Spring's Gentle Promise

by Janette Oke

  CHAPTER 22

  Hope Upon Hope

  I NEVER WEPT OVER our situation again. Not that I viewed tears as weakness. Maybe I hurt so deeply that I knew tears would not ease the pain. Or maybe I came to a higher level of faith. For whatever reason, I never came near to tears again.

  I sold off more of the livestock. There really wasn’t much choice, but it pained me to see the herd I’d worked so hard to build less than half its former size. With the sale of the stock, plus what I’d managed to tuck aside and a bit of Mary’s hard-won egg and cream money, we somehow managed to make another loan payment.

  But that meant there was little money to tide us over the winter months. I took my rifle and hunted grouse and rabbit and managed to add a bit to the stew pot. Mary talked of butchering a few chickens, but she hesitated. We’d already used all the old hens and all but two of the roosters.

  “It’s sort of like killing the goose that laid the golden egg,” Mary commented to me. “We need those eggs—both for ourselves and to sell in town.”

  I knew Mary was right, so we held off dipping into the flock further.

  Then I thought about the piece of treed crick bottom on the Turley land, and I decided there might be a bit of money in cord wood. Mary clutched at the idea right away, her eyes shining.

  “What a wonderful idea, Josh!” she exclaimed. “But I do hope the work won’t be too hard on you.”

  “It’s not the work that worries me,” I admitted. “We’ll need to find a buyer before it means any money.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we’ll find somebody,” she enthused. “Everyone needs firewood—even in hard times.”

  It turned out that we were able to sell it. All I could cut, the buyer at the lumberyard said. It seemed that he had some kind of connection with city folk and shipped the wood out by rail car.

  But the earnings were a mere pittance. Took me two or three days of back-breaking labor to make enough to buy flour and sugar. Rumors were that the man from the lumberyard made himself a pretty good profit just to act as go-between. It bothered me some, but I felt I had little to say in the matter. I kept at it. At least it might see us through another winter.

  I used Barney and Bess for the skidding, alternating them day by day. I didn’t have the feed or the chop I normally would have been feeding my horses, so I liked to rest them as much as I could. Chester was a bit too light for the hard work or he would have done his share, too.

  Somehow we managed. It was tough, but we all were able to keep body and soul together. I was thankful for that much.

  The second winter of scanty snow came to an end. When the patches of dirty drifts melted, I was back on the land again.

  It didn’t take as long as usual to do the spring work. I didn’t have enough seed grain to plant all of the fields. There was no use working up those that couldn’t be planted. The soil would just erode even more.

  Mary planted her garden too. She had carefully kept every possible seed so she wouldn’t need to buy. She even exchanged some with neighborhood women. All together, she managed to get a reasonable garden in the ground. She knew better than to even start drawing water from the well. There simply wasn’t enough there. She saved every bit of dishwater and wash water that was used, though, and carefully doled it out to her plants.

  I had never seen anything like the dust storms that came that year. They rolled up from the west, raising hopes that maybe a rain cloud was on the way, and then blew in with nothing but flying dirt and empty promises. Dust lay over everything. Whole fields seemed to be airborne, swirling madly about us. Mary came to hate the dust even worse than the wind.

  Along with the dust came the grasshoppers. There wasn’t much for them to eat, but they seemed to flourish anyway. I knew even without walking through the fields that there would be no crop this year. I went back to cutting cord wood.

  Near the end of August Uncle Charlie took sick. It was a Sunday morning, and Mary had our breakfast on the table and William all ready to go to church. Uncle Charlie still hadn’t made his appearance. It wasn’t like him. He lingered in bed now and then, having spent a restless night, but never on a Sunday morning.

  We sat down to the table, our eyes on the stairway, thinking surely he’d be showing up at any minute.

  Mary turned to me. “Do you think you should check, Josh?” she asked.

  William pounded his spoon impatiently on the table and called in his babyish lisp, “Eat time. Eat time, Unc’a Shar-ie.”

  Grandpa forgot his worry long enough to have a good chuckle at William. Mary stopped the boy from banging his spoon, and I looked toward the stairs again.

  I went on up then, and there was Uncle Charlie on the floor beside his bed. He must have been trying to get out of bed when he took a fall.

  It scared me, I’ll tell you. It frightened all of us. We abandoned our plans for church. Grandpa and I lifted Uncle Charlie back onto his bed, and I saddled Chester and headed out for Doc.

  By the time we got back, Uncle Charlie was conscious and rational. He still wanted to go to church, but Doc said he had a pretty nasty bump on the head and was to stay in bed for a few days. Besides, it was already too late for church anyway.

  After Doc had done all he could to make Uncle Charlie comfortable and left a bit of medicine for him, Doc and I walked down to the kitchen. Mary had poured a cup of morning coffee and set it at the table for him. She’d fed William, but the rest of us still had not had our breakfast. The familiar morning oatmeal had not improved with age, but we ate it anyway. It did fill the void.

  Doc sat down for a neighborly visit. He told Mary of new babies in the community—even shared the secret of a few on the way, and told of people in town moving in and those who were moving out. He even shared bits and pieces of world news— things that we would have been getting out of the newspaper had we still been receiving one.

  And then he turned his attention to William.

  “Your boy sure looks healthy,” he said to Mary, and Mary beamed.

  “Come here, fella,” Doc called to the toddler, and William trotted over to be lifted up on Doc’s knee.

  “You ever see one of these?” Doc asked and dangled his stethoscope before William. I don’t suppose there was a kid in our whole area who hadn’t played with Doc’s stethoscope at one time or another. And it had fascinated every one of us, too. William was no exception. He turned it around and around in his hand, then tried to stick the smooth, round end into his ear.

  We all laughed.

  “So you’re going to be a doctor someday,” commented Doc. “But you’ve got it backward. This is what goes in your ears. Here, hold still.”

  He helped the little fella with the instrument, and William’s eyes grew wide with wonder. I had a pretty good idea that he was hearing absolutely nothing, but the feeling of something holding his head from each side must have intrigued him. He sat perfectly still until Doc removed the ear pieces.

  “Well, I’d best be running,” Doc said at last. “Someone might be needing me.”

  He lifted William to the floor and reached for his hat. “Yes, sir,” he said, his eyes still on William. “You’re a nice, big boy for two years old. Almost two years old,” he corrected himself. “Your mama has taken real good care of you.”

  I walked with Doc to get his team. It was an awkward moment for me. I hardly knew where or how to begin.

  “Doc,” I finally blurted, “in the past we’ve always paid you cash for your visits, but I’m afraid—”

  Doc stopped me before I could even go on. “I know how things are right now, Josh,” he returned confidentially. “We’ll just put this here little visit on your account.”

  “But I don’t have an account,” I reminded him.

  “You do now,” said Doc, “and don’t you go worrying none about it either. You can take care of it just as soon as you get another crop.”

  Doc came three more times to visit Uncle Charlie. On his last visit Mary had a little chat with him too. It see
med her suspicions were correct. She was expecting our second child.

  I should have been happy—and I was. But this time I was worried too. How would we ever feed and clothe another child? William was already doing without things he should have had— and he was better off than most of the children in our area. Lou passed on to him many of the things Jonathan and Timothy had worn.

  But in spite of morning sickness again, Mary was happy. It fell to Grandpa to entertain young William until Mary was able to be on her feet. I was still busy with cutting wood and unable to give much assistance in the house.

  Uncle Charlie got steadily better, to our great relief. By the time William celebrated his second birthday, Uncle Charlie was again able to join us at the table. By then Mary was feeling much better, too.

  There wasn’t any crop to harvest, so I just kept right on working in the woodlot. Now and then the lumberyard owner would pop by and have the wood loaded onto a truck and hauled to the railway yards. He’d pay me each time he made a pickup, and I tried hard to put some of it aside. But there wasn’t much of it in the drawer when I went to count up the money. I’d needed to spend most of it for necessities throughout the summer and fall. I would have to sell stock again. Even with the sale, I wondered if it would be enough to meet the payment. My heart sank at the thought.

  I was heading for my room to do some more figuring when Grandpa’s voice stopped me.

  I turned to look at him. He and Uncle Charlie were at the kitchen table. There was no coffee to drink, but maybe it was hard to break an old habit. Anyway, they still pulled up their chairs each evening and sat there—chatting, even playing an occasional game of checkers. But often they just sat, waiting for the time to go to bed.

  Mary had already gone up to tuck William in for the night, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until she would be waiting for our devotional time together.

  “Got a minute?”

  I nodded.

  “Charlie and I think it’s time we talk.”

  I didn’t have any idea what was coming but I felt my stomach began to tighten.

  “You got another payment to make,” Grandpa said as I pulled out a chair and lowered myself onto it. It was a statement— not a question.

  I nodded again.

  There was silence for a minute. Uncle Charlie sucked in air, much as he used to suck in coffee.

  “You got it figured?” went on Grandpa.

  I lowered my head for a moment and then brought it up to face the two men. “No-o,” I admitted. “No—not yet.”

  “In thet case,” said Grandpa, shoving a lidded tin toward me, “we want ya to have this.”

  I looked from Grandpa to Uncle Charlie.

  “If we’d ’a knowed what straights you was in, we’d ’a given it long ago. Feel bad we’ve been lettin’ ya sweat it out alone,”

  said Uncle Charlie, an unusually long speech for him.

  “It’s the Turley farm,” I admitted. “It probably was a mistake to take on more land, especially with the drought.”

  “I figured it a smart move,” Grandpa hurried to say. “One ya couldn’t pass up, really. Just a shame thet we been prayin’ fer rain ever since. But thet’ll change. Just need time, thet’s all. Just time.”

  I appreciated Grandpa’s vote of confidence and Uncle Charlie’s nod of agreement. Then Grandpa pushed the can farther toward me and this time I reached out for it.

  I pulled it to me and pried off the lid.

  I stared in disbelief. It was full of bills.

  “It ain’t much,” Grandpa was saying, “but it might help some.”

  I knew then what I was looking at. It was the total life’s savings of Grandpa and Uncle Charlie. I pushed the can back toward them, fighting hard to swallow.

  “I can’t—I can’t take that,” I finally was able to say.

  “What’ll ya do then?” asked Grandpa without hesitation.

  “I—I—” I swallowed. “I still have some stock. I can sell—”

  “We been thinkin’ on thet,” said Grandpa. “It don’t seem like a good move. I mean—ya sell it all off an’ then where are ya? Soon as the rains start up agin, ya got no herd to build on.”

  I knew he was right. I’d thought that all through myself and come to the same conclusion.

  “We don’t know when the rains—” I began, but Grandpa cut in.

  “They’ll come,” he said simply. “Always do.”

  But when, I wanted to cry out. When? After it’s too late— after we’ve lost everything?

  I didn’t say it. Instead, I looked first at Grandpa and then at Uncle Charlie.

  “It might not be enough,” Grandpa was saying. “We don’t know how big those payments be. But take it. Make it do fer ya what ya can.”

  “But you’ve worked all your life to save this money,” I persisted. “I can’t just take it and—”

  Uncle Charlie waved an arthritic hand as though to brush aside all my arguments. “Josh,” he said, “you’ve been boardin’ an’ beddin’ us fer several years now. Ain’t either of us worth a lick a salt. But ya ain’t hinted at thet. Neither has Mary. Now, iffen the farm goes—then what, Josh? This is our home too, an’ I reckon as how we’d be hard put adjustin’ to ’nother one.”

  “ ’Zactly,” agreed Grandpa.

  “But—” I tried again.

  “No ‘buts,’ Josh. Just take it on in an’ make thet there payment, iffen it’ll do thet, an’ get thet monkey off all our backs.”

  I had no further arguments. I thanked the two men before me as sincerely as I could and tucked the tin under my arm. I had no idea how much money was in the can. It wouldn’t be much, I knew. Grandpa and Uncle Charlie had never had the opportunity to stash away large sums. But maybe—just maybe it would be enough to keep us afloat. Maybe—just maybe—it would help us make it to another spring.

  CHAPTER 23

  Sustained Effort

  THERE WAS ENOUGH IN the tin can to make the loan payment—with some left over to help us through the winter. I went to town the next morning with the money tied securely in my coat pocket.

  I was getting to hate trips to town and avoided them whenever possible. It seemed whenever I went there was news of another foreclosure and another area farmer forced off his land.

  It wasn’t as hard for those who had been there for years and were well established. Some had no payments due at the bank and could manage to sort of slide by even though money was tight. But for those who had just invested in land or stock or new machinery, the matter was quite different. It was almost impossible to stay afloat, given the economics of the times along with the drought.

  It saddened me. I guess it also frightened me. The thought kept nagging at me that my turn might be next.

  I didn’t know what I’d ever do if I lost the farm. It wasn’t just the fact that I loved it—had always loved it. I figured I had about as much of that farm soil running through my veins as I had red blood. I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere but on that farm.

  Grandpa had settled the farm. He and Uncle Charlie had sweated and toiled and built it to what it had become. It belonged to us. To all of us. It belonged to my son some time down the road.

  Farming was all I knew. I was not trained for anything else. I had no other home, no other possession, no other profession. If I lost the farm I would lose far more than a piece of property. I would lose my livelihood, my heritage, my family home, my very sense of personhood. I wouldn’t fit any other place. I knew that without going through the experience.

  And knowing all of that, and knowing also that Grandpa and Uncle Charlie shared my feelings, I took the gift of money they had given me and tried to buy the family a little more time. And I prayed that they were right. That the rains were soon due back again.

  I felt better after I had made the payment. I didn’t miss the surprised look on the banker’s face when I drew out the small roll of bills, but he asked no questions and I volunteered no information. I was handed my receipt of payment and
left the building.

  I stopped long enough to buy a few groceries, among the parcels a pound of coffee for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie and some cheese for Mary. She had made several remarks over the last few days about how good cheese would taste. Then I bought a sack of grain to feed her chickens. It would do us all well if we could keep the hens laying.

  I was about to head for home when I remembered to pick up the mail. There rarely was anything of importance, but I checked it out anyway. Later I wished I hadn’t even gone to the post office.

  Mr. Hiram Smith was ahead of me at the wicket. “Howdy, Josh,” he hailed me and I returned his greeting.

  “Another rough summer,” he commented sociably and I agreed that it was.

  “Hear more farmers are having a hard time.”

  I nodded to that too.

  “Did you have any crop at all?” he asked.

  “Not much,” I admitted. “I turned the cows on it. Wasn’t worth the time of trying to harvest it.”

  It was his turn to nod. “Too bad,” he pondered. “Sure too bad. Farms’re up for sale all over the place.” He didn’t even wait for a response from me. “Trouble is,” he went on, “no buyers. Why, ya can’t even give one away. Nobody’s got money to buy. That’s how it is. Too bad.”

  It was all the truth—but it was all old news by now. I was about to ask for my mail and move on.

  “Ya hear ’bout Avery?” asked Mr. Smith.

  I hadn’t, and I stopped mid-stride. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about Avery if it was going to be bad news—and from Mr. Smith’s expression, it looked as if it would be. But Avery was my brother-in-law. If there was something wrong, I had to know.

  “Lost his farm,” said Mr. Smith, rather callously to my thinking. “Just gettin’ started, too. An’ him newly married an’ all. Too bad.” He shook his head one more time and moved toward the door, shuffling through advertising flyers as he did so.

  I went all sick inside.

  It was Mary that I thought of first. I knew how deeply the news would trouble her. Poor Mary. And poor Lilli—and her expecting their first child too, I mourned.