Fields of Home (27 page)

“What dirt?”

“They dug out of them subways off to Boston.”

“Dumped it out on the marshes, I calc’late.”

“Gorry!” Grandfather said. “Must have took a power of men and hosses . . . and a power of victuals and provender to a-fed ’em. Fetch Old Nell, Ralphie! Hitch her to the top buggy whilst I get my new suit on.”

Uncle Levi came out to the carriage a minute before Grandfather did. He made a fuss over helping me spread the duster on the dashboard and mumbled, “Tell Annie to fetch whatever stuff she needs from home. I’ll stop by and settle with Miz Littlehale tomorrow. Don’t be sparing with the cream and eggs, and don’t leave no shells about. You can calc’late on us being home sharp on sundown. See how much of that fruit you can get outside of afore we get back.” Then he talked good and loud about Aunt Lucy Stevens as he climbed up to the carriage seat.

It was an awfully nice Sunday for me, and I think Annie sort of liked it, too. She’d never eaten red bananas or blood oranges or grapefruit before. She liked them just as well as I did, but she would only eat one of each, and said people were gluttons if they didn’t make the things they liked best last the longest.

Annie didn’t let me do much of the real cooking. After she’d looked all through the pantry to see what we had, she sent me down to her house for a whole basket of things; like powdered sugar, cream of tartar, a bar of chocolate, and good white lard. Then she kept me busy bringing in wood, picking and peeling apples, getting vegetables from Millie’s garden, and bringing up cream and eggs from the cellar.

I think Annie liked being the woman of the house, and I liked being the man. She kept bustling around from one thing to another; lifting the covers off pots and trying the hens with a fork long before they were done, opening the oven door a crack to peek in at the pies, and poking the fire when it didn’t really need it. Right from the first, it was easy to see that Annie wanted to show Uncle Levi what a good cook she was. Instead of putting all three hens on to boil in one pot, she had me cut them up, and fixed each one a different way: one stewed with carrots, onions, and lots of soup, one fricasseed, and one taken off the bones and set to jell in a breadpan.

She made two cakes—one chocolate, and one vanilla with maple-sugar frosting—molasses cookies, two pies, and a creamy yellow pudding with sliced bananas in it. I don’t know how many eggs Annie used, but it was a lot of them. As soon as she’d lay the shells down, I’d crumble them and take them out to the hens.

Annie told me she would never marry a man who didn’t like good food, or one who wouldn’t bring her home the things she’d need to cook with. And I told her that, when I had a home of my own, I was going to keep the pantry full of red bananas and blood oranges and powdered sugar and chocolate. I told her quite a little about Colorado, too; about my trick-riding in the roundups, and some of the horse races I’d won. I told her about a couple of them I’d lost, too, so she wouldn’t think I was bragging.

Everything came out right at sunset. The johnnycake was almost ready to come out of the oven, I was beating butter and hot milk into the mashed potatoes, and Annie was dropping dumplings into the kettle when Grandfather and Uncle Levi turned the corner at the ridge road. She would only take one tangerine for her mother, a blood orange for her father, and a red banana for her brother. Then she ran down across the field where Grandfather and Uncle Levi wouldn’t see her from the road. I think it was so that, if I wanted to, I could make it look as if I’d done the cooking.

Annie had set the table in the dining room just before we did the last-minute things. And Uncle Levi unhitched Old Nell while I was getting everything dished up. When we were pulling our chairs up to the table, Grandfather sang out, “There, Levi! There you be! Didn’t I tell you Ralphie could cook better’n ary woman? Didn’t I tell you we don’t need no tarnal womenfolks ’round here till Millie comes home?”

“Fiddlesticks! Every house needs a woman,” Uncle Levi said.

Grandfather jerked his head around toward Uncle Levi, and snapped, “Then why in tarnation didn’t you wed one?”

I couldn’t let them wrangle, and didn’t want to try to take credit for the cooking, so said quickly, “I didn’t make . . . ”

Just as quickly, Uncle Levi’s toe caught my shin under the table, and he said, “By hub, Ralph, you’re a better cook than I’d ever have guessed you was. Don’t know when I’ve set down to a better looking mess of victuals.”

The supper was good, and we all ate as if it had been Thanksgiving. All through the meal, Grandfather and Uncle Levi talked about the people they’d been to see, and what this one said, or that one said. Grandfather dropped off to sleep at the table while Uncle Levi was eating his third piece of custard pie. While I was clearing the table, he woke up just enough to go to bed.

Uncle Levi came out to the tie-up while I was milking. After he’d told me the supper was the best one he’d had since he was a boy, he said, “Thomas knows you didn’t cook it just as well as we do. And he’s got a pretty good notion how many eggs went into it.”

“Then I wonder why he didn’t scold me about it,” I said.

“Couldn’t! I had him over a barrel. Been a-telling him he’s got to get another housekeeper ’round here. The both of you’ll be sick abed if you go on eating the kind of victuals you’ve been getting. Only way out for Thomas was to make me think you done the cooking. By hub, that Annie’s a right pert little cook. What color hair ribbons does she wear?”

“Well, she had on a blue one today,” I said.

“Black-headed, ain’t she?”

“Coal black,” I said.

“Red, bright red!” Uncle Levi said, as he turned a pail over and sat down on it. “Red’s awful pretty on black hair. I’ll fetch you a piece to give her. Kissed her yet?”

I shook my head.

“Wanted to?”

I started to shake my head again, but stopped. “I haven’t thought very much about it,” I said.

“You will,” Uncle Levi told me. “Kisses and red hair ribbons kind of goes together. How old be you now, Ralph?”

I didn’t feel comfortable with him talking about kissing Annie, so I said, “Fifteen in December. Do you think we’ll be able to fix that manure spreader all right?”

“Fix anything if you got a mind to—and the time. Looks of it, I calc’late ’twould be a standoff ’twixt building a new one and fixing this one. How in tunket did ever you talk Thomas into getting it?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “He bought it all by himself at an auction.” Then I told him about the talk Grandfather and I had up on the granite outcropping the Sunday before; how I’d thought for a while that he was going to plant strawberries and tomatoes on the high field, and what he’d said about the partnership on the butter. At the end, I said, “I think he’d be happy if Millie was home, but I don’t think he’d be happy with any other housekeeper. I wonder where Millie could have gone. She said she was going to work in a mill at Lewiston, but Grandfather has been to every mill office. She isn’t working at any mill in either Lewiston or Auburn, and she hasn’t been there.”

Uncle Levi looked up quickly. “You dead certain she ain’t?”

“Almost,” I said. “Grandfather has had them look on all the payrolls for two months back in all the mills.”

For two or three minutes, Uncle Levi sat looking at Clara Belle’s hocks, and rubbing his mustache out across his cheeks. “Had any hired hands this summer that she cottoned to?”

I shook my head. “There was only one here that stayed more than an hour, and Millie ran him off with a skillet.”

“Hmmm. Hmmm. Curious! You dead certain she went to Lewiston?”

“No, sir, but that’s where she said she was going.”

“Recollect her a-speaking of any place else?”

I had to think for a minute, then said, “No, sir.”

Uncle Levi got up from the pail, pushed it against the wall with his toe, and began walking slowly up and down the tie-up. After the third or fourth trip, he stopped behind Clara Belle, and asked, “Fetch away all her knickknacks and clothes with her?”

“Grandfather’s awfully touchy about her room,” I told him. “I haven’t looked in there, but I don’t think she did. Her pink apron is still hanging on the nail by the pantry door.”

“Hmmm. Hmmm. Curious,” he mumbled, and began walking again. His head was down, his hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and he seemed to be watching his feet as they moved slowly forward. He stopped suddenly and said, “I’ll fetch these two pails of milk to the house for you, Ralph. Calc’late I’ll turn in.”

Uncle Levi always snored loud enough to be heard way out to the barn. During the hour I was in the kitchen taking care of the milk that night, I didn’t hear a sound from his room. There still wasn’t a sound when I’d finished and was tiptoeing through his room to mine. I was sure he was awake, and whispered, “Good night, Uncle Levi.” Instead of answering me, he began to snore steadily.

30

Grandfather’s War Is Almost Over

I
’D FINISHED
my chores Monday morning, and was starting for the house with the first two pails of milk when I saw Uncle Levi out by the old manure spreader. He had a piece of clean board in his hand and, as he looked the spreader over, was writing on the board. At breakfast, he was quiet. He only ate a few mouthfuls of oatmeal and a couple of oranges, and he answered all Grandfather’s questions with a “Yes,” or “No.” As he peeled the second orange, he said, “Might hitch Old Nell to the top buggy if you’ve a mind to, Ralph. No sense of us trying to mend that cussed old spreader till we’ve got the hardware we’ll need for it.”

“I’ll go fetch the stuff, Levi, whilst you and Ralphie is a-getting her apart,” Grandfather told him.

“Fetch it myself,” Uncle Levi grumbled. “Like as not you’d come home with a mess of wore-out, secondhanded junk.”

“No such of a thing! No such of a thing!” Grandfather snapped. Then he dropped the tone of his voice, and asked, “Where be you cal’lating on getting it, Levi; the Falls?”

“Lewiston,” was all Uncle Levi said.

Grandfather chased the last piece of pork around the platter with his knife, and said, “Cal’late I’ll go ’long with you, Levi, for comp’ny.”

“Don’t want no comp’ny,” Uncle Levi said, without looking up from the orange. “Going alone.” Then he pushed his chair back and left the table.

Grandfather was grumpy after Uncle Levi went out. He grumbled into his whiskers, slatted his chair around as he got up from the table, then went into his room and slammed the door. He was still there when Uncle Levi climbed into the top buggy. He leaned out toward me, and said quietly, “Don’t calc’late Thomas’ll be too good comp’ny for you today, but I couldn’t fetch him along. Got a bee in my bonnet, and it might sting ’stead of make honey. What time is it?”

I sighted the sun past the corner of the barn, and said, “Just about a quarter of seven, I’d say. Not past five minutes of.”

Uncle Levi spread the duster over his knees, and said, “If you’ve a mind to, you might go to taking the old bolts out of that spreader. No need trying to save ’em. Chop ’em off with a cold chisel if they’re rusted tight and it comes handiest.” Then he spanked Old Nell’s rump with the reins, said, “Keep your nose clean,” and drove out of the yard.

Grandfather wasn’t good company. He spent the day between jawing at me and fussing with the bees. At first, he scolded me for being too slow. Then he said it was wasting to break good bolts instead of saving them to use again. He could never remember which way to turn a nut to take it off, and he always blamed me when he tried to turn one the wrong way. Long before Uncle Levi came home, late in the afternoon, Grandfather had rowed at me till I wanted to throw a wrench at him.

He was grouchy when Uncle Levi drove into the dooryard but he got over it quickly. I’d just reached for Nell’s rein when Uncle Levi called out, “There, Thomas! There’s a bee lining box you won’t leave about in the woods! Don’t know if it’s big enough to hold all your stuff or not.” As he spoke, he held a brown leather box out toward Grandfather. It was the shape of a good-sized book, and had a long loop of strap on it. “Goes over your shoulder,” Uncle Levi told him. “Makes it hard to go off and leave some place.”

“Gorry! Gorry sakes, Levi!” Grandfather chirped, as he turned the box over and over in his hands. “Gorry! Shouldn’t a-done it, Levi! Must a-cost a power of money. By fire, I cal’late I’ll go see how my stuff fits into it.”

After Grandfather had gone, I cramped the wheel of the buggy around, and Uncle Levi got out. “Fetched a little something for you, too,” he said, as he put his hand into his pocket. When he brought it out, there was an Ingersoll watch in it, and a bright chain hung down from his fingers. “There you be,” he said. “’Tain’t good for your eyes to keep a-looking at the sun.”

I’d only had one watch in my life. It was a gold one. I’d won it in a trick-riding contest in Colorado, and never carried it except when I was dressed up on Sundays. My throat got tight when I took the new watch in my hand and tried to say thank you. “No! No!” Uncle Levi said, and reached under the seat of the buggy. “Ingersolls ain’t thank-you watches, but they keep pretty good time; nigh enough to let you know to come in for your victuals. Speaking of victuals, there’s a few parcels here under the seat.” Then he fished out a package that looked like a fancily wrapped can of salmon. “There’s a little something you might like to give Annie,” he said. “Bright red.”

As soon as Uncle Levi had changed his clothes, he helped me on the spreader, and Grandfather went off hunting for a bee to line. It was at just five minutes past six when Uncle Levi noticed me looking at my new watch. He laid his wrench down, and said, “There, by hub! Let’s us knock off for supper. Why don’t you fetch your present down to Annie afore we have our victuals?”

“Well,” I said, “maybe I’d better go and bring the cows in first. We’ve got a new one that’s breechy, and I might have trouble finding her if I wait till after dark.”

“Go ’long, fetch your present to Annie; I’ll get the cows,” Uncle Levi said, as he was putting his glasses into the case.

I didn’t want to take the ribbon down to Littlehale’s house, and maybe have to give it to Annie with her mother and father and brother there. “If that red cow has jumped the fence,” I told Uncle Levi, “you might have to chase her all over the woods. I’ll go get them. It will only take me a few minutes.”

As I spoke, I’d reached over to the bench for Annie’s package. Uncle Levi caught me when I was slipping it into the front of my shirt. Wrinkles came around the corners of his eyes, one lid dropped just a trifle, and he said, “Maybe you best. Calc’late I’m getting a mite old for chasing heifers about the woods. I’ll go kindle a fire for supper.”

I walked sort of slowly till I got out behind the barn, then I ran up the lane as fast as I could go. It was ten minutes after six, and I was afraid Annie might already have her cows started for home. I didn’t go by our pasture gate, but cut across behind the orchard hill to the maple grove. Just as I got to the edge of it, I heard Annie calling her cows from down in the meadow beyond.

All afternoon I’d been thinking of things I’d say when I gave Annie the ribbon. When I heard her voice, I went running down between the trees to find her. As I came out of the maple grove, I jumped over the stonewall, and almost on top of Annie. She was kneeling down, picking checkerberries at the edge of the meadow, and she sprang up quickly when I landed behind her. I was all out of breath, my heart was pounding like a runaway horse’s hoofs, and I forgot everything I’d planned to say. Before I stopped to think, I blurted out, “Have you seen our red cow?”

“No, I haven’t,” Annie said. “Is she lost?”

And then I didn’t have any better sense than to say, “I don’t know; I didn’t look.”

Annie did look. She looked at me as if she thought I’d been in the loco weed. “What’s the matter, Ralph?” she asked. “What have you been running for?”

“I just wanted to get here before you went in with the cows,” I told her. “I brought a present for you.” Then I took the package out of the front of my shirt and passed it to her. “It’s red,” I said. “It will look nice with your black hair.”

Annie sat down on the grass to open the package, and I sat down beside her. “Oh, taffeta ribbon!” she squealed, as she unrolled the paper. “Why, it must be six inches wide and how much did you get? There’s enough here for seven or eight bows.”

“I didn’t get it,” I said. “Uncle Levi did. It’s from all of us.”

Annie took the ribbon out of the paper and sat smoothing the end of it between her palms. Then she put her face down and rubbed her cheek against it. “It’s lovely,” she whispered, “I never had ribbon like this.”

“I think it would look awfully pretty on your hair,” I said. “I wish you didn’t have it braided.”

Annie usually wore her hair loose; falling like rippling black silk from a bow at the nape of her neck. That night it was braided into a thick rope, with a white bow just below her shoulders. She looked up at me, smiled, and said, “Why?”

“I just like it better that way,” I told her. “It always looks like ripply black silk.”

Annie flipped the braid across her shoulder and untied the white ribbon. Her fingers moved quickly as they began taking out the lower strands of the braid. My own fingers felt itchy, and I said, “Could I unbraid it for you while you fix the ribbon?”

“Don’t tangle it,” was all Annie said, and then she began shaping one end of the ribbon like a bow.

I was careful not to pull or to make any tangles, and as I untwisted each strand, I let it slip, clear to the end, through my fingers. And I wished that Uncle Levi hadn’t said anything about kisses and red hair ribbon going together. Each time my hand went up to loosen another strand, it brushed against Annie’s neck, and I wanted to put my cheek against it, the way she’d done with the ribbon.

“I really should have a brush and a glass,” Annie said when I’d separated the last strands of the braid. “With one long end, it will be a little hard to tie a good bow behind me.” Then she threw her head way back, put both hands under her hair, and tossed it till every trace of a braid strand was gone. She gathered the wavy mass at the nape of her neck; running both thumbs close above her ears, and drawing the sides and top in with her fingers. “Can you hold it right there,” she asked, “while I tie the bow?”

I could and I did. There was just enough breeze that the silky ends moved against my forearm. And once, when I was a little too close, a wisp brushed across my cheek and mouth. “Isn’t it lovely?” Annie whispered as her fingers shaped the bow.

And as the glistening flood of her hair brushed my arm, I whispered back, “Mmmhmm, lovely.”

From the far side of the meadow, a cow lowed for her evening milking. “Goodness!” Annie said, “I’d forgotten all about the cows. I must run; Father’ll be waiting to milk.” Then she told me to thank Grandfather and Uncle Levi for the ribbon, folded the long red streamer that ran across her shoulder and chest, and sprang to her feet.

I looked back quite a few times as I climbed the hill through the maple grove. Once Annie looked back and waved. The late sunlight glistened on her hair and the bright red bow. Then she was gone behind the clump of white birches by the pasture gate, and I hurried on after our cows.

Supper was over, Grandfather had gone to bed, and I was just finishing the milking when Uncle Levi came into the tie-up. He turned the old pail over, and sat behind Clara Belle, just as he had the night before. I expected him to ask me how Annie liked the ribbon, but he didn’t. When I looked over at him, he just said, “Found Millie.”

I caught a quick breath, and said, “Why didn’t you bring her home? Wouldn’t she come?”

“Wants to come just as bad as Thomas wants her to,” he said. “Too cussed stubborn to come by herself.”

“Then why didn’t you bring her?” I asked.

“Calc’late Thomas might like to do his own fetching,” he said. “Don’t aim to let him know I found her.”

“Then how will he know where to look for her?”

“Don’t have to tell a hound where to look for a rabbit, do you? Calc’late if I put Thomas on the trail, he’ll do his own finding.”

“Well, how did you ever find the trail yourself?” I asked.

“Wa’n’t nothing to it. All I done was to make out like I was Millie. If I was to go off to some place a-looking for a job of work, I wouldn’t go to no mill. I’d go casting about for a place there was bricks to lay. Was I Millie, I’d go looking for a place where there was victuals to cook and butter to make. Calc’lated if I was her, I’d go to a job agency. And, by hub, that’s just what she done. Come across her trail in the second agency I went into. She’s a-working on a farm, t’other side of Auburn. Told her Thomas would be along to fetch her home ’bout noontime tomorrow. She ain’t going to let on she seen me. Here, let me fetch one of them pails of milk to the house for you. By hub, I’m going off to bed early. Got to cast about for a way of putting Thomas on the trail without him smelling a mouse.”

Then, on the way to the house, he put his free arm around my shoulder, and asked, “Did you kiss Annie when you give her the ribbon?”

“No, sir,” I said. Then, after a few steps, I added, “But I wanted to.”

Uncle Levi’s fingers tightened just a trifle on my shoulder, and when we were near the kitchen door, he sort of mumbled, “Don’t hurry, boy. Wanted kisses is sometimes sweeter than had ones.”

At breakfast Uncle Levi was all full of talk. He never mentioned Millie at all, but told us about a book he had read where a detective found a criminal by going to every employment office in Boston. He was still telling the story when Grandfather snapped, “Eat your victuals! Eat your victuals, Ralphie! Time flies, and there ain’t no time now for dawdling. Rattle the harness onto Old Nell whilst I get my clo’se changed. Time and tarnation! Slipped my mind to have Levi take the eggs off to market yesterday.” While Grandfather bounced out of his chair and started for his room, Uncle Levi kept right on with the story, but his eyelid on my side dipped just a trifle.

I had a nice day with Uncle Levi. As we worked on the old spreader, he told me stories about the time he was homesteading, and he listened when I told him about the ranches where I had worked in Colorado. It was the middle of the afternoon when we heard the pound of a horse’s feet on the road coming down from the ridge. We both knew who it would be, and peeked out of the little windows at the side of the forge. Grandfather was sitting as straight as a coachman, and holding the reins as if he were driving Dan Patch. Millie was beside him. She had on a sailor hat and a new dress, and was sitting as straight as Grandfather.

When we lost sight of them, past the front of the house, Uncle Levi laid one finger across his lips. Then we listened as Nell’s hoofs pounded on the gravel of the driveway. Grandfather kept her trotting till they were right up to the doorstone, then shouted, “Levi! Ralphie! Come a-running! See what I fetched home! By fire, I cal’late I ought to a-been a detective! Run her down over t’other side of Auburn!”