Fields of Home (30 page)

Watching Grandfather, and remembering the things Uncle Levi had told me about swinging a scythe, helped me with the long saw. I took a lighter hold on the hand grips, let my wrists loosen, and swayed on the balls of my feet. Within ten or fifteen minutes, we’d sawed in from the back of the tree till only a few inches of solid wood stood between the two kerfs. Grandfather stopped the saw, came to my side of the tree, and said, “By gorry, you done all right, Ralphie. Didn’t cal’late you’d be that far along, nor keep your cut so straight.” He scratched a line on the bark, and told me, “Hold off a trifle, and don’t let the teeth pass that mark. I cal’late she’ll go in a minute or two.”

We’d only taken a few more strokes with the saw, when there was a sharp crack, and Grandfather shouted, “
Timber!
There she goes, Ralphie! Stand back afore the butt hits you!”

For a moment or two, the great tree stood balanced, then slowly, slowly, the top began to move. The trunk leaned a little, but not in line with the cradle. Then there was a loud crack, as if a gun had been shot close to my ear. The speed of the fall grew faster, the wind caught the top branches, and the trunk fell in a swerving crash. The butt kicked free from the stump, and through the thunder of the crashing trunk and snapping branches came four sharp explosion sounds. Snow flew high, broken branches and twigs shot through the air, and then the woods were still. When the snow settled, the great chestnut trunk lay squarely in the center of the alley. There wasn’t a crack in it anywhere, but the four birch spring-poles were bent beneath it like sprung bows.

On the second tree, I knew more about what we were doing, and Grandfather let me guess what alley we should use, where to set the spring-poles, and how much to allow for windage. He said I was about right on the wind allowance and the spring-poles, but I’d picked the wrong alley. If we’d used the one I thought we should, there would have been no way of turning so long a log to get it out of the woods. We had as good luck with the second tree as with the first. It fell squarely across the spring-poles of the cradle, and didn’t break. Grandfather had picked an alley just opposite to the first one, so that the two great trunks lay almost end to end in the snow. Before we built a fire and ate our dinner, we measured each trunk with the story pole, and sawed the logs five poles long. Neither of them had a knot in the whole forty feet of their length, and neither was less than two feet through at the small end.

Before the logs could be loaded onto the bobsled, the tops of the fallen trees had to be cleared away. Then half a dozen smaller trees had to be felled, saplings cut, and turns in the logging road widened, so that the forty-foot logs could be sledded out of the wood lot. The last thing before we started the loading, the spring-poles were chopped away, skids laid, and the logs rolled with cant hooks to one side of their alleys. To start the big logs and roll them on the level skids took every ounce of strength Grandfather and I had. I was sure we’d never be able to load them on the bobsled alone. “There! There they be, Ralphie!” Grandfather puffed. “Fetch your hosses, and your old grampa’ll learn you how to load a log man-fashion. By fire, I wisht we had a good yoke of oxen.”

When I’d harnessed the horses, Grandfather had me drive the bobsled up beside the log that was farthest from the clearing. He had me move it until the back runners were the length of one story pole from the side and end of the log. Then he unhooked the coupling chains, and had me pull the front runners to the butt end. “Keep off! Keep off!” Grandfather called to me as I drove. “Butt end’s bigger’n the top. Leave a pole and a half length ’twixt the runner and the log.” He was as particular about setting the sled runners as he had been about felling the trees. He measured the big end of the log carefully with the story pole, then the small end, and had me set the runners even with the butt and a pole and three quarters away from the log.

Next we cut maple poles, ten inches through, flattened them at the ends, and placed them for ramps between the bottom of the log and the top of the sled bolsters. After we’d rolled the log back, so that its weight was resting on the ends of the ramps, Grandfather wrapped the loading chains. They were long and heavy. At both the front and back sled, he hooked one end of a chain to the center of the bolster, passed the loose end under the log, wrapped it once around, and I carried it to the far side of the sleds. Then we hitched Old Nell to one chain, and the yella colt to the other.

Grandfather was nervous. “Hosses! Hosses!” he spluttered as I hooked the yella colt’s singletree to the end of the chain. “Ain’t worth a tinker for loading logs! Like as not the tarnal critter’ll go to jerking and upset the sled or bust a chain. Let that infernal log get to slipping back whenst it’s halfway up, and ’twould take the Almighty Hisself to stop it. Aptly as not, ’twould throw both hosses and kill ’em.”

I was as nervous as Grandfather but I tried not to let him know it. “You lead Old Nell,” I told him, “and I’ll take the yella colt, but don’t shout if we get stuck. He’s high-strung, and I might not be able to handle him. Just raise one hand when you’re ready for us to pull.”

While Grandfather was walking over to where Nell was hitched to the other chain, I eased the yella colt up into his collar till the chain was tight. Then I stepped a couple of feet away from his head and watched Grandfather. When he raised his hand and called, “Gitap! Gitap!” to Nell, I clucked quietly to the colt. He pushed his weight into the collar, looked toward me, and I clucked again. The muscles in his thighs and legs swelled into knobs, the tendons in his flank stretched taut, the chain links crackled with the strain, and the maple ramps groaned as they took the full weight of the log. Step by straining step, the old horse put every pound of his strength behind the collar. I looked back and saw the great chestnut log rolling slow and steadily up the ramps. Then there was a thump, as it settled onto the sled bolsters. Grandfather shouted, “Whoa!” and the yella colt stood trembling. I was patting his neck and telling him he was a good horse when Grandfather came running toward us. “Good on your head, Ralphie! Good on your head!” he called out as he came. “By fire, we’ll show ’em what kind of logs makes wide shingles! Never in all my born days seen a yoke of oxen fetch a log aboard no steadier’n that. By thunder, I knowed all the time the old critter would do it. Never yipped a yipe once, did I, Ralphie?”

The butt had rolled enough farther than the small end that the log lay straight on the sleds. When it was chained fast to the bolsters, it made a bobsled forty feet long, with thirty feet between the front and back runners. The second log loaded just as the first one had. Half an hour before sunset, we had the two great logs bound side by side, and were leaving the woods for home.

The wind went down with the sun, and the still cold pressed in from all sides. Until our faces stiffened, Grandfather told me stories of logs and logging. Then, one or the other of us walked most of the time; thrashing arms to keep warm, throwing blankets over the horses when they stopped to rest at the top of a hill, or binding chains onto the runners to act as brakes on the way down. From the top of Hall’s hill, we could see Millie’s lamp in the kitchen window, and when we drove into the yard, she came to the door and called, “Victuals is hot and on the table.”

As the week went on I got more used to the crosscut saw and the long-handled double-bladed axe. I didn’t have to think to turn the axe at the top of the swing. I could make it hit fairly close to the spot I aimed at, and had learned to hold the snap of my wrists back till the last moment, so the blade would bite deep. With the logging road packed and widened to the chestnut grove, and my being more help to Grandfather, we were able to haul two loads of logs a day. We’d get to the wood lot by sunrise, set up our cradles, and fell all the trees for the day. Then, while Grandfather was taking the first load home, I’d cut the tops and larger branches to cordwood length, clear away the brush, and chop spring-poles for the next day’s cradles. By Friday night, we had all the logs for the barn sills and uprights piled in the dooryard.

Saturday morning Grandfather took the butter and eggs to Lewiston, and he seemed as excited as he had been on those mornings when he was going to hunt for Millie. While he was gone, I burned junipers in the wilderness field, and he came home while I was milking. I didn’t hear him till he pushed the big barn doors open and drove the pung into the runway. I couldn’t guess why he had driven it into the barn, so I left stripping Clara Belle and went to see. Instead of shouting, as he usually did when he’d brought something home, Grandfather met me at the tie-up door, and whispered, “Come see what I fetched home for Millie! Don’t cal’late on letting her lay eyes on it till Christmas Eve. Come help me histe it out and hide it away.”

When Grandfather turned the horse blanket back, I saw a big box lying in the back of the pung.
Sears Roebuck
was printed in red letters at one end of it, and under the name,
This end up. Handle with care
. “Cream Separator,” Grandfather whispered. “Tarnal good one, and I got a powerful good trade on it. Writ off to the mail-order comp’ny in Chicago. Cal’late ’twill save Millie a power of work on her skimming. Saving on the cream too. Catalog says that nary a drop can get a-past it. Let’s fetch it into the stall with Old Hannibal. Don’t cal’late ever Millie’ll go in there, do you?”

Before I went to Medford for Christmas, we had all the logs for the barn timbers piled in the dooryard, and had hauled the rafter logs to the mill for sawing. We butchered a suckling pig for me to take with me, and my suitcase was crammed with butter, honey, and apples. It was a fine Christmas. Mother’s cooking tasted better than ever, the tree was loaded with presents, and it snowed all three of the days I was home. We hardly went out of the house, but played games, remembered stories about Colorado and the Christmases we’d had there, and in the evenings Mother read aloud to us. I was both sorry and glad when the time came for me to go back to the farm.

Uncle Levi went back with me, and stayed through most of February. He didn’t often go to the woods with Grandfather and me, but spent most of his time doing the fine carpentry for the barn. He made the big rolling door for the new addition, all the smaller doors, the window frames and sash, the stanchion yokes, and the feedbins. Uncle Levi didn’t like to work out in the weather, so I dragged logs into the barn runway for him to hew square, mortise, and tenon. He made himself patterns, and every mortise and tenon was cut to a perfect fit. By the middle of February, all the girders and cross-braces were hewn and tenoned; the straight mortises—and the tricky angled ones for the cross-braces—cut into the uprights, and the framing made for the window in the gable peak.

Soon after Christmas, Grandfather had sent away for the tomato seed. Most of them were Earliana, but there were a few later varieties. As soon as Uncle Levi had finished all the window sashes for the barn, he used them to build one of the hencoops over into a hothouse. After he’d set up an old pot-bellied stove, he and Millie planted the tomato seed, and she adopted the hothouse for her own. Half a dozen times a day, she’d go to see if the temperature was right, and to watch for the first shoots to come through the ground, but she wouldn’t let Grandfather or me go any nearer than the windows.

Between dark and chore time, I often had an hour or two to work with Uncle Levi. I worked with him the whole last Saturday before he went back to Boston. When we were putting away the tools, we heard the sleigh bells on Old Nell’s harness, and Grandfather turned into the driveway from taking the butter to Lewiston. Uncle Levi laid a hand on my shoulder, and said, “By hub, I calc’late the war’s all over for Thomas. Wa’n’t you tickled ’bout him sending off for that cream separator? Wouldn’t hardly guess ’twas the same Thomas that raised all the ruction over the horsefork, would you? Ain’t seen him so chipper since he come home from the war.”

While Uncle Levi had been working on the barn and the hothouse, Grandfather and I had been busy in the woods. We’d cut and sledded to the mill all the chestnut logs that would be cut into floor planks, sheathing, and clapboards. There were eighteen or twenty cords of firewood stacked by the logging road in the Bowdoin wood lot, and we’d felled the cedars that would be sawed into shingles—wide ones.

All through February and most of March we worked on the blighted chestnut grove. Grandfather had only one light touch of malaria all winter, and by the first day of spring there wasn’t a stick of chestnut left in the woods. Long rows of cordwood stood along the top of the dooryard wall, floor planks, rafters, sheathing boards, and bundles of shingles were piled high beside the hewn barn timbers in the barnyard, and in the hothouse the tomato plants were two inches tall. The deep frost was leaving the ground, and the first green grass was showing in the hayfields.

33

New Crops

B
ILL HUBBARD
came to work for us steady on the first day of spring. The ground was still too muddy for working in the fields, so the first job we did was to dig the cellar for the barn addition. Then, while Bill and I laid the base boulders for the foundation, Grandfather hauled gravel and brought cement from Lewiston for the concrete floor. We didn’t build the new cellar like the old one, but laid a smooth floor for wagons and farm machinery at the front.

The fields were dry enough that we could haul dressing as soon as the new cellar floor was laid. Grandfather liked to do the spreading with the machine Uncle Levi had rebuilt, and it kept him from working too hard on the barn foundation. All three of us would pitch on the loads, then, while Grandfather was spreading them in the fields, Bill and I would hoist boulders to the walls, chink them in place with broken stone, and fill the spaces around them with cement.

Bill helped me with the milking, so we could get an early start on the day’s work, and we never quit till it was too dark to see.

By April tenth the foundation was finished, and we plowed the first furrow in the wilderness field. Grandfather let me hold the plow, and he drove the horses. During the winter in the woods, he’d learned not to shout at the yella colt, but as he drove he couldn’t help chirping, “Gitap! Gitap! Gee off! Gee off, Nell!” or “Haw to, you tarnal fool colt.” Often when we’d stop the horses for a rest, Grandfather would look back along the furrows, and gloat, “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie! Never cal’lated I’d be laying a plow to this field again in all the days of my life.”

Once, when we’d stopped to rest he said, “Let your old grampa have a-holt of them handles for a spell. Gorry sakes! Gorry sakes alive! Ain’t it pretty to see the black earth a-turning up again. Mellow! Mellow and fertile, Ralphie! Cal’late ’twill fill the cellar to overflowing with potatoes, come fall. Been a-reading ’bout putting phosphate beneath the rows. There’s a power more money in the provender bank account than what we’ll be needing for grain. Don’t you cal’late ’twould be a good notion to put some of it into phosphate?” It was the first time Grandfather had ever asked me what I thought about the farming. A lump came into my throat. I didn’t trust myself to speak, so just nodded my head and grinned.

During our first few days of plowing in the wilderness field, Bill blasted rocks, cut brush, and burned junipers in the hidden fields. Then he came and blasted or pried out buried rocks that were too big for the plow to move. The smaller stones were left in the furrows and, after the plowing was finished, Grandfather raked them with my old stone rake, while Bill and I hauled them to the wall.

The harder Grandfather worked, the happier he seemed to be, and he didn’t have an attack of malaria all through the spring. He even disliked to leave the fields to take the butter to Lewiston on Saturdays, and instead of being gone all day, he’d leave before daylight and be home by noon. The Saturday after we’d finished clearing the wilderness field, he drove the dumpcart to Lewiston, and when he came home, he brought a brand new, two-section, spike-tooth harrow.

Grandfather didn’t do any whispering when he drove into the dooryard with the new harrow, but shouted, “Ralphie! Millie! Come a-running! Come see what I fetched us home. Brand, spanking new! Ain’t never been drug a foot! By fire, I cal’late on having them fields as soft as goose feathers!” Then, while Bill and I lifted the harrow out of the cart, Grandfather dropped his voice, and told Millie, “Strawb’ry plants is tender little critters. Costs a heap of money to buy ’em, and I don’t cal’late to scrimp on the tools and lose a half of ’em ’cause the soil ain’t tended right. I and Ralphie is a-going to write off for ’em tomorrow. Going to get ’em from them Breck folks off to Boston—best tarnal seed and plant folks in the country. Got all the newfangled kinds: Everbearers, that fruits from early spring till frost; Excelsiors, that ripens the first warm days of June; and Commonwealths, that comes on just afore the early frosts—after the fetched-in berries is all gone—half the size of your fist and dark red. By gorry, Millie girl, my mouth’s a-watering a’ready.”

Grandfather and I spent most of Sunday afternoon on the order for the strawberry plants. He’d read Breck’s catalog until all the pages about strawberries were worn dog-eared at the corners, and he could almost recite every word it said about each variety. The thing that worried us most was the number of plants we’d need to the acre. When we first sat down, Grandfather said, “Nigh as I can cal’late, Ralphie, there’s just a little shy of eight acres in the high field. I’m cal’lating on tomatoes for five of ’em, and strawb’ries for three. Counting on the rows being three feet apart, and a plant to every foot, how many plants are we a-going to need? Most of ’em comes to seven dollars a thousand, but the best everbearers is Pan-Americans, and they’re asking fifteen cents apiece for ’em. I don’t cal’late on getting over a hundred of them kind.”

Sometime in school I’d learned the number of square feet in an acre, but had forgotten it. I could only remember: “three feet, one yard; five and a half yards, one rod; forty rods, one furlong; eight furlongs, one mile.” And I did know that a section of land was a mile square and had six hundred and forty acres in it. After I’d figured all over three or four sheets of paper, I got an answer of 43,560 strawberry plants for three acres. I knew I must have made a mistake somewhere, so I threw the papers in the stove and started all over again. That time Grandfather kept fussing at me to stop my dawdling and do the job man-fashion. He made me lose my place two or three times, but when I came to the answer, it was the same one I’d had before. “Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks!” Grandfather snapped when I told him what the figure was, “Any tarnal fool would know better’n that. An acre ain’t but seventy paces each side.”

“Well, let’s see what that does,” I told him. “I know my answer can’t be right, but I got the same one twice. If an acre is seventy paces long, then three acres would be two hundred and ten paces; and with three plants to every pace, that would be six hundred and thirty plants in a row. And with the rows a pace apart, there would be seventy rows, so . . . ”

Grandfather snatched the paper, and figured for half a minute. “Gorry sakes alive! Great thunderation!” he said as he sat looking at the figures. “By fire, it comes out to six of one and half a dozen of the other. Gorry sakes, Ralphie, that’s a tarnal lot of strawb’ry plants.” He figured again, and said, “Hmmm! Hmmm! Comes to over three hundred dollars. Didn’t cal’late it would run into no such sort of money.”

I was sure the chance of having a strawberry field was gone. My mouth went dry, and my voice sounded thin when I said, “We wouldn’t have to put in three acres. Strawberries grow new plants on runners. Sometimes an old plant will make a dozen or so new ones in a year. If we just had a few, we could root all the runners, and in a few years we could build up the three acres.”

Grandfather just said, “Hmmm . . . hmmm,” some more, and walked up and down the kitchen floor with his thumbs locked together behind his back. It was two or three minutes before he stopped, and asked, “Will they bear fruit and put out new plants at the same time?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “If we just had a couple of hundred plants, I think we could spread them into three acres in three years.”

Grandfather walked and hmmmed for another two or three minutes. Then he stopped suddenly, pounded his fist on the table, and said, “By fire, Ralphie, we’re a-going to do it! Once these folks roundabouts sees us fetching strawb’ries off to market, they’ll tarnal nigh all of ’em want a field of their own. By gorry, I and you is going to raise the plants to sell ’em. Cal’late we’ll start off with about two acres of them Excelsiors, one acre of Commonwealths, and five hundred of them Pan-American Everbearers. If it costs fifteen cents apiece to buy ’em, the new plants ought to fetch a pretty penny whenst we got ’em to sell. Fetch a clean paper and the ink bottle. By gorry, if we’re a-going into the strawb’ry business, we’re a-going in whole hog.”

The next three weeks were busy ones, and there were days when we had as many as a dozen men and boys working in the high field. As soon as it was harrowed smooth, we set out the tomato plants Millie had been taking care of in Uncle Levi’s hothouse. I made a marker with the teeth three feet apart, then drove it carefully, both ways across the field. When all the tomato plants were set out, the rows ran straight in every direction. The strawberry plants came right after we had finished setting out the tomatoes. Though the strawberry field was only a little more than half as big as the tomato field, it took twice as long to set the plants.

While Grandfather and I were working with the men at strawberry and tomato planting, Bill plowed the hidden fields, raked the stones, and harrowed and trenched the wilderness field for potatoes. In that field, Bill and I put the dressing into the trenches, and Grandfather followed us, strewing a line of phosphate on top of the manure. We sent to Aroostook County for the best cobbler seed potatoes, cut them—two eyes to the piece—and Millie and I laid the pieces in the trenches, while Grandfather and Bill covered them with a few inches of fine soil.

After we finished the potato planting, we began getting the hidden fields ready for corn. Bill Hubbard and I were laying blasted rock onto the stonewall when Grandfather stopped the harrow beside us, and said, “Gorry sakes, Ralphie, did ever you see prettier plowing fields in all your born days?” He reached down, picked up a handful of the sandy loam, and rubbed it between his fingers. “Hmmm! Hmmm!” he hummed, as it sifted back to the ground. “This upper field is a dite more petered out than the lower one. Hmmm . . . cal’late I was a trifle overgenerous whenst I spread the dressing on the lower field, and I scanted this one according. Needs a tarnal good mess of phosphate throwed in the hills with the seed. By thunder, that phosphate stuff runs into money. Hmmm . . . hmmm . . . By gorry, I got it! I got it, Ralphie! Them folks at the cannery over to Lisbon! I hear tell they’ll provide a man with phosphate and seed, if he’ll plant and pick and cultivate whenst and how they tell him . . . and contract to sell ’em the whole crop. No, by thunder! No! Ain’t a-going to have nobody a-telling me how to farm this place! Gitap! Gitap, Nell!”

For two more rounds of the field, Grandfather walked along behind the harrow with his head down and Old Bess trailing at his heels. Then he stopped beside us again, and asked, “How much you cal’late them cannery folks would stick their noses into our affairs if we was to deal with ’em, Ralphie?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But, if we take good care of the field, I wouldn’t care how often they came around to see it. Is there as much money in raising sweet corn as there is in field corn?”

“Tarnal lot more, but, by thunderation, they ain’t a-going to . . . Gitap! Gitap, colty!”

That time, Grandfather made three rounds of the field before he stopped again. He walked slowly over to us, stooped, and picked up another handful of soil. From the harrowing, the loam had dried a little on the top, and it sifted away between Grandfather’s fingers. He looked up at me, almost sheepishly, and said, “Cal’late I’ll drive over and talk to them folks at the cannery, Ralphie. Might happen, come fall and the market goes down, we could sell ’em some tomatoes to can.”

Before noon, Grandfather came back from the cannery, and brought a man with him. They walked all over the upper hidden field, then the man took samples of soil away with him. In the afternoon, Grandfather drove the dumpcart over to Lisbon, and brought home the phosphate and the seed corn. It was Country Gentleman corn, still on the cobs, with the husks braided together in bundles.

Uncle Levi came right after we’d planted the sweet corn. We didn’t know he was coming, and Grandfather was just leaving for Lewiston with the butter when the taxicab from Brunswick came into the dooryard. Uncle Levi was riding with the driver, and the back seat was loaded with bags of fruit, presents, and big packages of fresh meat.

“Gorry sakes! Gorry sakes alive, Levi! You don’t know how glad I be to see you,” Grandfather called out, as he climbed down off the democrat wagon and hurried toward the taxicab. “Ralphie, take care of Old Nell whilst I fetch Levi out and show him what we been a-doing in the fields. By gorry, Levi, you won’t scarcely know the old place. Come on, Levi, whilst I show you.”

I’d started to open the back door of the taxicab to take the bags and packages out, but Uncle Levi bumped against me and mumbled, “Let be! Let be!” Then he said to Grandfather, “By hub, Thomas, ain’t you getting a late start for Lewiston this morning? Calc’lated you’d a-been on the road afore sunup. This man’s waiting to fetch me over to see Aunt Lucy Stevens. She writ me she’s been ailing this spring, and I fetched her down a little drop of medicine. You go on to Lewiston afore the sun gets high enough to melt the butter on you. I’ll stay out of the fields till you get home to show ’em to me. Hi, Millie! Set the teapot on, and I’ll be back soon’s ever I fetch this bottle of spirits over to Aunt Lucy.” Then he climbed back into the taxicab and drove out of the yard.

If Uncle Levi went to see Aunt Lucy Stevens, he couldn’t have stopped longer than a minute. Grandfather was hardly out of sight when the taxicab drove back into the yard. “Great day of judgment!” Uncle Levi laughed as he got out. “It’s a God’s wonder Thomas didn’t stave my playhouse all to pieces! By hub, I had to do some tall thinking there for a minute. Here, Ralph, give me a hand with these cussed boxes.”

Bill had been turning the separator for Millie, and they both came running when they heard Uncle Levi. Bill stepped in front of Uncle Levi and helped me lift out two heavy, flat boxes from the floor of the taxicab. “Been in talking to them Breck folks,” Uncle Levi told us, as we set the boxes by the doorstone. “The way Thomas has been a-writing me, he’s calc’lating on having some strawb’ries to pick this summer, but them Breck folks say there won’t be none afore next spring. Didn’t want Thomas to be disappointed, so I had ’em to find me a parcel of Everbearers that’s old enough to set fruit this year. Got ’em in pots. That’s what makes the boxes so cussed heavy. Calc’late you boys could scatter ’em about the field real careful so’s Thomas won’t smell a mouse?”