”

“I was! I was! Tarnal sick! Had to have the doctor, but I’m better now. Gorry sakes! Millie’s going to be a’most as glad to see you as I be. Come on to the house whilst she fixes us a nice good cup of tea.”

If Millie was glad to see me, she didn’t show it. When we came through the summer kitchen, she was standing in the pantry doorway with both hands on her hips. “Well, I see you come back,” she said. “Wa’n’t there nothing you could find to do off to Boston?”

“Yes,” I said. “I had a good job, but Uncle Levi asked me to come back here till Grandfather got well again. We thought he was still sick in bed.”

“Ought to be abed right now,” Millie snapped. “Ain’t been feeling chipper since he come home from reunion. How’s Levi?”

“Fine,” I told her. “He sent presents for both of you. They’re in this big bundle with the fruit.”

“Stand aside! Stand aside!” Grandfather yapped at her. “Poor boy’s all tuckered out a-fetching this stuff up from the Falls. Set the teapot for’ards!” He pushed by her, gave the bundle a swing, and landed it on the kitchen table. While they were looking at the things Uncle Levi had sent, I changed to my working clothes and went to the barn.

The yella colt was almost completely spoiled again. He snapped at me the minute I went near his stall, and I had to use the currycomb in good shape before he’d let me harness him. Grandfather was coming from the house when I led the team out into the dooryard, and the yella colt was still snapping and dancing a jig. “Take care! Take care the yella colt, Ralphie!” Grandfather called as he came. “How in thunderation did ever you get harness on him? Been so all-fired cranky of late, couldn’t nobody get next nor nigh him.”

“He’ll be all right in a day or two,” I called back. “All he needs is a few days’ work. What field are you going to plow in?”

“High field,” Grandfather told me. “Got to, to save the dressing. What in thunderation did ever you put so much on there for? Didn’t I tell you dressing was scarce this year?”

“Yes, but you said to haul forty or fifty loads, too. And to spread it even, and heaviest on the top crown of the hill.”

“Didn’t tell you to spread it so tarnal fine you couldn’t rake none of it off, did I? How in thunderation many loads did you waste on that wore-out old field? Looks like a quarter part of all I had saved up is gone out of the barn cellar.”

“Just about,” I said. “I hauled exactly forty-seven loads. But it wouldn’t be wasted if that field was put into straw . . . ”

“Don’t tell me! Get them hosses onto the plow! Half the morning’s all frittered away a’ready.”

“All right,” I said. “Where is the plow? I’ve never seen one around here.”

“Where is it! Why, right in the sheep barn where it always is. Where else would it be?” He’d been almost shouting, but his voice dropped down, and he asked, “Did I put the top back on that beehive I was looking at this morning? Going to take a tarnal mess of hunting if ever I run down that swarm you and Millie drove off whilst I was gone to encampment.” Grandfather had started off toward the beehives, but he stopped and called back to me, “Fetch the plow to the high field, Ralphie! Your old grampa’ll be along in a jiffy.”

The plow was in the sheep barn all right; three-quarters buried in the straw and manure. There was no clevis for the doubletrees, it was thick with rust, one handle was cracked, and the point on the share was as blunt as a hog’s nose. I stopped to find a clevis, screw an iron plate onto the handle, and scrape a little of the rust from the moldboard. Then, when I was ready to start for the high field, the yella colt decided to put on a show. The second he heard the doubletrees dragging behind his heels, he acted as if he were trying to kick a hole in the sky. Not even a wire on his ears would stop him. He didn’t balk, but at every forward step, he kicked both heels higher than my head. I was sure Grandfather would send me right back home if he caught me, but there was only one thing to do. I unhitched the colt, tied him, and went to the barn for a piece of rope.

Grandfather was still down at the beehives. When I went back to the sheep barn, I hitched the old horse to the plow again, passed an end of the rope around a hind leg, knotted a loop in it, and let it slip down around his fetlock. I tied the other end low on the cannon of his outside foreleg, picked up the lines, and clucked. The yella colt hesitated half a second, as if he was deciding just what to do, then took a quick step forward and kicked. Half a second later, he was lying flat on his side. His head popped up, like a diving duck’s coming out of the water, and he looked all around to see what had happened to him. After the third dumping, he kept his heels down, but he pranced all the way to the high field. Grandfather must have seen us going up the hill by the orchard. When I looked back, he had left the beehives, and he and Old Bess were coming slowly across the hayfield.

I’d driven team for Father when he plowed, and we always started a field from the center. That way, the horses didn’t tread over the already-plowed ground at the corners. Father and I had always counted the steps across each end of a field, and set up a marker stake where it would be the same distance from each side and the end. By making the first furrow between the two stakes, the plowing would come out even all around the field. While I was waiting for Grandfather, I tied the horses, found a couple of marker sticks, and began stepping off the high field. I was right in the middle of it, when he shouted, “What kind of games be you up to now? Thought Mary sent you down here to help me plow.”

I didn’t like his shouting at me before I’d been back two hours, and answered, “No, sir. Uncle Levi asked me to come down and help out till you got well again. But now I’m here, I’ll help you plow if you want me to. I’ve got this end of the field nearly stepped off.”

“You’ve what?” Grandfather shouted, and yanked the yella colt’s hitch line off the post where I’d tied it.

“I’ve stepped off this end of the field.”

“What kind of tarnal fool business is that? Come over here and take these reins! Gitap! Gitap!”

When Grandfather yelled, “Gitap,” the yella colt lunged forward, stopped, and went into a fit of kicking. At every kick, he was jumping about a foot backwards, and was going right toward the tipped-down plow. Instead of throwing the plow over, Grandfather ducked out of the way himself and shouted louder. “Gitap! Gitap! Whoa! Whoa, you tarnal fool hoss! Whoa, I tell you!”

I ran as fast as I could, grabbed the reins out of Grandfather’s hands, and whaled the ends of them down across the yella colt’s rump, just as his heels smashed the spreader bar between the plow handles. The colt looked around when I hit him, and must have remembered the kick rope. He jumped forward beside Old Nell and stood dancing.

“What in time and tarnation did you go fiddle-faddling off and leave your hosses for?” Grandfather stormed at me. “Ain’t I told you time and again the colt’s high-strung? Now look what you done to the plow!”

I didn’t look what I’d done to the plow. I looked right at Grandfather. Then I turned and started toward the gap in the stonewall. “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie,” he said, before I’d taken more than three steps. “Your old grampa didn’t cal’late on being cross to you. Never seen a critter in all my born days so contrary as that tarnal colt. There’s times he riles me.”

“There are times I get riled, too,” I said, as I turned and looked back at him.

“’Course you do! ’Course you do, Ralphie! Tarnal fool hoss would rile a saint. Do you cal’late we could patch the old plow up with a stick and a piece of fence wire? Might get three–four-half-a-dozen turns about the field afore noontime.”

We fixed the plow so that it would hold together all right, but we only plowed two furrows around the field before noon, and I nearly ground my teeth flat. There were more and larger rocks under the ground than on top. Grandfather wouldn’t drive the horses and let me plow, and he was still too weak to have been plowing in any sort of ground. With the share point as dull as it was, the handles thrashed around like tree limbs in a storm. Grandfather was thrown from one side to the other and, at every rock the size of a football, was pitched up onto the crossbar. With every pitch, he yelled at me to watch what I was doing and stop trying to stave up everything on the place. If he wasn’t scolding me, he was yelling either, “Gee!” or “Haw!” or “Gitap!” or “Whoa!” at the horses.

Before we’d plowed around the field twice, Grandfather’s shouting had the yella colt as riled as it had me, and set him balking. The first time was just after we’d started the second round. With Grandfather right there, I couldn’t put a wire on the old horse’s ears, so I did the next best thing. I scooped up a handful of loose dirt, held his nostrils closed and, when he opened his mouth, tossed it in. Then I let him stand and spit dirt till he forgot about balking.

The second balk came near the end of the second round. It was getting on toward noon, Grandfather was so tired he was staggering, and I felt as though I’d explode if he yelled at me just once more. Of course, I knew I’d be making a lot of trouble for myself later if I let the yella colt think he had won by balking. If I didn’t, and we tried to make another round, I was sure it would end in my being sent home again, or having to go without being sent. And, though I didn’t know just why, I didn’t want to go. I clucked to the yella colt two or three times, clipped him with the end of the lines, and then looked back at Grandfather. “Unhook him! Unhook him!” he snapped. “Ain’t no sense fussing with the fool hoss once he gets his head sot on balking.” He waited till I’d unhitched the team, then walked away toward the house with Old Bess at his heels.

When I went to the barn, I took the blunted plowshare with me. All I knew about blacksmithing was what I’d learned from watching Uncle Levi and the smith in Littleton, but I thought I could weld a point onto the share. As soon as I’d put the horses up, I built a fire in the forge, buried the share end in the heart of it, and found a short, thick bar of steel to weld on for a point. I pumped the bellows till the pieces were both white hot, then laid the bar over the blunted plowshare point on the anvil, and whanged the heavy hammer down on it. The two pieces stuck together with the first blow, and I kept pounding till I couldn’t see where they joined.

I had to heat the metal twice more before I had it hammered into the shape I wanted. Then, to harden it, I heated it to a bright red and plunged it into a tub of cold water. I hadn’t seen Grandfather since I’d come in from the field, but I was so proud of the job I’d done that I wanted to show it to him. I picked up the plowshare, and had gone as far as the woodshed when I changed my mind. If I lugged the plowshare into the house, I’d only be trying to show him how smart I was. I took it back and laid it on the bench. But I put it where he’d be sure to see it if he came into the carriage house.

Millie called dinner while I was giving the horses their noon grain. Grandfather was already at the table when I went to the house, and he was so tired he could hardly hold up his head. Millie had evidently made a hot toddy when he’d first come in from the field, but he’d only taken a swallow or two and pushed it aside. “What was you hammering at the forge?” he asked, when I’d finished washing.

“I welded a new point on the plowshare,” I told him.

“Temper it soft?” he asked. “Them rocks raises Ned with a brittle point.”

I’d heard Father talk about tempering metal so it would be hard enough to hold an edge. And when I’d asked the blacksmith in Littleton why he dunked hot steel into cold water, he said it was to temper it. I didn’t know what Grandfather meant by tempering it soft, but I answered right back, “Yes, sir, I did a good job on it. It’s on the bench in the carriage house if you want to see it.”

Grandfather rubbed one hand up over his head, and said, “Gorry, Ralphie, your old grampa ain’t as stout as he thought he was. He’s just about all tuckered out.”

I drew a breath to say it would be easier if he drove the team and let me hold the plow. Then I thought what the yella colt might do with Grandfather’s driving, and changed to, “Would it be all right if I tried plowing alone?”