Winter Is Not Forever (22 page)
It worked well. Chester could shorten my time on the road and also get a bit of a workout. He got too frisky when he wasn’t ridden frequently.
The threshing crew represented an assortment of fellas—big and small, old and young, quiet and loud—all working together for a common goal. There were usually about six of us at a time, plus Mr. Wilkes, the man who operated the threshing machine. Some of the men worked for two or three days at a time and then sent out a replacement so they could get on home and get their own crops cut and ready for threshing. I was lucky enough to have all my fields cut before I left home.
Mitch Turley and I were the youngest two on the crew. We had gone to school together back in our little one-room school— the very school where Matilda taught now. Mitch was Mary’s older brother, so he kept asking me strange questions about Mary. I soon caught on that he was really fishing for information about Matilda. It seemed that Mitch had seen her once or twice and been quite impressed.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to help Mitch get acquainted with Matilda. At one time he had attended Sunday school with Willie and me. At that point he never missed a Sunday, even though he hadn’t had much encouragement from home at the time. But now he never went, even though Mary tried her hardest to talk him into it. I didn’t offer him much information—or much hope.
The oldest member of the crew was Mr. Smith. I think that Mr. Smith had been threshing most of forever with Mr. Wilkes. In fact, his team of bays was so familiar with all of the nearby fields that I think Mr. Smith could have stayed at home and the team could have made the proper rounds—except that they wouldn’t have been much good at forking bundles!
Barkley Shaw and Joey Smith were both on the crew part time, too. Barkley and Joey were about the age of my Aunt Lou. I had never cared that much for Barkley—always considered him a show-off. But to his credit, he had settled down a lot since he had married SueAnn Corbin and become the father of four little ones.
All of the crew were neighbor folks I had known all of my growing up years. There wasn’t much said around the table about world events. Mostly it was who had lumbago, and who had the best seed grain, and who was seeing whose daughter. I learned a lot just listening to the conversation.
During the time that I worked with the crew Grandpa did all of the choring. Uncle Charlie did whatever he could, and Mary did more than was expected. Even Matilda pitched in with feeding the chickens and carrying some wood.
I didn’t see too much of the household during harvest. But when I got home late at night, they would all be waiting up. Matilda would sometimes be preparing her next day’s lessons while Mary mended or worked on some fancy things that Uncle Charlie and Grandpa teased her about, saying it was for her hope chest. Grandpa and Uncle Charlie would often be reading the latest edition of Matilda’s paper.
They’d all ask politely about my day, and Mary would quietly prepare a snack and the evening coffee for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie while Matilda told us amusing stories about the happenings at school. As soon as we finished we’d all head for bed. Some nights I was so tired I could scarcely drag myself up the creaking steps. But then I would be off again in the morning before anyone else was even up.
For eleven days we worked that way; then it was our turn for the threshing rig. I was so nervous and excited that I could hardly stand it. This was my first year to be completely in charge of the operation on our farm. I had to make all the decisions and handle all the arrangements.
We had always hired at least two women to work in the kitchen preparing the food for the crew, but this year Mary informed me that she was sure she and Uncle Charlie would be quite able to care for things. I must have looked a bit doubtful. I remembered some of those farm homes where the food had been a little short and the unspoken disgust of the men around the table. I sure didn’t want them feeling that way about us.
When Uncle Charlie sided with Mary, I decided to let them give it a try, wondering if Uncle Charlie was simply saying what he did because he hated extra women in the kitchen.
I needn’t have worried. Before the three days were up Mary had established quite a name for our kitchen. Her meals were wonderful, and she also brought refreshments to the field— steaming coffee, cold milk, sandwiches, cakes and cookies. She fed the men so well, in fact, that it was a good two hours after each meal until they were really able to work well again.
The first night we went in for supper, I could see Mitch Turley straining to get a look in the kitchen window before we entered the room. At first I supposed he was looking for his sister, but I noticed that his glance slid right past Mary, who was at the stove serving up heaping bowls of corn on the cob.
Matilda appeared just then, a big white apron nearly circling her entire frame, making her look even tinier than she actually was, and I heard Mitch suck in his breath.
Mitch didn’t say much at the table, but I saw him stealing glances Matilda’s way. Seeing Mitch watching Matilda made me look at her a little more closely. She seemed to belong in our country kitchen, and I suppose I was getting used to her. But now I watched, and noticed that she didn’t just walk, she floated around, her full-skirted dress swishing about her legs and her hair swishing about her cheeks. She served and smiled and dished out food and witty conversation, making all the men feel that they weren’t quite as tired as they had been when they seated themselves at the table. Some of them even began to make funny remarks and tell ridiculous stories on one another.
Mary worked just as fast—only it didn’t look that way. She moved with a quietness and grace that I hadn’t noticed before. But then, I had never noticed anything about the way Mary moved. She did nothing to draw attention to herself. She had a poise—a serenity that people felt rather than saw. In fact, Mary had a way of making people feel comfortable, at home with themselves.
But Mitch never looked once at his sister—at least, not that I observed. And if Matilda knew that she was being studied, she never let on.
Mitch wore a clean, fancier shirt the next day when he came to work. Usually we wore old, patched, faded work clothes in the fields, because the work of pitching bundles was hard on clothes as well as bodies. Sweat drenched our shirts and straw stuck to them. Wagon wheels sometimes had to be greased and horses curried. A shirt could look pretty bad by the end of the day and nobody wanted to wear a shirt that he had to worry about. But here was Mitch looking like he was heading for town or going to the school picnic.
I guess the other fellas noticed it, too, and having been young once themselves, they pretty well knew the reason for his fancying up. I saw some whispering going on and heard a few laughs, and I knew that something was up. Barkley Shaw seemed to be the instigator; maybe he hadn’t settled down all that much after all.
The day was almost over and we were just finishing up the last couple of loads. I had forgotten all about my suspicions by then, so I wasn’t being very cautious. Mr. Smith was the second last wagon in, with Mitch following right behind him. As the other racks were all unloaded, I sent up an extra two men to help each team driver. Barkley and Joey were standing by, awfully anxious to give a hand to Mitch. I didn’t think a thing of it at the time. Just figured that they were in a hurry to get in for supper.
Smith was soon unloaded and moved his rack out of the way for Mitch to pull up. The unloading went well, and before we knew it Mitch’s rack was empty. Then Mitch went to drive his team on, when there was a thump and one back side of the wagon dropped down much lower than the other.
He halted his team and leaned over to look. To his surprise, his back wheel had come completely off. He said some questionable words, tied the lines securely over the middle post of the rack and climbed down. That was when Joey and Barkley both pressed in, seeming to be awfully concerned about Mitch’s misfortune.
They talked about the wheel for a few minutes and then Barkley moved over to his rack and came back with a can.
“I got some real good wagon-wheel grease here,” he offered. “Might make the wheel work back on a little easier.”
Now if Mitch had known Barkley like I knew Barkley, he would have been suspicious right there. But he didn’t seem to think Barkley was up to anything. He just thanked him and started to pry at that can to get it open.
“Here, use this,” Barkley said, offering him a piece of metal to pry with. Mitch went to work. I could see the lid gradually coming loose as Mitch worked his way around it with the lever. Just as it opened, Barkley tripped forward over a rough bit of ground that had been there all of the time and smacked right into Mitch’s extended arms. The can flew up, along with its contents, and Mitch stood blinking through a covering of dirty black oil.
“Oh, man!” exclaimed Barkley, snapping his fingers and shaking his head in fake exasperation at his mistake. “I must a’ got the wrong can.”
Mitch stood looking down at his fancy shirt. It was streaked and splotched with dark patches.
“Here, fella,” spoke Joey in a sympathetic voice, “let me clean ya up some,” and he grabbed a handful of straw and began to wipe at Mitch’s chest.
At first Mitch just stood there silently and let Joey wipe away—until he saw that the straw also contained clumps of exposed soil. Every swipe that Joey took left a smeared streak of Jones’s farmland behind.
By then others had gathered and were guffawing at Mitch’s expense. I figured that things had gone quite far enough.
“Okay, fellas,” I said as quietly, yet authoritatively, as I knew how, “let’s not keep supper waiting.”
Most of the men moved on then, and I turned to help Mitch get the wheel back on his wagon.
“I’ll lend you a shirt when we get to the house,” I promised quietly, then added as an afterthought, “It won’t be fancy, but it’ll be clean.”
I
SPENT SEVERAL MORE DAYS
back on the road with the threshing crew, and then we were finally finished for another fall. As usual, after the harvest was over things settled down considerably. There still was lots to do, but we were at least allowed a decent night’s sleep in between the doing. I was glad to be home instead of on the road, and I think Grandpa and Uncle Charlie were glad to have me at home, too.
As soon as the grain was portioned out—for sale, for feed, and for seed—we got out our pencils and scraps of paper and began to figure what our profits would be.
We all worked on it. Matilda was a real whiz in math and even outfigured me at times. Mary hadn’t had as much book learning but she had an uncanny sense of rough calculations. More than once she surprised us at how close she came to the correct answer—in just seconds, too.
There were many reasons to be concerned with the year’s profit; my primary goal was to establish whether we had made enough to be able to purchase the tractor I had my heart set on. I had discussed it with Grandpa and Uncle Charlie, and they seemed almost excited about the idea.
After a great deal of figuring and working things one way and then another to try to cover all of the possibilities, it was decided that there was money, with some left over. With the decision finally made, I could hardly contain myself.
The tractor had to be ordered for delivery and would be shipped in on an incoming freight train. While I waited, I busied myself with other things.
Matilda decided to have a school social and worked hard to talk us all into going. I really don’t think that any one of us could have turned her down, but we teased along, letting her think we still hadn’t made up our minds. By the time the night came she was all in a dither. It was rather a big undertaking for her first community affair. There would be games, some special music, and refreshments, and Matilda had to organize it all.
I think she was relieved to come down from her room to find us all waiting for her in the kitchen, dressed in our best and ready to go. She gave a glad little squeal and threw her arms around Grandpa’s neck.
Uncle Charlie and I just looked at one another and grinned. We had known all along that we’d be going.