Grand Change (17 page)

“You don't have to. Go straight. Straighten out some more. There…look out, look out! Left, Wally, left.”

“Here we go,” Dan said.

By the time we got to the edge of town—after sideswiping a light pole, roaring in and out of a low ditch and knocking a few pickets out of someone's fence—things pretty well levelled off. Then it was a matter of staying in the middle of the road (we took to the back roads), hoping we wouldn't meet another car (we didn't) until we got home.

We didn't quite make it. Dan's gateway was a little small, and the old car's lights, not much better than candles, weren't much help. We tilted over the edge of the culvert and rammed
the right front wheel into the far shoulder of the ditch.
Wally was thrown over Dan's head into the windshield. I could hear them clawing and scratching in the darkness before the door opened and they half tumbled out just as the motor stalled.

“You okay, Dan?” I said.

“Yup.”

“Want a hand in?”

“Nope, I'm just going to sit for a while.”

“Goodnight, Dan,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Welcome as the flowers in May.”

I could see Wally's dim form striding away in the weak glow from Dan's yard light as I got out of the car. I caught up.

“The old buzzard,” Wally seethed through his teeth. “He could have gotten us killed. I got a bump on me head big as a goose egg.”

“Saturday night just ain't what it used to be,” I said.

“I ain't going anywhere with that old beggar again,” Wally said. And he kept muttering away like a dog gnawing a bone. We were pretty well up to Tom Dougal's gate before he cooled down.

“What's on TV now?” I said.

“The news, then the fat lady sings. Coming in?”

“Might as well; can't dance.”

“Ain't too hot at giving directions, either.”

“Well, your steering ain't anything to brag about.”

Prelude to
The End on Hook Road

Progress in diverse ways and measures, with the anaesthe
sia
of better, easier times, had converged on Hook Road in such
a short time that virtually no one could have totally
predicted the outcome. In actual fact, the changes introduced, understood to become part of the set farming community life in general, never did. Instead, they became catalysts for change of a broader scope.

The small compact tractor, for all its work-saving and
convenience, never completely meshed with horse machinery. In many instances, what one man could handle with horses, now took two: one to tend the implement and the other to drive the tractor. Minds began turning toward tractor-made machinery: side delivery rakes, balers and whatnot—even self-propelled grain and potato combines were standing in the
wings. Electricity not only opened the way to modern
convenience, but also did away with the old methods of
preserving food, leading to reliance on food stores. Easy financing became no more than an enticement toward more borrowing. And it all combined to draw away from the simple, hands-on methods geared to keep down the overhead.

TV, with its worlds of captivating wonder, rapidly became a replacement for the gabfest and the card games; the convenient transportation brought on by the car expanded visitation beyond the local; the new song and dance of rock and roll
obliterated the square dance and overshadowed country
music for the youth. Those relied on to carry on tradition all hit at community interaction, the very core of community life. Simply, the small farming community had been seduced.

A strange lethargy set in along Hook Road, as if people were waiting on something to come. It wasn't long before that something made itself known. Within a few short years, it became apparent that the small farms could not produce enough to keep up with the bills. It was either get big or get out. Some hung on for a while, renting their land to bigger farmers and getting part-time work when they could. Then, except the few who went for expansion, those young enough drifted away to the big cities, factories, mines and forests scattered across the country. The older ones went and finished off their days in the little town or the city.

The End on Hook Road

Things pretty well came apart for us the following fall. It
actually began during grain harvest. The Boss had been struggling the last few years with rheumatism, especially at plowing. He would come in from the fields gimping, with his face in a cringe. He used to rub himself a lot with liniment, sometimes soaking his underwear with the stuff—you could smell him coming. But old age was catching up to him, too.

The crunch began on a Saturday evening when we were stooking grain. Rain was on the way and we would have to work late into the night to beat it. The Old Man's walk was slow and hesitant as we made our way back to the field after milking.

“I hate to keep a young fellow working on Saturday night,” he said. His voice, cutting out of a gloomy silence, had a subdued, apologetic tone, with just a hint of defeat.

“It's okay,” I said. “I don't mind stooking, and it's only
one night.”

The darkness came on fast. Before long it was pitch black and we pretty well had to go by feel and foreknowledge.

Amidst the rustle of the sheaves, The Old Man's voice broke in again, tired and gloomy. “You sure you wouldn't sooner go to town? I hate to keep a young fellow from his Saturday night.”

“It's okay; too late to go now, anyway,” I said.

Then I heard the rustles from his direction become hesitant. Then they stopped.

“I'm going to have to call a day,” The Old Man said.

I stopped, and in the silence, disturbed only by cricket creaks, I knew The Old Man was no longer the man he was and he knew it, too.

“I can finish it,” I said. “I don't mind stooking.”

He hesitated a moment, then I could hear the brush of his footfalls fade into the darkness.

Before the harvest was in, it wasn't hard to tell King and Queen weren't in much better shape than The Old Man was. They, too, had grown slow and stiff and old. Like The Old Man, they did well to get the grain and potatoes in. Bill was sound enough for a few more years, but the others would have to be replaced. One of our relatives on Nanny's side was interested in buying Queen as a pet, but proud and faithful old King would have to go for fox meat.

The day the buyers took him away in a box in the back of a half-ton truck was a sad one. But I'd have to say one of the saddest things I ever saw was him ambling back down the lane the next day, bedraggled and forlorn. He was being held in a corral by the railroad with other fox horses awaiting transport to the factory when they'd broken loose, and he, like so many other times, had made his way back home.

Nanny was in the yard feeding the chickens. The old horse came to her and nuzzled her arm with his muzzle. The Boss was in the shop building a box trap to catch a skunk that had been marauding our hen house. Nanny called to him. He came out with a few sticks of scrap lumber in his hands. He stopped short, staring at King. The sticks fell from his hands. His face went pale. Then a slow, vicious anger crept in. He took King to the watering trough and watered him. Then took him to his stall and fed him. By the time he came back out, the anger on his face had become almost violent. “Go over to Joe's, Jake, and call them fellows up,” he said. “Tell them to get out here.”

When Mabel relayed the message, I could hear the voice at the other end of the line. Along with being weak, it had a thin whine. When the two fat men got out of their truck that evening, they had that edgy look, like they were approaching something that kicks. They were almost right. I hadn't known that The Boss could hand out such a tongue-lashing. He was almost on tiptoe, sometimes seething through his teeth.

The two men stood like dogs in a hailstorm, and it was “Yes, sir, Mr. Jackson. No, sir, Mr. Jackson.”

When The Boss finally ran down and went and got King, the grey-black clouds that had been holding off all day, as if waiting for this precise moment, began to rain.

The Old Man passed the horse back to the buyers, then stood gripping the lead rope. With hunched shoulders and heavy raindrops streaking down on his head, the large drops splattering on his cap peak and knobby hands, he stood watching the truck leave. King's head bobbed and turned, his eye whites flashing, sometimes at The Old Man, sometimes at Bill, who was running and neighing along the pasture fence by the lane.

I don't know if that was when The Boss decided to get the tractor or not. Quite likely he'd decided before, since it was time to start plowing and he had not made any move that I knew of to buy horses. Whatever, the tractor came with a plow the following Saturday—a cool, clear day with a crisp freshness that tuned in with the coloured leaves wisping here and there in the barnyard. The delivery men rolled them, hooked up, off a flatbed truck, handed The Boss a couple of manuals and left without saying much of anything.

The Boss had never driven a motor vehicle of any kind. I hadn't either. He must have spent an hour or more checking things out, flipping through the manuals, pausing at times to peer over the rims of his glasses to check out some object, either on the plow or the tractor. Eventually, he threw a sheepish glance at me, hesitated, took a deep breath, climbed onto the tractor seat, took another look at a manual and sat rigid for a while with both hands on the wheel. Then he flipped out the ignition button and hauled on a rod on the left side of the battery box. Nothing happened. He flipped hastily
through the manual again, his eyes shooting alternating
glances between the pages and the controls at the battery box. Then he pulled the rod on the right side of the battery box and the starter suddenly gave a cranky, draggy
rhutt
or two and the tractor jerked ahead in jumps until The Boss threw up his hands like he was dropping a hot potato. He paused then and stared at the rod with his head canted. Then he pushed in the clutch with his foot and pulled the rod again and the motor stirred to life, and there was this low, growling whine until he finally released the rod. Then he let the clutch out and the tractor bucked ahead and stalled.

In time, after a lot of gear grinding, jerking, stalling, hitting reverse and jack-knifing into the plow, he got moving, with him sitting straight-armed, straight-backed and heading for the barnyard fence. Before he crashed into the fence, he belched out a shocked “whoa” with his hands flapping and clawing, not knowing what to do. He got stopped without too much damage, except a few paint scratches. Then he was jack-knifed in with the plow and, after some jerking and wheel-twisting, we wound up unhitching to get things straightened out.

He headed out the lane to the field, swerving with wheel jerks, doing his best not crash into a post, and finally got the plowing started, in a kind of way. He'd forget about the wheel now and then or hit the brake instead of the clutch, and he pulled into the headland a few times without tripping out the plow—the furrows were something else—but by noon he had it pretty well down. In the afternoon he went to work to teach me. By mid-afternoon, he left me at it and went and cleaned out the pigs.

But The Old Man didn't seem completely settled on things, even after the plowing was done. It was as if his mind had not been completely made up concerning what direction he was taking. Then the double whammy came and helped make up his mind for him.

The Boss usually left the stock out as long as there was a hint of pasture. It usually took a cold rain or a wet snow to prod him into bringing them all in for the winter. It was a wet snow that fall that did it, and the animals were cold-soaked, with that dirty wet-hair smell, and the barnyard was a sticky goo.

The milk cows weren't a problem. We were able to herd the spring calves into a big pen by the barn floor without too much trouble. The fun started when we began putting the young cattle into stalls, with them half wild and nervous, having not seen the inside of the barn since spring. You had to be ready to dodge a careless horn. They could bolt in an instant, and some had to be roped and tail-twisted in. We were working a big steer along the fence leading to the horse stable, with The Boss on the rope and me twisting his tail on the fence side. Suddenly, the steer snapped his rear end and whammed me against the fence, then bolted, knocking The Boss down. The Boss had the rope wound around his arm and couldn't get free. By the time I got hold of things, the steer had dragged him pretty much the length of the barnyard through the muck and manure. It was tricky business getting The Boss free of the rope with my feet slewing in the muck and the steer twitching and bolting. When I finally did, The Old Man staggered to his feet, and, after few starts, wobbled to the fence and leaned on a post.

“I'll look after the rest,” I said. “You'd better go into the house.”

He didn't answer, just stood catching his breath. Eventually, he staggered in a hunch to the house.

At supper, The Boss sat unusually quiet, picking at his food. I did the barn work myself. When I came in, he was sitting smoking his pipe with that same quietness. The evening news was just beginning. Nanny was trimming the lamp wick with a pair of scissors. When she lit the lamp, the weak glow didn't change much except to shadow the walls and throw a glint into the cap peak shadow on The Old Man's face.

Except for his lips, curling around his pipe now and then, letting out puffs of smoke, his face was completely deadpan. I took off my boots and coat and sat with my feet on the oven door and let the warmth of the stove pull away the dampness and chill. I pulled out my makings and rolled a smoke. I had been smoking since spring then, and it was still enjoyment, not the puff and choke habit it turned out to be. Nanny moved a chair over beside me and went at her knitting. We listened to the news and weather until it finished and the evening mass came on and Nanny went and turned off the radio and came back and sat working out a missed stitch. We sat saying nothing for a spell, enjoying the warmth of the kitchen.

Eventually, The Old Man took out his pipe and began taking sidelong glances at me. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, blunt and resolved. “What do you plan to do with your life?” he said. He sat peering at me, waiting for an answer.

I had been pondering the future since one evening the previous summer when I was walking in our lane from shooting crows, with my twenty-two rifle under my arm. It was one of those quiet gloomy evenings just before a squall. Somehow, the peacefulness of the grazing cattle in the pasture field by the lane, the lonely chirps of birds in the woods and the softness of the breeze seemed to combine with the mood of the evening to say in unison that I didn't belong here anymore and that I would soon have to leave. But I had no definite direction, none in the least, actually.

“I don't know,” I said.

The Old Man took a deep breath and let it out.

“Well, I'm going to work at shutting her down,” he said. “Me and Ella have been talking about it. I'll get someone to help us thrash the grain all at once; move the potatoes out, they're not a bad price now; Fred James will take them out and grade them.” He paused and looked at the floor. “I'm not half man anymore; that's all there is to it. I plan to keep some beef and a few milk cows, grow grain and hay, get someone to custom combine the grain, custom bale the hay. There'll be no more potatoes. In two years' time I'll be pensioned off. I'll either rent or sell.” The Old Man's voice was quiet and steady and completely determined. His mind was made up. He was used to making hard decisions and living with the outcome and there was no sign of flinching. “I was planning for Waldron to take over, but…” His voice trailed off. He straightened and paused, looking full at me. “You're a good little worker, but you're no farmer. It's not in you. I was hoping you'd get an education. It's not too late; we could help you there.” The Old Man paused again, his eyes searching my face. I made no reply. “Whatever,” The Old Man said firmly. “You're old enough to start out on your own. You're welcome to make this place a place to come to as long as we're around, but between now and next spring you need to be thinking about finding work and making your own way.”

“We're not telling you to leave right away,” Nanny said. “You can work out and be here until you get used to things. Maybe shovel snow this winter for the railroad. Agnes told me Fred James was looking for a worker for the warehouse.”

It all kind of grabbed me pretty hard. I had been sailing
along, waiting for things to take their course, with the
security of a set home life. Suddenly, that security was being swept away from me and for the first time I had to face life on my own.

“You're a young man now,” The Old Man said. “The whole world lays before you, but the time will sneak by. You can't waste it. The younger you learn that the better.” The Old Man packed his pipe again and lit up and thought for a while before he spoke again. There was just the sound of Nanny's knitting needles above the crack and burr of the stove. “And you got to be looking down the road. You'll be married some
day, with children. You need to be thinking about that
responsibility and it's a big one. You need to be thinking about being a provider and that means you got to be prepared to have regular work. If you don't want to get a full education, at least get a trade. Go to work for a carpenter or a plumper, learn the trade. You try carpentry and you don't like it, stay at it until you get it down anyway. All work is related. You get to be a good carpenter you'll know things that will help you if you try something else and you'll have that to fall back on.” The Old Man paused again and studied the floor. Then he sighed, belched out smoke and eyed me sidewise again. “Anything you learn in life will be of use to you one way or another. And try anything; don't be afraid to fail. There's no shame in failing; the shame is in not trying.” The Old Man sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “The rest is up to you, I guess.”