Maggie's Farm

by Sherry, John;

  The charges were of course dropped. But it was a bad ending to 1955; it had gone out like a lion, a rather sick lion.

  CHAPTER IX

  The letter from Hiram Haydn rejecting my work in progress arrived sometime after the first of the year. I realize now that my hope that the novel would bail out the boat financially was far greater than any essential belief I had in the work itself. I was disappointed but at the same time curiously relieved; there was no further need to play charades or indulge false hopes that my pen could simultaneously save our bacon and install my name among the luminaries. I was rather in the position of a painter dressed in a smock, floppy bow tie and all the rest of it, who suddenly decides to throw his velvet beret in the corner and paint a picture.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing quite that dramatic about the change; several weeks had to be spent reviling Haydn and explaining to my wife his total inability to tell his ass from his elbow. Curiously enough, at the same time I was bitter about the novel’s rejection, I tended to accept it. Some professional instinct warned me that to use as ground upon which to stand and fight a work in which one has less than total faith is tantamount to disaster. To stand firmly behind work in which one has implicit belief is another matter entirely—even when total bleakness of possibility looms ahead. Any artist worth a damn must back his real bets even though he comes to grief in the process. So, though I continued to act the role of a wronged author and to bemoan to my wife the stupidity of editors and publishers in general, my critical faculties were hard at work accepting the premises behind the rejection to the point where I could relegate the manuscript to a drawer rather than waste time by indulging in the fantasy necessary if I were to put the bundle back in the mail to another publisher.

  The more or less successful navigation of those strange straits bordered by spleen and paranoia through which all rejected authors pass, had the rather happy effect of leading me towards my first fully professional act of authorship. After about a month of fruitless stewing and worry about money, I began to fiddle idly with the beginnings of a thriller rather along the lines of Eric Ambler, a writer whom I wholeheartedly admire. As I fiddled, two things became clear quite soon: I was enjoying myself a great deal and the story was not half bad. As luck or a sensible guiding hand from the subconscious would have it, I had chosen a genre which admits neither pomposity of intention nor execution. Even my capacity for self delusion was not up to the task of turning a sixty-thousand word thriller into the great American novel bearing a golden burden of kudos, fame and fortune. Therefore, I assigned no roles of financial or spiritual salvation to my tale and, as a result, had a damned good time. It took me exactly one month and a half to write. There was only one draft and very few corrections. I am rather proud of the fact that when the story eventually did find a publisher (under the title: The Loring Affair), it was printed from that first draft manuscript without even being re-typed. The book’s publication was far enough in the future so that even the meager financial return it eventually brought in, would have had no effect upon our immediate financial bind. Still, I had done a good, professional job and it helped wipe out the sour, self-deluded taste left over from the bad, unprofessional job with which I had occupied my hopes during most of the past year. Art has many roles and not the least of them is its effect upon the psychic health of the artist.

  Darroch finally paid us a visit that winter. Although he actually stayed with us, he spent a good deal of time with O’Hara and Kate, it being his paramount desire to see as much of his daughter, Jane, as possible. The child seemed almost desperately happy to have her real father around even for the limited time of his visit. Without question, Darroch was fond of his daughter but there was never any question of having her live with him permanently. The life of a hard-drinking, heavy-womanizing, hugely peripatetic bachelor is not exactly designed to include a child. Darroch was seeing at that time a great deal of a woman he would later marry but, for the nonce, there was no great pressure upon him to marry, and Darroch was not one to wish his few remaining golden years to be encumbered with a wife.

  Darroch reported to me an extremely curious proposition made to him by O’Hara at one point during his visit. So curious was it, in fact, that I found it difficult to credit until it was later confirmed by O’Hara himself. What he had done was to offer Darroch a rather large sum of money if he would marry the girl of whom he was currently seeing so much. Not the least strange thing to me about this peculiar gambit was that O’Hara had the wherewithal to make such an offer to Darroch. About a month previously, O’Hara’s fortunes had improved suddenly and rather dramatically. New and expensive clothing had begun to appear in his wardrobe and he had undertaken several mysterious trips to New York and St. Louis. O’Hara’s financial situation and mine had been more or less completely open books to one another since childhood, but now he had become extremely close-mouthed about the source of his recent bonanza. My immediate suspicion was that he had come to some sort of financial understanding with Roger—and I am inclined to believe now that such was the case. However, the money could have also come from one of Kate’s collateral family connections. Although she was far from well off herself, she was a titular rich girl and possessed many wealthy relatives and it is possible that one may have popped off, leaving her a legacy. At any rate, whatever the source, O’Hara had become very flush indeed.

  Why had O’Hara made such a curious offer to Darroch? Dorothy and I puzzled long over that question. The most obvious answer appeared to be that O’Hara feared the possibility that Darroch might some day induce Kate to return to him, leaving O’Hara high and dry. But if such was O’Hara’s reasoning, I believe he was mistaken. Some fascination with Darroch may have remained with Kate but it had become purely negative fascination. The love and trust she had formerly entertained for Darroch had been changed, by the chemistry of desertion and betrayal, into scorn and contempt.

  The factor at the root of O’Hara’s offer of money to Darroch if he would marry again was, I believe, the child, Jane. By that time O’Hara was well aware that Jane was a child of considerable character who was not prepared to transfer to him the allegiance she felt for her real father. The presence in his house of another man’s child who was obdurately loyal to her real father and inherently suspicious of him represented to O’Hara a key tangle in the “Gordian knot” he was desirous of cutting. The easiest way of ridding himself of such a key tangle would be to rid himself of the child. Thus his attempt to entice Darroch into marriage through offering him money may possibly have stemmed from the hope that he and Kate could send the child to live with Darroch once he was married. But Darroch wasn’t having any. Subsequent events would bear out the thesis that O’Hara’s real desire was to rid himself of the child. What her feelings were I will never know but the fact remains that Kate would, in time, give Jane up; would, in fact, not see her daughter for twenty years. But now, I go too fast.

  All in all, Darroch remained with us for about two weeks. He was always an enjoyable companion and it was a pleasant time. Darroch had that rare quality of enhancing the vision of whomever he was with, and half the pleasure in showing him the country around my farm lay in the fact that I was, in effect, seeing it with rejuvenated eyes myself. We shot his bow and arrows, walked and drove about the countryside and he helped me with a number of two-man jobs which I had been putting off until I had some help.

  Two incidents occurred during his visit which entertain me in retrospect and throw a certain light upon Darroch’s character. In the structure of the con man is the terrible and ever-present fear that he may be conned by an even greater con man than himself. With Darroch, this fear permeated his every action from the most complex to the most simple.

  One morning, I went to get my pick-up truck only to discover that it had a flat tire. Never having changed a tire on that particular vehicle, I did not know that a peculiarity of International trucks is that the lug nuts unloosen in differing directions on each side of the truck—counter clo
ckwise on one side, clockwise on the other. Believing that all lug nuts unloosened in a counter clockwise direction, I spent myself to no avail turning them so and of course achieved nothing but the further tightening of the nuts. Finally, I acknowledged to myself that the effort was beyond me and went in the house to ask Darroch to come out and have a go. He was in perfect condition in those days and, in perfect condition, Darroch was one of the strongest men physically I have ever encountered. Hearing my tale of woe, he put down his book and we went out to look at the truck. He picked up the lug wrench and prepared to employ pressure. But before he did so he very earnestly queried me as to whether I was absolutely certain we were turning the lug nuts in the proper direction. With the complete conviction of a man who is certain he is right, I replied that all lug nuts unloosened in a counter clockwise direction. Nodding in a satisfied way, Darroch laid hold of the wrench. Such a heave did he give it that I though the truck would come off the jack. Eyes popping, muscles straining and veins standing out, he kept this up for several seconds. He then stopped and asked again if I was sure about the direction. I replied again that I was certain. The scene was then repeated with an even greater fury of effort. As Darroch strained, a neighbor appeared over the brow of the hill, stopped his car and got out. When he saw what we were doing he began to laugh and pointed out that we were, indeed, turning the nut to make it tighter rather than looser. Wearing the stricken look of a man betrayed, Darroch dropped the wrench and turned to enter the house without a word. It took me hours to convince him that it had not been done purposely.

  The other incident was of a similar nature but, alas, contained a measure of conscious mischief on my part. Like two or three other very intelligent men I have known, Darroch was addicted to the practice of reading science fiction novels. I was kidding him about this one day when he undertook to give me a long lecture about the brilliance of certain authors of science fiction. He mentioned several names as examples, none of whom was familiar to me. He seemed to be particularly impressed with the books of a science fiction writer called Theodore Sturgeon. He gave quite a long lecture on the works of Mr. Sturgeon, pointing out, among other things, that in his opinion, Mr. Sturgeon had a much clearer shot at posterity’s approval than I.

  I heard him out with an expression of patient, all-enduring wisdom on my face. After he had finished, I maintained a thoughtful silence for a few seconds before saying, “Well, it seems like as good a time as any to tell you that I am Theodore Sturgeon.”

  His head came up like a startled deer at that remark; his eyes assumed a look of fierce concentration. Without a word, he rose and paced back and forth across the room several times. He obviously believed the probability that I might be telling the truth was remote but still far enough within the realm of possibility to be given serious consideration. After marching up and down for a few more seconds, he announced that I could not possibly be the science fiction writer. When I admitted that I had been joking a gleam of distinct relief entered his eye.

  After Darroch’s departure, I continued to work quite hard on my thriller and as a result saw very little of O’Hara. Dorothy and Kate would get together occasionally but that was about the extent of our interfamilial dealings.

  In March of that year, at just about the time I was finishing up my story, Dorothy discovered that she was pregnant again. The Doctor reckoned that the new baby would be born sometime during the following November. With one child in hand and another on the way, it was becoming graphically clear that the farm must be put on some sort of paying basis or else it would have to be given up in favor of a move to some community where I could earn a living for my family. I finished up my story and sent it off to my agent but I knew enough by then to refuse myself hope of it.

  The problem facing me now was twofold and required answers to two questions. The first was mechanical and could, I knew, be answered by patient thought and investigation: was it physically possible to put the farm on a paying basis? The second question posed a terrifying psychological conundrum: Did I have the necessary confidence in myself to undertake such a course? I was by no means sure that I did but I kept my own counsel about it.

  I knew enough about farming by then to be certain that the farm, as it stood, was not capable of being turned into a going concern financially. The only type of farm which would be capable of returning us a good living was a Grade A dairy farm. A Grade A dairy farm which was not large enough to carry a milking herd of at least thirty cows and young stock in approximately the same number was patently not feasible. I had read enough and consulted with enough dairy farmers in the vicinity to be sure of that. To carry that much stock, our farm would have to be expanded to at least twice its present size. The other things which would be needed to turn the place into a Grade A dairy farm, I did not for the moment, let myself think about at all. Unless the extra land could be acquired they would have only an academic interest.

  Rightly or wrongly, I had always considered the natural direction of future expansion of the farm to be in a southwesterly direction. The only piece of land I knew definitely to be for sale joined our place at its southwestern extremity. This was a piece of about 75 acres which belonged to a man called Homer who lived in Wytheville. There were no buildings of any sort on the land and the fences were not in terribly good shape. Homer kept a few scrub cattle on his land which were largely left to fend for themselves. He would put in an appearance once or twice a week during the cold months and scatter a meager amount of hay for them. When we had first moved to the farm, I had been warned obliquely that Homer was not a particularly pleasant man and the warning had turned out to be accurate. He subsequently tried to start an altercation with me over a border fence which was allowing his cattle to forage on my land, but I patched up the fence and the dispute faded away. This was rather surprising as hillbillies dearly love a squabble about a line fence and tend to carry one over to the next generation if possible. I had always had a sneaking suspicion that Homer had cooled the line fence argument between us because he was anxious to get rid of his land and figured that, someday, I would present myself as the logical cndidate for its purchase.

  Ideally, the land should have been bought cheap. As I have said, there were no buildings of any sort upon it, poor fences and it bordered on no road, egress and ingress being gained by virtue of an easement through another neighbor’s property. However, when I inquired casually of Homer what kind of a price he might expect for the land, I knew I was in for trouble when he replied that he was not really interested in selling the land at all. It was known throughout the neighborhood that he had been trying to sell his land for years; now he evidently figured that I was thinking of expanding my farm and there being no other land available to me, he would be able to stick me with an unrealistic price. Then, as I went my daily round stewing over this depressing state of affairs, Fred Cline let it drop casually one day that Bill, my Mormon neighbor was planning to move to Utah permanently and that he was going to put up his farm at auction. The news that Bill’s place was available interested me mightily. Added to what we already owned, it would make a farm of about 165 acres which was a reasonable size for the dairy venture I was contemplating. It was then March; Bill’s auction was scheduled to take place in early May. The time had come to decide whether or not I really wanted to become a fully professional farmer.

  In all honesty, I must confess that it was a decision I never really made. I decided to become a professional farmer but I did not decide that I wanted to become one. From my way of looking at the situation, it did not really seem to me that I had any choice. I had come this far in the direction of farming because I had considered the farm only as an adjunct of a successful literary career. But in coming that far, I had also changed myself in many ways, some of them too subtle to evaluate. What little progress that had been made in the new life I had chosen was paying me back in the true coin of my desires: growth and change.

  Put more simply, I had been using time rather than killing it and all
owing it to use me. If I were to back away from farming at the present point, the time I had used would be rendered meaningless and I would be back in the same old desert of fear for my family which had nearly driven me around the bend in Rome. If I were to go on to expand my farm, on the other hand, the chances were that I could support my family and at the same time by continuing the process of using time, I might arrive at or contrive a juncture of circumstance which would make me once again a legitimate candidate for choice. It was clear to me that I was not then such a candidate; I was involved in a process, nothing more. Yet it was a process tinged with consciousness and that consciousness was as much a part of the causalty as any of the other stimuli of heredity or environment. In being a farmer, I was scared of many things: that I might not succeed, of the animals themselves, of the physical labor and, most of all, of the boredom which certainly lay ahead of me. But I also felt a hard, fierce joy that I had taken a hand in what was happening to me; that I was not and never would be Pavlov’s miserable dog.

  After thinking it over for a week or so, I discussed the situation with Dorothy who was just as aware as I that we were caught on the horns of the old American dilemma regarding business affairs. Haying no tradition of peasantry, this country cannot really accept the illusion of changelessness. Expand or perish is the unspoken rule. Even down there in the hills of southwestern Virginia, the attrition arising from that rule was taking a heavy toll. And why should it not? I have known small hill farmers with a machinery inventory of twenty-five thousand dollars and no bathrooms in their houses.