Grand Change (4 page)

John Cobly turned off the radio and sat with his cigarette dangling unlit in his mouth, a match in his fist, his thumb on the head, waiting for The Old Man to finish. Then the snap of the match flaring into light broke into the quiet from the absence of radio sounds. John reached to light The Old Man's cigarette, lit his own, moved to the stove, poked the spent match through a draft hole and went back to the armchair.

“I suppose you mind when the radios first came, Harv?” John Cobly said.

“Yeah, Uncle Joe had one in town, earphones and a battery big enough to fill a wheelbarrow.”

“Television will be the next thing, Harv.”

The Boss settled back, blowing out a belch of smoke. “Think there's much to them?”

“Kind of like watching a picture show in a box. Fred James got one. Seen it one evening when I was settling up. Lot of snow. I wasn't too crazy about it. They say they're catching on, though.”

“More tomfoolery than anything else, probably,” The Old Man said. There was a pause. A sudden gust of wind creaked the old house.

“Got your crop in, Harv?”

“Yeah, got it in; been a pretty good fall. All I got don't amount to much anyhow.”

“Sometimes I think we'd all be better off keeping it small like you, Harv. Potatoes are such a gamble.”

“How are you getting along?”

“Not bad. The Cape Britoners I got had a bit of a set-to the other night—got into the hooch, hammered each other around the yard for a while. Had to send a couple home. But that's the way she goes. We're getting there. Sometimes you wonder if you should be at something else, but it's a living I guess.” John Cobly leaned back in the armchair, shot his legs straight out and folded his arms across his belly. His cigarette dangled askew from his lips. “Thought I'd like to be a doctor when I was a gaffer. But by the time I learned to even read and write, with all the time off for cropping and whatnot, I had trouble fitting into the seats. I mind watching the others going to school and me just getting in with a load of mud.”

“You would have made a good doctor, John,” Nanny said. “Not many people can doctor a sick animal any better than you.”

“Yeah, kind of in me I guess. Never know what a fellow might have turned out to be given half a chance.”

The Old Man flicked ash from his cigarette into his pant cuff.

“Well, every day will be Sunday when they get the road fixed up.” The glint in John's eyes brightened and a sardonic grin flitted across his face. “You must have seen the boys out with their telescope, or whatever they call it, and there's still a stake or two by the swamp bog from before the last election.”

“How many elections does that make that they staked it off and still nothing done?”

John Cobly's grin went into a smile. He shook his head. “Can't remember that far back. We're just not voting the right way, I guess, Harv.”

The Old Man's face shot full toward John. “They talking election again?”

“Never heard anything about it yet, but they could call one near as next fall. New government might do something, but the Liberals will probably go in again. Not that we don't need something decent. The whole bloody road is nothing but a swamp, you might as well say, spring and fall. Kills the heck out of a horse. Lose a horse, rig and all by the swamp bog.

“No doubt about that,” The Old Man said. “But, oh well, we're getting by. Could be a lot worse, I guess.”

“Things are going to have to change, though,” John Cobly said. “More people going tractor these days and that road ain't no good for a tractor.”

“I suppose that'll be the next thing. Think they're any good?”

“Oh yeah, they make a difference, work wise. You know yourself, Harv. A man can walk forty miles a day behind a plow, or a light harrows, keeping three ornery horses in line, when he could be riding along, sitting pretty. And them engines, Harv. You know yourself, they're up and down, choke a sheaf into a mill too fast, jam a log into a saw blade and they just about quit, and you have to wait on them to get up speed. Them little tractors just purr along like a kitten, steady as she goes.”

“Yeah, I seen one in a mud hole on the way to town one day. Albert Champs, I think. It was purring pretty good, all right. Looked like it was trying to learn the foxtrot.”

John Cobly sat bolt upright. “I'm talking about working the land. Just think of how much time you use up, harnessing and hitching. With a tractor, you just hook on when you want, no muss, no fuss, no manure, no feeding and resting. Keep the gas to her, change the oil now and then, a little grease, and she'll work all night if you want.”

John Cobly took a last heavy drag from his cigarette butt and then went to the stove and poked it through a draft hole. He went back to the armchair, took a match from his pocket, flopped back down, and began digging wax out of his right ear with the match head.

“Still going to need a horse,” The Old Man said. “How are you going to haul potatoes in the wintertime? They can't even keep the front road open with them truck affairs. The first couple of good storms, and roads like ours are choked up so bad in the cuttings they'd have to use a bulldozer in places.”

“There's a new one coming out,” John Cobly said. “Breaks in the middle. Fred James said he seen one up in Toronto at one of them shows for machinery, more engine than anything else. They'll be here before long.”

“What's a tractor like with horse machinery?” The Old Man said.

“They're good, geared for them. Just cut off the poles and bolt on some kind of attachment for the draw bar—don't have to be fancy. Pretty much need a trip plow so you don't have to get off at the headland and put the shears in and out. Might as well throw in a blower attachment for your thresher. Thresh in the fall. Good idea to get a trailer, too.”

The Old Man crushed out his cigarette butt between his thumb and forefinger and set it on the window ledge. “What do you need a trailer for?”

“Because they say it takes some kind of genius to back a wagon with one of those things.”

“What else should you might as well get?”

John Cobly smirked. “That'll probably do for a start.”

“For a start.”

“Well, you know there's other things to make life easier. Hay loaders, tractor-built rakes and that.”

“Yes, and where's all the money going to come from?”

“Banks are getting better these days with loans, Harv.”

“What's a tractor go for?”

“Oh, fifteen hundred, give or take, for most all the little thirty-or-so horsepower tractors. They claim an extra acre of potatoes and a milk cow will keep up the payments.”

“And what if the cow dies and the potatoes are worth nothing?”

“All part of farming, Harv. The whole thing's nothing but a gamble; you know that.”

“Yeah, but there's such a thing as going out on a limb.”

“Oh yeah, ain't that the truth. They're getting them, though, here and there. Seem happy enough with them. If they give us a decent road, it'll be tempting.”

“Seems to me that tractors are for people like Fred James. Gone big enough to afford things without tick, got their own warehouses by the track and buying and shipping to boot. Seems to me, somewhere along the way, the bills are going to pile up more than we can handle.”

“Ah, you're too set in your ways, Harv. Progress, Harv, progress— can't get in the way of progress. And that's how it should be. There are people right now, small farmers like us, think we're back in the stone age. The time for slaving and doing without is going to go.”

The Old Man's face broke into a wry smirk.

“But we have to get the road fixed up first.” John Cobly flashed his sardonic grin.

“No, first we'll have to vote the right way, then we just might get the road. We just might.”

There was a pause. John Cobly's eyes shifted to me. “Well, Jake, feel like picking for me? I got work 'til Saturday depending on the weather. Feed you good, pay you on time, start you with a full section. Can't handle that, we'll give you a half. I'm a little short with them Cape Britoners gone.”

“Might as well go ahead, Jake,” The Boss said. “We can look after the barn work. Make a few bucks for yourself.”

“He's a little young,” Nanny said.

“Nah. It'll make a man of him.”

“Okay,” I said. “Give it a shot, anyway.”

“That's the stuff,” John Cobly said. There was another pause.

“How's your crop this year, John?” The Old Man said.

“Not bad, kind of small. Yours?”

“Not bad.”

“What's a bushel worth now?”

“I heard thirty cents.”

John shook his head. “Might as well leave them in the ground. What about beef?”

“Seventeen cents.”

“Not that hot, either, eh?” John Cobly took out a match and worked the head around in his ear again, then took it out and flicked off the residue with his thumb. I've got two steers and a heifer to go. Couple of cattle buyers were around last week. Told them to come back after digging; figured the price might be half decent by then. Don't seem like a lot of hope.”

“Pork's pretty good now,” The Old Man said. “There's always something to prop things up. Sometimes I wonder if potatoes are worth bothering with, though. If you're not digging, you're grading and hauling, then you're planting, then you're roguing and spraying, then you're back to digging again.”

“She's year round, all right. That's for sure. Lot of lifting and lugging, too. But nobody complains when the big prices hit. And they better hit me pretty soon.”

“Maybe we should leave them alone altogether, like Dan.”

John Cobly's eyebrows shot up. “But Dan is a walking
miracle, no matter which way you look at things. How he manages things is a mystery. If he's not drinking, it seems, he's reading. I came by Sunday and he was standing out in the yard, two sheets in the wind. He wheeled around cross-legged, watching me go by. Don't think he knew what end of him was up. Still manages to get the work done, though, and his horses and stock are just strapping.”

“When it comes to farming there's none better,” The Boss said. “It's a delight to watch him plow, drunk or sober. He ever mention fixing up the porch anyways decent yet?”

“Hammered a shelf or two to the wall. Studs are still bare, though.”

“Beer crock behind the stove, I suppose?”

“Oh yeah, you can count on that. And his books, that's what the shelves are for. Keeps his dishes in the oven.”

“Come up with any new rhymes lately?”

“Probably has, but wouldn't let on. Get him at a tyme half lit and you never know what's going to come out of him.”

“Better than what you'd hear on the radio, too.”

“Oh yeah, radio can't hold a candle to Dan. And never cracks a smile. Makes it all the funnier.”

“Must get down to see Dan; haven't seen him much lately. He don't make a lot of sense when he's got a jag on, and he's pretty much had one on since the fire.”

“I suppose you heard about the big wedding coming off,” Nanny said.

“Yeah, Charlie is going to take the big leap. Agnes is taking up the collection and looking after the shower. We'll tamarack her down. It's coming off in June just after planting.”

Nanny paused in her knitting and looked up. “What's she like, John?”

“Joanie Tripp? Seems like a nice young lady. Quiet. Her father got that store on Cobbler Road.”

“Maybe she'll be too quiet for Charlie,” Nanny said.

“Well, there's that. He's a corker, that fellow, especially when it comes to hockey and step-dancing; make a dog laugh, too.”

“He was doing the barn work for us last winter when we were all down with the flu,” The Old Man said. “He stuck his head in the door on his way home, the lugs of his cap up like wings, and them sharp eyes of his. ‘Let me know if you decide to kill that red steer by the pig pen,' he said. ‘He just about drove his foot through my rear end. I'd like to get first blow at him, help send him off.'”

“She might not be able to handle him, with his antics,” Nanny said.

John Cobly chuckled. “You never know, though, about them women. They pretty well got a fellow figured out before they set their cap for him.”

“And when they set their cap for a fellow, you might as well say he's done for,” The Old Man said, eyeing Nanny.

Nanny's eyebrows shot up. Her needle clicks quickened. “I suppose men don't set their caps for women,” Nanny said.

“Not that I know of,” The Old Man said.

“I guess maybe not. Pretty hard to set your cap and chase somebody at the same time.” John Cobly's eyes gleamed, his face easing into a gleeful smirk.