“Are you mending, Ben?”
“Gradual, a day at a time. You can’t kill a Vermonter. We just wear out like a pair of pants. Last evening, Bess pulled out my stitches. Smarted near as bad as going in.”
“Mr. Gamp did wrong to you.”
“Indeed so. But Mr. Gamp regretted it and stopped by here the other day to apologize.” Ben smiled. “In fact, he brought me a cheese.”
“He still made a mistake with his mare.”
“Robert, we all make a misstep now and again. Every man has a weakness. I’d be flimsy if I held a grudge against Haskell Gamp.” Ben sighed. “Forgiveness heals a hurt better than iodine or thread.”
The kindly way he said it made me respect Benjamin Franklin Tanner all the more.
Leading Daisy, we rounded a corner of Ben’s big cow barn. There he stood. Beowolf, a black-and-white Holstein bull. A giant. Ben looked at him with pride, then at me, and bent a slow grin.
“I’ll never forget that Sunday afternoon,” he said. “You were maybe half as high as now. You stood here with your folks, and so did our preacher and his wife, Reverend Hazeltine and Mrs.”
“I don’t recall.”
Ben laughed. “Well, I do. Bess mentioned it recent. We were all standing right here, admiring Beowolf, when he took a big breath and roared one mighty bellow. Mrs. Hazeltine said … My, what a pair of lungs. And you, young Robert, pointed at his hinder, and said … Those aren’t lungs. Them are his … and your ma muffled your mouth not a second too soon.”
I felt my face redden. “Did I say that? If so, I certain am sorry.”
Ben rested a hand on my shoulder. “No need. There’s nothing evil or dirty about nature. What made it all so amusing was the fact that your father attempted a smile. And that was a feat he’d perform about once a decade.” Ben sighed. “I miss Haven. Always a good steady neighbor. All salt and no pepper.”
I couldn’t say anything. When my father died, it was as though God had ripped the sun from out of my sky. I become a lantern with no light.
“Bess and I were never blessed with children. Now that we’re aging into ancient, Rob, we sort of think of you as ours. Not that I’d ever try to replace your father. No one could replace Haven Peck. But both Bess and I feel close to you and your folks.”
“We feel likewise.”
Daisy muttered a soft moo.
“Smell him, Daisy,” Ben said to our cow. “Help yourself to a whiff of my bull.”
“You smell too, Beowolf,” I said hopefully. “It’s spring.”
Walking behind her, Ben lifted Daisy’s tail, smelled her, and touched her. Then he shook his head.
“Little chance,” he told me. “No heat. She’s like winter. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table. It’s June, boy. But for that cow of yourn, it’s the dark of December.”
Beowolf didn’t even glance our way.
Ben pointed at his bull. “That old Romeo knows more than you, me, and Daisy all put together. We got a pair of disinterested parties, Rob. My advice to you is to end her.” Kneeling, he felt her udder. “Empty as a Monday church.”
“What’ll I do with her?”
“For your heart’s sake, turn her out into your meadow for a spell. Let her graze, fatten, and enjoy the summer. But by autumn, best you not waste even one wisp of hay to board her all winter. You can’t afford that. Daisy will never again lactate. But don’t delay, Robert. Best you sell her while she’s still alive. If she dies, you’ll have naught.”
“Sell her? Who’d buy a dry cow? What would she be good for?”
“Dog meat.”
I closed my eyes. “No. I can’t.”
“Wake up, boy. Yes, you can because you’ll have to do just that, and no other. There isn’t a choosing. Only an end. Daisy’s had a good life among you Pecks. Now, young man, best be growed-up enough to face what’s so. These are hard truths they don’t teach you in school. Like it or no, it’s what I do with my old cows. You’ll get five dollars for her and no more.”
“How would I go about selling her?”
“Go to Clay Sander. Your pa killed his hogs for many a year. Clay’ll handle it.”
While I was leading Daisy back to our place, I stopped on the ridge that separated the Tanner property from ours. From up here, I could breathe air so fresh that I could almost drink it, and look down to our house and barn. We had Solomon no longer. And soon, there’d be no Daisy.
My hand touched her warm body on the right side, where my father would so often rest his head while milking her.
“Daisy,” I said, “why do we always have to lose so many animals and people that belong to us? Why?”
Sometime I’d have to bury both Mama and Aunt Carrie. One by one. Even though it was a warm June morning, the thought of their going turned me chilly. Ben Tanner had told me, less than a hour ago, that I would have to get growed-up. That meant a Shaker accepting of both life and death. There was no way to part one from the other.
“Dog meat.” I said it aloud, so I would toughen enough to swallow what’s real. The words knifed into me. Standing there, looking down at our little farm, I wanted to be a boy again, with all around me that I knew and felt a part of. And no banking.
Perhaps I’d been too rude to Mr. Gamp.
The urge to apologize had simmered inside me since that Saturday morning at the bank. Neither my father nor my mother would have spoke what I told him. My feelings were right, yet my reason was wrong.
Ben Tanner, in his silent way, had forgiven Mr. Gamp’s error. And if Ben could do it, tore apart, then so could Rob Peck. Made little sense to carry a hate. The load of it was burdensome. Too heavy to haul.
Above me, the sun had been behind a cloud, but it sudden shined on me, warming the all of my person.
“Daisy,” I said, “let’s go home.”
Together, we walked down off the ridge to our place, to where we belonged. Peck land. Bending, I scooped up a clod of earth. In my hand it felt fresh and fertile, a woman awaiting seed.
The day was still young. So I turned Daisy out into our meadow and made for the barn, and the many bags of seed corn that had rested there all winter long.
Later, I was broadcasting. For years I’d watched Papa do it, walking our cornfield in May or early June with a sack of seed beneath his left armpit. He’d walk along steady and slow, at an even pace, never slowing, grabbing a handful of corn kernels. Then he’d hurl it in a arc before him, again and again, until his sack no longer bulged but sagged to empty. I felt proud to walk where he had walked. Following my father.
The seeding took all day. Farming by hand is slow work. Yet with each hurling of my arm and scattering of seed, I felt renewed. Born again.
This wouldn’t be table corn. It was silage. Field corn. With no Solomon and no Daisy, I could turn these two acres, that Solomon and I had plowed, into a money crop. For taxes. A pity that neither Solomon or Daisy would winter on what I now was sowing. Yet, in a way, I was working in their honor; they prospered on our land.
I broadcasted my final bag.
Sun would shine, and the wind and rain would help bury every seed. Easier than covering it with a hoe. Nature would be tucking my corn kernels into bed like wee children. All snug.
Deep in the earth, a seed would begin to sprout and prosper. I’d broadcast. God, the Giver, would do the rest. Standing alone on a fresh-seeded field, the flow of farming was uplifting me. Up through my bare feet. An old Shaker saying crossed my mind, something Papa had told me: “Gratefulness is the highest note in the hymn of prayer.”
Years ago, when I’d attended a local one-room schoolhouse during my early years of education, Miss Kelly had said likewise.
“Teachers,” she said, “are like farmers. We are in charge of the green and the growing. Every morning, a farmer goes to his garden. Yet, in a way, a teacher is luckier because my garden comes to me.”
For some reason, I kept on standing out in the field of fresh-seeded corn. Alone with the Almighty. The pair of u
s. And I couldn’t have been granted a more worthy partner. Right then, I decided that I’d never beg the Lord to carry me through. But only that He would afford me the back to do it.
“Hear me,” I told the sunshine. “I’m no longer a boy. You seen fit to promote me to manhood, so that’s what I’ll be. A man.”
Looking at my skinny arms, I began to wonder if’n I’d muster up the might. No way I’d ever share my doubts with Mama or Aunt Carrie. To them, I’d be a rock. Their hope. Six months before my father died, he’d prepared me … “It’s got to be you, Rob. There’s nobody else. It has just got to be you.”
I blinked at a blue sky.
Chapter
7
Time for haying.
Wading through less than two acres of hay, I could feel the green shafts of timothy swishing against my bare feet and ankles, and smell the fresh-cut clover.
The hay was ripe, ready to mow. Light green, almost a gray. Below, low to ground, the thicker clumps of clover seemed Sunday dressed with flowering balls of lavender and white.
“A money crop,” I said, “to keep our farm.”
My shirt was wet with work. Salty sweat was stinging my eyes, so I rested my tall two-handed scythe to rag my face. Seeds stuck to me. Pulling a gray whetstone from a back pocket, I turned the scythe upside down to click a fresh edge on a long curving blade. The sound carried. Another reaper, beyond sight, answered me with his stone, as if to brag that he was working as hard. It was a sort of summer music, a rhythm, to hear a whetstone strum a scythe.
I continued to mow, inching forward step by step with every sweeping swing. It felt manly to earn money. Ben, because of his injury, wouldn’t be haying as much. He usual offered seven dollars a ton. But that was delivered to his hay barn. Now, without Solomon, I’d have to chop my price to five dollars a ton because his man George would have to come with their oxen and wagon. By then, I’d have it all down, tumbled into straight windrows, and then piled as soon as dry.
As I worked, I remembered last summer. My father was haying beside me. He’d nearly stomped on a nest when a swallow fluttered up to scold. Together, we knelt to locate her four young bird-lets, barely hatched. Fuzz instead of feathers. Papa halted his work, fetched a beanpole, and marked her nesting place, to spare the little miracle that happened in his hay.
“Papa.”
The echo of his name wafted away, and I stood alone in our hayfield with the cut of a memory.
As the June sun was hot in a cloudless sky, the mowed hay behind me was drying. Mama and Aunt Carrie come out with pitchforks to tumble it. In the kitchen, they talked. But here they spoke little. Hour after hour, they worked silent as men.
At supper that evening, I noticed the tired on their faces. Neither one complained. Perhaps their backs told them that I ached as did they. When we bowed our heads for a Shaker blessing, I saw their hardened hands clenched in grace; they asked for so little, and yet they’d given so much.
“Bless our food,” Mama whispered with her eyes closed, “and us for Thy service, to Kingdom Hall. Amen.”
“Amen,” said Carrie and I.
Supper was beans, boiled eggs, and turnip greens, and milk, given to me by Mrs. Tanner. Soon I’d wring a chicken’s neck, and we’d feast for fair. We ate no beef, no pork, and no mutton.
“Tomorrow,” I told them as I ate, “I’m taking Daisy away. There’s no other answer. Ben says she’ll never again freshen, and he’s raised more cows than I have.”
Mama and Carrie stopped eating.
“Please,” I said, “don’t poke me with questions. It’s for the farm’s good. For us.”
Inside, my mind harped on the threat of our September taxes. My ears still rang with Mr. Gamp’s warning of the money we’d owe.
“Robert,” said Mama, “you’ll act right. We trust. So don’t you fret a mite. Do what needs.”
Aunt Carrie nodded.
Looking at both of them, I said, “You ladies are Vermont granite. There’s not a farm in the county that can boast of two women, or two men, the such of you.”
Mama smiled faintly.
“Yoke us,” she said, “and we’ll pull.”
After supper, while Mama and Aunt Carrie were ragging the kitchen, I went outside. As it was still light, I walked to the hayfield to sweep another swath. In my hands, the scythe seemed heavier, and its edge duller. Hay almost refused to fall. But I reaped until after sundown before returning my cutter to the toolshed, where I wiped clean its blade.
As I passed the henhouse, the chickens were either asleep or in prayer. Nary a peep.
Standing at the meadow fence, I allowed my chin to rest on the butt of a post. How many tons of hay, I wondered, would we glean? Not enough for September. Thirty-five dollars was a fortune. Was Mr. Gamp right? Maybe selling the farm was sound.
“No,” I said, lifting my head.
Daisy must have been listening. Because I saw her strolling toward me in the moonlight, walking very slowly across the stubby pasture grass.
“Howdy, old girl. I know. You miss old Solomon.”
Do cows think? Standing there, leaning on the fence, I figured Daisy realized that something in her life was different. My twice-a-day visits had ended. More than missing her milk, I missed milking her, feeling all of her hay-burned warmth. And I was hoping that Daisy missed me as much.
It had been a long day.
My eyes felt already asleep. Saying a good-night to Daisy, I trudged up to the gentle knoll to our house. A lantern yellowed our kitchen window. By itself. Mama and Aunt Carrie had crept into bed.
Just as I was inhaling to blow out the kitchen light, Sarah, our cat, came from behind the stove, tail high, to rub against my leg. Bending, I petted her. Then, picking her up into my arms, I held her purring against my face. Miss Sarah was warm and soft. Yet she felt older to me, and thinner.
“Miss Sarah,” I told her, “we still have you, little pet. You’re older than I am.”
For some reason, I lay down on the hard boards of our kitchen floor, allowing Sarah to lie on my chest. Paws primly together, she blinked at me, closing her eyes with the complete contentment that belongs only to a cat.
“Sarah,” I whispered to her. “Miss Sarah.”
Stroking her, I thought of Daisy, alone out in our meadow night, perhaps longing for Solomon’s company. Animals feel. This I knew. They touch and are touched. Words weren’t no more than extra weight. Friendship took no talking.
Nearly asleep, I tried not to think about tomorrow, or Daisy, or Mr. Clay Sander. As Miss Sarah hopped off my chest, my eyes opened, so I made myself undress, wash, and tumble into bed.
I slept on a tick. A muslin sack, tan as an eggshell, stuffed with dried corn shucks. It allowed a sleeper to smell last summer’s corn all winter, a cozy lullaby for a January night. Curling up on a tick made a rustle of rest. Beneath me, the cradling crackle of tick stuffing whispered me a bedtime story softer than a twilight kiss.
That’s all I remembered.
Early next morning, I led Daisy to Clay Sander’s butchery to cut a business deal with him. As I collected the five dollars in cash, my hand was trembling. I hated the feel of it. Lucky for me, the words dog meat never got spoken. Had I heard them, I might’ve turned tail and run away, taking Daisy with me. Or worse, just leaving her behind.
This, however, was no time to be a coward. Instead, I stayed with her for over an hour because I wouldn’t allow her final moments of life to be among strangers who didn’t care or even know her name.
A man came and tagged her, twisting a wire around the base of her ear. He looked at me.
“Your cow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maybe you’d best leave, boy. Because I don’t guess you’ll want to watch. It ain’t pleasant.”
“I’ll stay.”
With a shrug, the man gently punched my shoulder, then left me alone with Daisy. The stink of the place was strong. A death smell. With my arms around her warm neck, I hugged her for a final t
ime, saying “Daisy” to her. She wasn’t easy to hold. Her head fought the rope.
The man returned with another man. Both of them were wearing leather aprons.
“Bring her,” one of them said.
I led her inside, onto a concrete walkway, and they vised her head into a stanchion below a platform. A man climbed the short ladder to stand above her and picked up a sledgehammer.
Daisy kicked, but there was no escape.
As I leaned forward to touch my face to hers, I heard “Back away, boy.”
I obeyed. But I remained near, eyes closed tight, until I heard that dull horrid sound of a sledge bashing her skull under the little curlycue between her eyes. I heard her fall. She was dead.
Only when the men were fastening a heavy chain to one of her hind legs did I leave her. Behind me, the rattle of the chain in its conveyor track grew fainter as I began my lonely walk.
To honor her, on the way home I kept repeating Daisy’s name, hoping somehow, and somewhere green, she was with Solomon.
Chapter
8
Good news.
I passed English. Only because Becky Lee Tate had, for some odd reason, enjoyed the dance at the Grange Hall, and had coached me. Lucky for me, on Miss Malcolm’s final English test there was only one question on As You Like It.
Who wrote it? And I could answer that.
My really pleasant surprise arrived one morning when I was standing between two short rows of dill, and along come Miss Malcolm on the dirt road.
“Robert,” she cried, grunting her weight out of her junky two-seater car, “you rascal, you never came to school to pick up your year-end report card. Even though your attendance record needs improving.”
There I stood, smeared with manure dust, as I’d been pushing wheelbarrows of it to our vegetable garden.
“Did I pass?”
She smiled at me. “Somehow. Even though you and Becky Tate wrote a few mysteriously similar answers.”
When she handed me the card, I first wiped my hands on my pants. “Thanks. Thank you a lot, Miss Malcolm.”
A Part of the Sky Page 4
