Fields of Home (21 page)

“West end of the pasture now; ’twixt the orchard wall and the hidden field,” Uncle Levi told me. “Might happen that could be the field where Thomas could win his war. Father and my half brothers, Niah and Stephan and Jacob, cleared all the fields, ’cepting only that one. That’s how come Thomas left that field to be the one to slip back to wilderness. Couldn’t find it in him to let a field go that Father’d cleared.”

“How could he win his war on a field?” I asked. “I thought you said his war was all inside of him.”

“’Tis! ’Tis! If ’twa’n’t, there wouldn’t be no war. Thomas, he’s like ary other man in lots of ways. Wants to leave his mark on the face of the earth when he’s gone. Father left the wilderness field for Thomas to clear. We done it once; him and I. Took us nigh onto three years. Thomas ain’t sure there’s three years left to him.”

“I still don’t know what field you mean,” I said. “It couldn’t be the far west end of the pasture. That land is still covered as thick as a spatter with rocks the size of a rain barrel.”

Uncle Levi looked up at me across the top of his glasses. “Don’t you know where rocks comes from?” he asked.

“Well,” I told him, “I read in my geography book that they were left by the glaciers when they melted.”

“By hub, must a-been one of them cussed glaciers melt atop the whole state of Maine. Hmmmm, hmmmm. Could be that’s where they come from, but it ain’t what makes ’em such a pesky nuisance. Frost! Frost heaves ’em up every winter. Pick a field clean as a whistle in the fall and, come spring, it’ll be peppered thick again. ’Cepting for a few great boulders, there wa’n’t a stone the size of your fist left on that field forty years agone. Mostly, Maine land’s a struggle ’twixt man and the wilderness. Clear it and turn your back on it, and in a few years the wilderness will crowd in and claim it again.”

Uncle Levi sat looking at his hands for a minute or two, then said, “By hub, I’m glad this meeting ’twixt you and me come about. Curious, ain’t it? You recollect, when first I come down to the old farm in haying, Thomas and you and me a-setting in the kitchen after supper?”

“The night I was soaking my blisters and we all went to sleep?”

“Mmmhmm. Thomas a-setting with his feet in the oven.”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“Recollect what he said to you?”

I had to stop and think for a minute. “Well, I remember that he said the bull bellowed something awful when the barn burned.”

“Mmmhmm. What else did he say to you? Didn’t catch it all myself. Must have been dozing.”

“Why, if I remember right, he said something about the new barn being twenty-some feet shorter than the old one, and that we were going to build the piece back on.”

“That’s the ticket! Now we’re getting someplace.”

“Maybe so,” I said, “but I don’t see how that has anything to do with Grandfather’s battle.”

“You don’t, don’t you? I didn’t neither till two minutes agone. I ought to had sense enough to seen through this afore ever Frankie went off to learn a trade.”

“I guess I’m dumb,” I told him, “but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why do you calc’late Thomas has been so cussed ugly?” he asked me. “Why do you calc’late he’s come to be a man that can’t get along with hisself nor nobody else? Why do you s’pose he don’t want nobody to come to the old place? What makes him so tarnation stingy the devil hisself wouldn’t want him? Great day of judgment!”

“Maybe it’s the malaria,” I said.

“Some. Some. But that ain’t the half of it. How would you feel if your father’d left you a job of work to do, like putting the wilderness field under the plow, and the day was fast coming when you’d be a-going to meet your father, and you’d have to look him in the eye and tell him the job wa’n’t done? How’d you feel if you’d made your mark on the earth; built the biggest barn in all the country roundabouts, and fire had burnt it down, and you knowed you couldn’t build it back alone, and through your own cantankerousness, you’d run off them that could help you do it?”

“Well, I don’t think I’d feel very good about it.”

“Thomas neither! I calc’late it’s been a-gnawing at him like a canker all these twenty years agone; poisoning his in’ards till he heaves it off in spite and meanness. Thomas, he’s like a little kettle with no spout and too tight a lid. Never learnt to talk with other folks and leave off his steam wisp by wisp; holds it back till the lid blows off and the nearest one gets scalded. Scrouge and scrimp, squeeze and hoard up a few pennies so’s’t he’ll have something to pass on to his children ’cepting a wore-out old farm in the place of the fertile one Father left him.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I’ve been scalded. But what can I do to help it?”

“I ain’t certain. Ain’t certain of a blessed thing, but there’s a pill I’d for certain like to try on him. S’posing we was to get him all het up on you and him a-clearing the wilderness field again, and building back onto the barn. Ain’t nothing in the Almighty’s world he’d sooner have to look back on, come his time to go. That is, if I been calc’lating right, here. There’s lots of foolish things Thomas does, but he ain’t foolish. He’ll know there ain’t a living ghost of a chance of you a-doing it the way we done it afore. He’ll know . . . give him time to study it out by hisself . . . you got to have the tools to do the job.

“’Pears to me a man will generally always—given his chance—take the thing he wants the most. If we can make Thomas want the clearing of the wilderness field and the building of the barn more’n he hates contraptions, it might haply be we could help to swing the tide of the war. Great day! We better get out of here afore they mop us up for leftovers. Here it is nigh onto two o’clock in the morning, and it don’t seem like we been here no time at all. It’s a God’s wonder you ain’t fell asleep long ago. Ain’t you going to finish your victuals?”

The next morning I found a boy to take my elevator job, and that evening, the whole family came in to the wharf with me when I took the boat for Bath. Uncle Levi was there with as many bundles as he could carry, and he bought me a ticket for a stateroom up on the deck of the ship. After the man had called, “
All Ashore That’s Going Ashore
,” and Mother and the other children had started for the gangplank, Uncle Levi popped his head back into my room and whispered, “Don’t say nothing to Thomas ’bout the pill business till I get down there. ’Twon’t be no longer’n I can help. Might try a-getting him to wisp off steam a trifle as he goes, ’stead of building up too big a head. Keep your nose clean.”

I’d planned to go out on the deck and watch the lights of Boston fade away as the ship sailed out of the harbor, but I didn’t do it. As soon as everyone was gone, I realized I was awfully tired, and thought I’d lie down for just a few minutes while we pulled away from the pier. The next thing I knew, the ship was quiet, there was only the gentle pulsing of the engines, and pale gray light showed at the window. I still had all my clothes on, so I slid off the bunk, and went out on the deck.

It was gray dawn, and not a breath of air was stirring. The water lay like a great table top with a blue-gray silk scarf spread over it. A light mist rose from the water, and through it I could see dozens of islands, like big handfuls of dark green leaves dropped here and there on the scarf. The only living thing seemed to be the wide wake, like a great, white-flecked sea serpent following us through the water.

There was only one man on the deck, and from his blue uniform and white cap, I knew he must be an officer of the ship. He was leaning his elbows at the side rail, and looking off toward the islands. I wanted to be all alone, so I walked up the passageway on the other side of the ship, past the rows of cabins, and almost to the very peak of the bow. Then I leaned on the rail, too.

From there, I could feel, more than hear, the engines. It was almost as though the ship were alive, but sleeping, and its heart was beating slow and steady in its breast. The only real sound was the whisper of water, as the prow slid forward. For me, it was like that moment just before church service . . . when you’re waiting for the organ to sing out, “Praise God from whom . . . ”

So slowly that I didn’t know it was happening, the daylight grew stronger and the mist drew back into the water. The islands became clearer. I could see shoulders of rock at their water lines, and dark green pines covering their domes. Off to the left, the hills of the mainland seemed to be gliding toward us across the surface of the water. They rolled down in great curving folds to the shore. And as they came nearer, birches stood clear and white against the black-green background of the pines.

I had always thought that nothing could be as beautiful as the Rocky Mountains, west of Denver, when the first rays of sunlight caught their peaks. For me, there had always been excitement and glory in their strength and roughness. They always made me want to shout and clench my fists and sing. Here on the ship, leaning against the rail, with the wooded hills and islands gliding toward me across the still water, the feeling was entirely different. I wanted to be quiet and alone. It must have come gradually like the daylight, because I only came to realize slowly that the Lord’s Prayer was going over and over in my mind.

Off to the right, about half a mile away, the islands grew larger and higher. Then the sun touched the tops of pines along the ridge. I knew it must be mainland, and that we were moving into the mouth of a great river. When I looked back from watching the sunlight grow along the ridge, the blue-uniformed officer was leaning on the rail beside me. He was an old man. His face was lean and leathery, with deep lines, and it was as calm as I felt inside. He must have known the way I was feeling, because his voice was just above a whisper when he said, “Kennebec. Pretty, ain’t it?”

I couldn’t have spoken out loud right then, and whispered back, “Yes. Beautiful.”

He didn’t say anything more till we’d stood there five or six minutes, and there was only the pulse of the engines as we came into the river itself. Then he laid his hand on my shoulder for a moment, and said, “Maine blood in ye, ain’t there, lad? Man can always tell it.” I just nodded, and he walked away as quietly as he had come.

22

Homecoming

T
HE
trolley ride from Bath to Lisbon Falls seemed longer than ever before. I didn’t go to Grandfather’s by either the ridge road or the county road. At the edge of town, I turned into a path that led toward the wooded hills to the northwest. The path turned west after I’d followed it into the woods, so I left it and picked my way through the underbrush in the direction I thought would bring me out at the farm. Twice, I had to make a wide circle when I came to swampy ground, and once I had to fight through heavy junipers and brush to get across a brook. By the time I got across, there was mud up to the tops of my shoes, and my suitcase and bundles felt as if they weighed a ton. I had scratched my face and hands on twigs and bushes, and was sure I’d got twisted somewhere in my directions. The only sensible thing to do seemed to be to turn east, get to the county road, and follow it to the fourcorners.

I changed my direction, and had gone about a hundred yards through a thick stand of hemlocks when I came out into an open space. The ground was sandy, and there was sparse hay on it. Across the open space, there was a brook with alders growing along the banks, and the grass was trampled at the edge of a gravelly bend. It was the place Annie Littlehale had shown me, where the raccoon washed his food, at the far end of Grandfather’s hidden field. When I’d gone to walk with Annie, I’d only known that I liked to be with her, and had noticed only the things she had pointed out to me. Now, coming onto the spot so suddenly, just when I’d decided I was lost, made it look beautiful. After I’d drunk from the brook, I crossed it on the stones, and hurried through the pines to the edge of the lower hidden field. I had never noticed before how much it looked like the inside of a great cathedral. Tall pines walled it at the back and on both sides, and the morning sunshine streaming through their upper branches looked like the tinted light that comes through high church windows.

Through the hemlock woods and the maple grove, tree after tree that I didn’t know I’d ever noticed before stood like old friends waiting to welcome me home. There was the hemlock Annie had been standing behind when I’d seen her watching the squirrel, the maple he’d been playing in, and the three great oaks that grew from the single stump. At the high field, the row of stones I’d piled against the orchard wall was just as I’d left it, but the stone rake had been used. From the footprints, Old Nell had been hitched to it, and had pulled it about thirty feet. A line of stones trailed out on the ground behind it.

Going down the orchard hill, I saw no sign of life at the buildings. When I opened the back barn door, the yella colt snaked his head out of his stall and jerked it back again. A calf bawled from the tie-up, and the hogs in the cellar set up a chorus of squealing. Old Nell’s stall was empty, the spring wagon was gone from the carriage house, and Old Bess didn’t answer when I whistled. Ashes and grease had been spilled on the front of the kitchen stove and the floor around it. Grandfather had tracked through the mess, and left a trail of footprints leading into his bedroom. Dirty dishes were piled on the kitchen table, the stove, and in the old iron sink. The bottom of it was yellow with rust. After I’d changed my clothes, I built a fire, heated water, and put the dried-on dishes to soak, then I swept the kitchen floor and scrubbed it with lye. I didn’t go into Grandfather’s room, but scrubbed up the pathway of ashes as far as his door. It took me till noon to get the place cleaned up, the dishes washed, and the sink scoured.

The barn wasn’t much better than the house. From the condition of his stall, I was sure the yella colt hadn’t been used, but Nell’s showed that she had been out the greater part of every day. I cleaned the tie-up, carried water to the hogs in the barn cellar, cleaned the horse stalls, and harnessed the yella colt. He was as mean as I had ever seen him, and I had to use the currycomb in good shape before he’d let me put the bridle on him.

In Colorado, I thought I had handled all kinds of horses, but there was never one like the yella colt. Old as he was, he reared and fought me all the way to the high field. I knew it was either a case of his forgetting me while I was gone, or that he hated me so much he’d only do what I wanted him to after he’d learned again to be afraid of me. I decided that I’d fussed with him enough, and that, this time, I was going to teach him to be afraid in a hurry. On each of the three balks he went into before he settled down to work, I wired his ears together tight enough to pull wads of hair, and each time I forced big handfuls of dirt into his mouth. After that, he fought the rake; lunged into each pull as if he were trying to tear his collar off, and stood blowing and watching me whenever I stopped him for a rest.

Now that Grandfather knew about the stone rake, there was no need of hauling the rocks away after raking each row, and I thought that a hard afternoon’s work would be good for the colt’s disposition. I kept him going steadily till it was time for Annie Littlehale to come for her cows. By then, he was glad to stand quietly while I went down to the valley.

When I’d come back to the farm, I’d wanted to bring Annie a present; something that would be sort of special. The prettiest things I had, and the ones I liked best, were the silver spurs the cowboys in Colorado had given me for my first roundup. I’d put one of them into my suitcase, and had brought it to the high field with me. I carried it in my hand when I went down over the hill to meet Annie. It wasn’t until we’d called “Hello” to each other, and Annie was standing right across the stonewall from me, that I realized what a silly thing a spur was to give a girl. My face felt as if it were afire, and I sounded just as silly as the spur looked, when I held it out and said, “I brought you something. I don’t know if you’ll have any use for it.”

Annie took the spur in her hands, and turned it over and over. Then she looked up and said, “It’s beautiful. Where did you get it? It’s a riding spur, isn’t it?”

The spur did look shiny and nice. I’d been polishing it every time I stopped the yella colt for a rest, and the light of the setting sun made fire seem to sparkle on the points of the rowel. “Mmmhmm,” I said. “It’s a riding spur, but I’m not going to be riding any more. I wanted you to have it.” Then I turned quickly and started climbing the hill.

“Don’t run away,” Annie called after me. “I’m glad you’ve come back. We were all worried about Mr. Gould. Is he all right?”

I only stopped long enough to say, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet. I guess he’s gone to an auction. I’ll have to get back to the yella colt before he’s all tangled up in the harness.”

“Thanks for the present. It’s lovely,” Annie called when I was part way up to the high field. “If there’s anything I can do to help, cleaning or cooking or anything, I’ll be glad to come over.”

“I guess my grandfather can cook,” I called from the top of the hill, “and I can wash the dishes and take care of the cleaning, but thank you anyway.” Then I hurried back to the yella colt. I could have turned him loose and let him go to the barn alone, but I led him to the pasture when I went for the cows. The more I kept him with me when I didn’t have to fight him, the sooner he’d get used to me again, and the sooner he’d settle down to behaving.

Instead of standing quietly at the pasture bars, as they had always done, the cows were restless, and hooking at three strange calves that were with them. The brindle kicked wickedly at one that was trying to nurse her. At the barnyard, I separated them; put the calves into the sheep barn, and the cows into the tie-up. After I had unharnessed and fed the yella colt, I went to the house, built a fire, and put potatoes on to boil for supper. Then I lit the lantern and went back to the barn. The brindle cow wouldn’t let her twin calves nurse, and it took me nearly an hour to milk her. Her bag was caked, and the warts on her teats were worse than before I went to Boston. She kicked wildly, the milk squirted in every direction, and I couldn’t catch more than half of it in the pail.

I’d just finished milking the brindle and started on Clara Belle when I heard Grandfather drive into the dooryard. I didn’t stop to take the lantern, but hurried to meet him. He had stopped Old Nell by the doorstone, and was just going into the summer kitchen when I came out of the barn. I ran the length of the dooryard, and followed him into the house. When I got there, he had struck a match, and was lighting a lamp on the pantry table. “I’ve got potatoes on to boil for supper, and the chores are nearly done,” I said, as I came into the doorway.

For as much as a full minute, Grandfather just stood looking at me with his mouth a little way open. Then he said, “You did come home, Ralphie! You did come home!” He took a quick step, threw his arms around me, and pushed his cheek against my chest so hard his hat fell off. “You did come home, boy,” he said as gently as he might have said it to Old Bess. “Gorry sakes alive, your old grampa’s glad to see you, Ralphie. How be the folks to ho . . . to Medford?”

I couldn’t keep tears from coming into my eyes, and my voice was a little choky when I said, “They’re all right.”

I think there were tears in Grandfather’s eyes too. He didn’t look up at me, but turned toward his room, and said, “Your old grampa’s all tuckered out, Ralphie. Don’t want no supper. Cal’late I’ll go to bed. Been off to Lewiston all day a-fetching the eggs to market.” I’d started back out through the summer kitchen when he shouted angrily, “What in time and tarnation you been in my room for?”

“I haven’t been in your room,” I told him. “I only mopped as far as the doorway.” Then I went to take care of Nell and the rest of the chores. Old Bess had followed Grandfather into the house, and she followed me out. I might not have noticed her at all if she hadn’t touched her nose against my hand and whined softly in her throat. As I knelt to pat her, she looked up and whined again, as if she were trying to ask me what the trouble was. She never left my heels till all the chores were done and I’d gone to the house for the night.

I got up with the first streaks of daylight, but Grandfather was already in the kitchen when I went downstairs. Smoke was pouring from the stove, and he was stirring Banner Oats into a kettle of water that wasn’t steaming. “Gorry sakes! Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie,” he sang out as I came through the doorway, “Tarnal nice having you to home again. I and you has got a heap of work to do afore the snow flies. I be fixing us a nice mess of victuals so’s to put a leg under us for the day. Ain’t nothing like a good mess of oatmeal porridge to hold a man’s ribs out. Thunderation! Guess I wa’n’t heeding what I was about.”

Grandfather had looked up at me as he spoke, but was still holding the tilted oatmeal package over the pot, and the premium saucer had slipped out. It hit the edge of the iron kettle, broke into a hundred pieces, and scattered over the stove, on the floor, and into the pot. “Ain’t that a tarnal shame,” he muttered as he picked pieces of china out of the oatmeal with his thumb and finger. “Nice pretty saucer like that all broke to smithereens. Well, what’s the odds? Likely as not there’ll be as pretty a one in the next box and I don’t cal’late it’s hurt the porridge none. What I don’t skim out will sink to the bottom. Did ever you eat porridge with maple syrup on it, Ralphie? Awful good. Fetched a pail of it down from the open chamber whilst Levi was here. It’s right there in the cellarway. Pass it here, and fetch up a piece of pork out the barrel. Pick a good fat piece. Fat pork goes good with oatmeal. I’ll set it a-frying whilst you do the chores. Leave the milking to the calves.”

“I don’t think they’re doing a very good job of it,” I said. “Don’t you think it would be better if I’d milk by hand and feed the calves? That pair of little twin steers is awfully skinny, and the brindle won’t let them touch her.”

Grandfather’s head jerked up. He looked at me crossly for half a minute, and I thought he was going to shout, “Don’t tell me!” but he didn’t. He looked back at the pot, stirred it a couple of minutes, and said, “Cal’late you might just as leave. Veal calves is fetching a good price off to Lewiston, and butter’s twenty-eight cents. Cal’late Millie’ll be a-coming home most any day now, and she makes awful nice butter.”

Before I’d much more than started on the chores, Grandfather called me to breakfast, and he was all in a dither when I went to the house. The kitchen was blue with the smoke of burned pork, and the smell of scorched oatmeal was so strong it made the air bitter. “Come eat your victuals, Ralphie! Come eat your victuals!” Grandfather snapped at me while I was washing my face and hands. “By fire, I got to get an early start! First calves in the market always fetches the high dollar! Ain’t no time for dawdling. Afore you went off to Boston, didn’t you tell me Millie was prob’ly ’twixt here and Lewiston, somewheres?”

I had to think a minute, and then I said, “I’m not sure, but maybe I did.”

“Why’d you tell me that?”

“Well, because she said that was where she was going.”

“
What?
” Grandfather shouted at me. “When did she tell you?”

“The day she left.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? You was hatching it up betwixt you to go off and leave me.”

“No, sir,” I told him. “We didn’t hatch anything up. I don’t think she really had any idea at all of going when she said it. She was mad about the flies, and came out to the field right after you drove away that morning. That’s why I made her the screens. I didn’t see or say a word to her after . . . after the door got broken.”

Grandfather’s voice dropped right down, and he asked. “What did she say to you, Ralphie? What was her words?”

“Well, I don’t think I remember them all, but she said she wasn’t going to live with the cussed flies for another blessed day, and that she had two minds to one to go off to Lewiston and get a job in the mill.”

Grandfather was watching me like a fox watching a chipmunk. “What mill?” he asked.

“She didn’t say. Is there more than one?”

“Tarnal lot of ’em! Eat your victuals! Eat your victuals! Time flies! Hitch Old Nell to the spring wagon and fetch them three new calves.”

I didn’t bother about breakfast. Besides burning the oatmeal, Grandfather had forgotten to salt it, and there were at least forty flies drowned in the maple syrup. I harnessed Nell, tied the legs of each calf, and loaded it into the wagon. When I drove up from the sheep barn, Grandfather had on his best suit and was waiting for me. “Sot some pans out for you on the butt’ry table,” he told me. “Put the milk to rising in the cellar. I’m cal’lating on fetching Millie home with me whenst I come.” Then he climbed up onto the wagon seat and spanked Old Nell with the reins.