Collecte Works

by Lorine Niedecker

  Cottages went up on the lots, they began to have neighbors. Somebody was always wanting to use the ladder when Matty wanted it. The woods were not sold. Uncle John could come back from stumping the country for himself or this senator or that to the solitude of his woods, the trees overtopping him. Always in his simple honesty he gave the neighbors the run of his garage and when he'd be ready to start work around the place—his clothes all changed, overalls on—he'd go out and find his tools not there, jacks gone, ropes gone, hammers, axe.…But he considered he was helping someone so all well and good. He sighed. Never got ruffled. After all, he owed them something for buying the land. He went back into the house to be comfortable again. He didn't doubt the borrowers would return the things, he was honest. Matty thought if they didn't he'd still count em his friends because he'd have forgotten who borrowed what. And of course he had in mind they'd vote for him some day. He's too trusting, no wonder he can't do business, said Matty. I think myself he must have seemed to people to be so honest that he wasn't just nor keen. While they used him, knew they could depend on him, they looked with suspicion on a man who almost liquidated his property for the sake of his neighbors.

  At last the day when the farmers came around, the co-op established, Uncle Babe in charge. He was winding up his fishing for good. Filling out his income tax blank the night the man brought the news that a meeting of those interested in the co-op would be held the next night to settle it. He had made out a tan blank, the wrong color, and was now on a green one. We were all sitting around, electric lights just installed. I was there, taking a few days off from business college (my father's insurance). Matty must have made her usual remark about income tax and the like: Cheez, if they'd offer a job instead of taking money away…well, it won't be long before they'll want yuh to keep track of the number of jobs yuh do and pay tax on em. As the man came in with the news, Josephine's daughter gave up her chair with a loud meow and doubtless caught her toes in the black and tan crocheted rugs as she jumped down and stretched. Beer and cigars were passed.

  The next day Uncle Babe gave his tax blank to a lawyer acquaintance to fill out and drove off.

  For three years he was to give the hammers and ladders of his honesty to the co-op and sit in comparative comfort in the office. Things started well. A merger was soon made with a national organization and for a period of five years J. J. served on county and state committees as well, white shirt every day and fine-dot tie, and so he was led up to the World War but he was just past draft age. Unable to speak now as much as he liked since he sincerely did not believe in the war, he nevertheless kept in touch through others with the general in Congress, the governor who had befriended him.

  They won and rested. He saw though that he was still up against the same things: the always stronger “interests,” the monopoly of power on the one side, and on the other the people of the agricultural community in a monopoly of sleep. He won an inch for the farmers, now the boom coming on—the only boom the farmers ever had was during the war—they relaxed. Things were going well even without the co-op. Their fight collectively slackened, as good as ended. Each farmer again competed with each. Wasn't it a free capitalist country? J. J. said they should continue the good work so as to prepare for times of shortage. Shortage? This was a prosperous farming section. Yes, but they must think what they would have for the next campaign. And they were doing better now, yet many of them, John noticed, refused tractors, telephones, vacation journeys. They mustn't slip into blind, unplanned production, he warned them. Price determines need!—all a matter of the people making it otherwise. He wrote in reply to my letters to him and Matty that the co-op leaders were holding picnics, giving out pop and ice cream cones free to induce people to come to their meetings. Some came, mainly children. It was like if you made an appointment they'd say: I'll see you yesterday. Never be different, J. J. told himself, so long as times stayed good. Of course he wished these times would stay…. Factory workers were faster, speedup, couldn't overeat. Out here the Middle Western Ages, farmers plodding behind their horses. Many drudged and denied themselves, put every penny in their farms, then sold or rented to retire to house and lot in town, their living going out of them—on the porch railing Will Farmer sat when he came to town, the basic principle of our government, the Will of the People. What could the people do against the money power now and always controlling the government? They must put men in power who could. J. J.'s chief, almost the only person who had dared militate against the war constantly called to the forces in his state to rally—freedom of the press, freedom of speech, tax the rich, curb the trusts—these things he was fighting for alone. J. J. would do the same. He would get himself endorsed by the leaders in the state. He would give a dinner, an influential standpat Republican would be invited along with the Progressives. To show they could be liberal minded. And La Follette had said, “Get and keep a dozen or more of the leading men in a community interested in, and well informed upon any public question and you have laid firmly the foundations of democratic government.” They must plan so that good times would stay, or at least come oftener.

  Uncle Babe retained his determination for public service through the years he was shunted from committee to committee, and then finally he was placed on the ticket. Quite well known by this time, men began coming to take even suppers with him. Matty had spells oftener.

  To escape there were his acres and his radio. He liked to turn on the negro spirituals, the melting deep…Christ, how they could sing…the blackbirds settling down…he could forget about government. If he were asked about negroes he said they should be treated well but implied they shouldn't be given the upper hand. Matty had no time for radio. Was getting so all people wanted to do was sit and listen in. She didn't understand radio really—just foolish this guesswork pulled out of the air. She went on baking with luck, washing with an electric machine, sewing with the old tread—still made her summer dresses. Her broom in the kitchen would sweep on ceiling and sidewalls as well as floor in loud complaint of existing conditions, or she'd balance it against her, both arms going free.

  One night a man and woman came out from the city, stayed over, in the morning bought the old place—the hotel and five acres surrounding. John liked this sudden, almost accidental business deal, made him happy and Matty was glad he needn't entertain the state about it. They had, for a few years past, given up using the hotel as a hotel, and now the cottage they'd planned immediately took shape on the other side of the grove, facing the river still, same view of woods and river from the windows, besides a new vegetable garden, flower garden, new arbors, chicken coop, pier. And next to their own cottage John built one to rent out—soon it would be his and Phoebe's. Very little woodland was sold with the old place, couldn't take the risk, might disappear overnight—John took only the dead wood for his fuel, and the mass of the woods standing there was protection on the north and something to look at. Would have to be pinched hard to sell any more trees.

  Soon settled down again. Some of the old furniture was brought over. Their five rooms were large enough, many windows, and John's room—he allowed no curtains there, only shades. He had a little walnut cupboard for tobacco, a cot, a desk, small heater, radio. Most winter evenings they sat together in the kitchen, played euchre, dropped their apple peelings into the coal scuttle, Matty's short, quick-cut, John's round and round, unbroken.

  Though less to do here, Matty was still in her neuralgic and head troubles, a woman demanding help, so used to men working on the place that during housecleaning days when she wanted stove or ice box moved she'd say, They can do this anytime now, I'm ready. Thereby she took in the neighbors. Private property before life. And as time went on she knew the courts upheld her. When the strikes came on in Detroit she read: “The right of an owner to his property is upheld by the circuit court.” But the problem of neighbors staying to sit or to use the now fewer and fewer Beefelbein tools she could not always control as she liked. She was always ahead though. Her little busine
ss with her hens was fair. In one way or another she had managed to save $1000. Even during the depression she continued to gamble on her stock market, to pocket little revenues and clip coupons on coffee and soap.

  The monopoly of sleep expanding. But Uncle John was running for the Assembly. He may have dreamed of serving the nation in the coming Presidential campaigns, of being called to conventions here or there: We need your help to nominate Hyle. Or Payne. Or Beefelbein. But the crash came, and then the depression, without him.

  And April elections followed, sun and rain, Prairie Chickens, Phoebe…was still working in a drug store, giving a little each week to her mother, had asked John to invest her savings—turned out bad—made a feeling between them that should never have arisen, but he was now confident of getting into office and providing for them all.

  Party feeling was intense while men huddled under a bridge and streets of people slowly died of hunger.

  J. J. had been endorsed by party leaders and they were cheered when they spoke. At last a real start. Several important issues, but they had to limit themselves to what one address could adequately hold. For J.J. that meant principally the question of putting people back to work and a system of relief. On this he could give his whole heart, sound radical even, socialistic, though of course he was really becoming a Progressive Democrat soon voting for the Franklin D. Roosevelt deal.

  Three days before spring election when the voters would declare themselves—for him—J. J. went out to the haystack to practice his speech of thanks to the people for supporting him. Trying out a new tone-placement to be ready for outdoor engagements. Matty, stepping out the back door heard: two million five hundred thousand. And again something like: three billion seven hundred twenty-six million…. The former likely the number of unemployed or the number of times he'd thought of them. Matty seeing the garden unplowed, a boat unrepaired, probably a fence down: no ground work, only figgers, figgers.

  Election time, she thought, just mouth to mouth. People were living that way now instead of better. The newly married couple renting the cottage—They've got nothing, she said, go without hats or caps in winter, they live from mouth to mouth.

  But to go back to Uncle Babe in the haystack, sheltered from the ill wind of depression…when it did strike him, poor man, he was not influential enough to keep out of the newspapers. In fact that very noon a man drove into the yard telling him the utility company which had both their savings was down so low that he feared it would never come back, and the next day it got around. Now the people still had, many of them, the feeling that a man to lose $8000, 8000 eggs in one basket, must be a poor business man…the system that permitted investment and crash was bad, of course, but every man must take care of himself. And doubtless, regarding John, the amount of his failure grew as it spread…$18,000…$28,000…someone said, I heard $38,000. So it passed from mouth to mouth and burned them up. Enemy papers, the day before election made the most of it. The organs of the opposition attacked me most bitterly, but I am in fighting trim and I feel confident of victory ahead…so an older, richer, nationally known mosquito-in-the-brush had long ago said favorably to the millions, a lawyer he became for the property holders of Milwaukee—Since lawyers, he'd said, in times of depression like the present are the only class that prospers. Uncle John couldn't fight now. Whether he just hadn't built up a successful campaign for himself, or the people were suspicious and resentful of a man in their midst who'd had enough money to retire before he was old…at any rate, he lost out.

  He saw himself now suffering with the rest. His life past the middle, soon gone…what was it for? No use trying to sell any land now, nobody could buy. Mortgage the house, the woods, no, keep away from pain…go back to the Indians, they were happy…until their lands were taken away.

  Night. Went to his room, the window. The big dipper, couldn't see it, different now…why did it move around, different positions? What were the stars? Maybe we weren't meant to know. If he'd broken into education a little further? They probably taught some damthing to fool the people. We learn wrong.

  Next morning Matty baked without luck. Well, they still had cheese and their home.

  He went over the land, heard bullfrogs—he'd had them imported a few years before, saw the yellow-heads in the rushes, the little river and the lake, all in a land of slavery, blue heron stands, finish, form, if city folks could see, advanced into summer, took his new stand against the bankers. Government control of…same radio cushion…money, credit. Setback, had a cold since April…government now controlled by it, wrong, but give it time. Change money. The government wouldn't have to be changed, would it?—not overthrown by…coughing. He felt as unsteady as a Whittier voter, or he began to feel what was best but couldn't bring himself to it. What was this talk of classes, anyway. But yes, if only the middle class and lower class would join together. Feed a cold, starve a fever. As a liberal, Uncle John did both, and the interests of both classes lost their point simultaneously. He was afraid that something must be done, anything though to keep a nation from passing away.

  Think of it, I told Uncle Babe, goes down in the ocean, this country, bubbles, is gone! Not a plant to grow a whisker on. J. J. jumping in after it with a book on Money: What It Is. There it is!—the masses of workers with a government which is themselves and by them the mines, factories, forests, farms, railroads, banks, owned, and the right to work guaranteed, vacation too! A reasonable profit? No, all profit went down in the ocean, so did graft. Down with a fierce love of independence, Hamilton! Look, “our” woods. In your old age a pension and your same old pride a new one. A living science working for just such good Russ…Germans as you. Organized methods. Powerful tractors. Price-decline. Production costs in the barn fell and the haystack moved to the consumer!

  The food which Matty always allowed John to provide was not very nourishing now, she said, only common, coarse food. He brought home less meat, almost no candy. Apples, lemons, were high. If only somebody would give a dinner, show they remembered what he'd done for them and give him a job. To help others. He'd worked hard in his younger days and since, to keep what he had. Now he'd have been ready to give his time and money for other concerns.

  Farmers, organize for the benefit of society. But collective farming? Not own their land? Could a man be depended on to work land he didn't own? What people want is better living, walnut furniture, pottery, violets, theatres….

  Maybe some man put in control. Hard to know which one to trust. In 1912 the American people had elected President Wilson on the belief that he would lower the cost of living! Sometimes it was Wilson, sometimes the Pope, then again Coughlin, or the local police officer.

  He met a man one day. We were riding home in John's Ford V8. I was on vacation—had taken a cut, working now for $2 a week more than room and board. The elderberry bushes beside the road were holding out their white blossom-plates where the pies would come. This man walking, dusty, a small sackload on his back, held out his hand.

  J. J.: Going far?

  Man: West, I guess, wherever I can find work. Know of any?

  He had worked 35 years, it turned out, and now had nothing. John gave him some of our rolls and bananas and 50¢.

  Uncle John worried over him. Pressure to bear. Yes, but as a whole, he said, the common people didn't know what was good for them, couldn't govern themselves. My uncommon Uncle! I suppose he couldn't forget they had repudiated him at the polls, but he said the more prosperous farmers were against relief for those in the towns who had nothing and if they didn't watch out they wouldn't have a friend in the legislature. They really didn't appreciate what was done, could be done, for them—he was led to this belief once long ago when he had given a ditch, a right-of-way straightout to a group of men who wanted to buy it. They never even thanked him. I saw his sadness, couldn't tell him just then that people don't want things done for them. He went on that he at least had a place to be in these hard times. Still, that man, and there must be many more, would see the ocean…
if he had good luck, whereas he, John Beefelbein, had no means of seeing it, had to stay on in his old place.

  He would gladly give the man more sackloads if he could.

  1951–1952

  SWITCHBOARD GIRL

  I divined this comedy, Dante, before I went in. But I had to have a job. “Like one who has imperfect vision, we see the things which are remote from us.” O brother, we saw tho the eyes were shot. We had light if not love. We had business.

  Nystagmus (“The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling”), the searching movement, combined with 80% vision. You'll have to use a magnifying glass, we can't give you glasses to reach print. Good-bye to proof reading. Good-bye to a living. No! That low, rangy, glass-walled office and plant in the Frank Lloyd Wright setting, clean-mowed acres, tulips, petunias, evergreens—I would apply there. Not literature but light fixtures and pressure cookers. Out of daylight into Wade Light.

  I was the September dandelion—forty, female—seeking a place among the young fluorescent petunias. I keep cropping up in the world's backyards while here in America, on all sides they shear civilization back to the seventeen-year-old girl, not yet young shall we say.

  I entered the window-walled office of personnel. Or was it a corner of a little theatre? What would the director be like? A properly placed man may expand his influence over the whole of your sight. We met ideally, as strangers do, without prejudice, without violence…courteous before the guessed-at depth. All art between us. Will he help me? He is not usual. He moves as in a dance to be considerate. As if to speak, against the room's outdoor backdrop, of Renoir? Of Einstein? Is he the master economist with a sense of the relative value of things? The artist with a sense of needing fewer things? The political observer with a knowledge of electronics? What does he know really, sweetly, by touch?