Down On The Farm

Mom was always the keeper of stories. And she loved to talk. Dad only tells stories when he's caught off guard somehow.

"What was he like, Dad?" Funny. I haven't really ever asked or listened. Not for a long time, anyway. This writing bug itches me to hear and see. Seems there's a story around every turn, if you're awake to it.

 "Hahvey? Oh he was a great guy. Quiet. And he hated the farm!" I giggle. 

"What?" Dad is amused, a little defensive.

"I just like the way you say 'Hahvey' and 'fahm'. Go ahead. Tell me more." 

He can feel my ear is open now and he seems to jump at this chance. As his memories roll out, I can tell he's delighted to meet them.

"So. Harvey hated the farm? I didn't know that!"

"Oh, hell, yes! Getting up at the crack of dawn to go out there and milk the cows in the barn at 10 below? He HATED that! He wanted to be an engineer, you know, a civil engineer."

I tell him that I got that part- in my story-that I put in the stuff about the trunk and all-in the attic-how Harvey never left home after his mother begged him to stay-how she pitched a poor spell- whatever that was.

"Did ya tell 'em how he built the dormers?"

I like how he says, "Did ya tell 'em?" Like there's this group of wide-eyed readers right here in my living room, reading my latest bestseller, hanging on my every word.

"No. I guess I may have edited that out." I can feel my story re-writing itself, the keys on the keyboard clicking up and down. All by themselves. Magic.

"Oh, no!" He's crushed. "And the parquet floor in the living room?"

"Nope. Guess I left out that too. That is a beautiful floor. He built that too? Hey, Dad, you ought to pull up that wall to wall. That floor is probably in perfect shape after all these years."

"And what about the front porch?" He can't quit. Harvey's handiwork is all around him as he sits there on the phone-alone-there in the dining room of our ancestral home.

He's still talking but all I can do is see him sitting there. You know how your mind wanders.

There's a little stool by the phone with a round leather pad on it. Dad bought it at a bazaar-in Cairo-on one of his trips. It's soft and worn with a little fringe of leather strips all around.  There's a small milk glass lamp there- on the table. Mom picked up that table at a tag sale and painted it black. The lamp is always lit. It throws a fan of yellow light onto the picture there, hanging on the wall. 

It's a picture of Gramma Phelps-my Mom's Mom. She's hanging white sheets out to dry on the side porch of a white house. She's wearing a blue and white Hawaiian print muumuu.  Mom used to smile every time she'd look at that picture.

I can hear her now, "Tom and I bought that muumuu for my Mom when he was stationed out on Oahu. She wore that thing to shreds, she loved it so much!" 

There....I hear her throaty laugh.  "...You know, it was so soft and colorful. And it had VOLUME, so she could just be...comfy, ya know?" Mom was always all about comfy.

In that same picture, Gramma Phelps is wearing huaraches-soft, woven shoes that look little foot baskets. They go great with the muumuu-at least-on the comfy scale. She probably bought them for a song in Mexico. For a song.... that's what Mom would say. Funny how I talk like her- even when I talk to myself. By the scowl on her face, Gramma seems slightly annoyed that she is having her picture taken. You can almost hear her saying,"Hey! Get outta here with that damn camera! I look like a wreck! C'mon! Get outta here with that fool thing!" Her hair is grey-tied in a bun. Stray strands of wiry hair fly in the breeze. I snap back. Like the sheets.

"Oh, Dad. Uh...the porch. No, I didn't get that either, I guess."

He can't stop with the stories. I start to scribble on a pad. I can't make this stuff up. There he is-in our old house. It's loaded to the rooftop with memories and me-so stupid- to be only half-listening now.

"But, honey, he built that whole porch from scratch!" He's back on the porch. I can practically smell the wood shavings, he's so excited.

"And do you know...he put that little bell, the little antique door bell, right back on the front of the porch when he was all done.  He just did that- ya know." 

He's quiet for a moment.  I wonder why he notes this detail.

"...You know. It was on the front of the house since-hell-I don't know. Well, 1801, when the Wilsons first got this place. That's why I love that bell..." There's a pause.  He's off somewhere with his memory. But then he's back.

"I can still see him standing, right there". Without physically seeing, I know that Dad is pointing with his curled finger out into the kitchen- from his perch- there by the window.  The window that looks out onto our open field, with the old pear tree, where Harvey used to woo his ladies.

"The old wood stove was there, by the window, and the wood pile. You know, the window where I look out at the birds? That window. It was warm there, I guess. ..and he'd scratch the back of his head.  Funny what you remember. It was-I don't know-just a kind of trick he had about him. He'd just stand there and scratch the back of his head. He liked to listen to us all talk.  He wasn't a big talker himself. He liked to hear all our stories, that's all. Your Aunt Helen, she used to be quite the dancer.  We'd go dancing every Saturday night down to Canobie Lake. " He really says-"Canoba Lake"-his New Hampshire roots wildly alive in the pronunciation of his words.

"Helen always had her dance card filled and we'd come back with all the stories from the night. Harvey loved to hear all the stories. Helen'd try to dance with him sometimes, but he'd just put his hands up, ya know, fend her off. Get her to dance there in the kitchen with me, or my Dad. Oh, we had fun."

There's another pause and I wonder where he has gone.

 "Dad?"

"...I always wished that Anne and I could have brought Harvey home.  I can still remember him at the Blakey. He had a stroke and my Mom couldn't take care of him.  So he had to go into the home. Your Mom and I -we were in California-with all you kids. We just couldn't do it, you know?"

It feels like he's asking for forgiveness.

I am suddenly aware that I had met Harvey. I was probably nine or ten and we were visiting N.H. on a cross country trip. 

"Oh, my God, Dad! I remember going to the Blakey!" It all comes back to me- a movie reel spinning black and white frames on the wall. "I do! I remember him. He was sitting on the porch of that old colonial turned nursing home. He was unshaven and his hair was all ruffled, like it was bouncing off his head."  I see that tired face all over again. It's all so clear. "He was wearing an old tee shirt and....brown pants and ....old canvas shoes."  I am astounded at these pictures in my head-so clear.

"It still haunts me." Dad says, his voice far away. "He couldn't speak, ya know; just all jumbled, gravelly sounds. And he grabbed at my arms, and my hands. And he was just pulling me, pulling me. He'd shake his head and sputter 'cause he couldn't make the words. And he had this look in his eyes. I'll never forget it. I think of that a lot. A lot." 

There's a long pause through the phone line. If it lasts another second, I know I'll have to fill the uncomfortable quiet.  But he breaks through.

"...That's why I was so determined to bring Mom home. Your Mom. That look in his eyes. He had...tears. Oh, let's not talk about that anymore." 

There's only the slightest skip of a beat and then he jumps in-with happier feet.

"Hey, did I ever tell ya about the cows? It was my job to get them out to pasture in the morning. And then I'd have to go out at night and bring them back again. Sometimes they'd be clear down by the Depot before I'd find them."

"How old were you then?"

"Oh, I don't know. Ten or eleven, I suppose." He's out there in the field and here I am looking for silly details. He continues. "In the morning, I'd run the cows out the back door of the barn-the well and the pump-they were out there. We'd water 'em there. Then I'd go up through the woods. You know-up the hill-by Devaney's.  And then down through the field there out to the old cellar hole." 

I catch up with him, out by the cellar hole.

"Oh, I remember the cellar hole! There used to be a mill there, right? An old Wilson mill. And that's where the blueberry bushes are. Remember, Dad?  Bernard O'Connor?"

"Oh, sure I do.  He was an old chum of my Dad and Mom." 

"I remember him too.  He was this tall, old guy, really nice. He used to come to the door and ask Mom if he could pick the blueberries- you know because it was our land." Our land. I like the sound of that as it comes out of my mouth. We still have some of that land after more than two hundred years.

"Mom was always happy to tell him yes because he always brought us back a big silver bucketful!"

"So... the cows.  I'd just leave 'em there, out by the cellar hole. It was so damn cold in the mornings.  Don't you remember how I told you that I'd be barefoot and I'd stick my feet in the cow flaps- and then I'd wiggle my toes?"

"Dad!"

"What? It was cold out there!  And then my feet would be nice and warm!" 

He knows that this story will gross me out. Always has. But I had forgotten about it. I try to picture the scene: this lanky boy out there in the pasture, with his feet brown to the ankles.

"Eewww! Dad!  That's just gross!  What would Gram do when you came home like that?"

"Oh, I dunno. One time, I was walking home and there was this fella'. And he was drivin' this really nice car. He stops and says, 'Hey, fahma boy!  Which way to Salem?'  So I pointed the wrong way!"

He's still happy that he did that. I hear another story bubbling.

"And in the summer, I had to do hay work." He chuckles. "That's why I left home! Really! I left home when I was seventeen to work in Connecticut. I got my first job at Hamilton Standard. I always wanted to work on airplanes and I got my wish, I guess. My Mom wanted me to take business courses, but I wasn't about to do that. So I ended up fixing propellers on military aircraft-my whole life." 

That job took him all over the world. Far, far away from the hayfields. I'm thinking of Harvey, now. He never escaped-never got away.

Dad's back there in the hayfield-right now.

"We still have that hay rake up there on the hill. You know, the one with the huge wheels? And we had this white horse-her name was Nellie."

From where I sit, I can see a gallery of frames, there on the table in my dining room.  There's a sepia toned picture of the old family farm. I haven't really looked at for a while. I see the house, before the porch was put on. And the barn. And my great grandfather, Aaron, proudly standing there in the foreground. He's posing, holding the reins of a white horse.

"I remember one day, I was riding the hay rake and Nellie-she decided right then and there- she wanted to go home! She just took off! Well, when you take off like that on a hay rake, let me tell ya, you're ridin' something!"

I am laughing.  He is goaded on. A runaway horse.

"You have to stand up, you know. Hold the reins. Well-she was haulin' ass through that field, then down the dirt road! The road was just dirt, back then.  And the dust and the dirt was like a cloud-and me and that horse right there in the middle of it! And I was pullin' and pullin' on those reins! Her head was just arched back-you know- with the bit in her mouth! Well, she ran into that barn with about an inch clearance on either side! My Dad and Uncle Harvey were watchin' and they were just laughin' their heads off!"

I am thinking that this is about the funniest thing that I have ever heard. Dad is laughing too. Giggles, almost, if those can come out of a Dad.

"Oh, God, that's fun to remember! Old Nellie. She's buried right up there off the lane. Someday, when the snow melts, I'll take you up there. I know right where she is."

Written By: Patricia Fowler 1/08