The Farm in the Green Mountains

by Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer

  Bethel is the small lumbering town where our central telephone station is; 69 is our line which we share with eight partners. Uninitiated summer guests or strangers from New York ask for our phone with the number 12, but we initiates say our number divided, with the “one” the long tone and the “two” the short tones. Expressed musically, our number consists of a half note and two quarter notes.

  We have nine different combinations on our line. Two long two short is the messenger and postman. Five equal rings means the man who has sawdust for our barn. One short one long is the farmer’s wife to whom I turn for advice and comfort in difficult times. Two equal rings is a housewife and carpenter’s wife to whom I can complain about the weather and fuss about inconveniences. Four equal rings is a frail old lady that we invite to parties and ask about her health. The other partners are not known to us personally, but only by their voices. To learn to distinguish different rings is not difficult. To master your own use of the line takes practice, though, if you want to progress from wretched clumsiness to a certain level of skill. I must honestly admit that it was weeks before I was able to distinguish clearly between two long two short and four equal rings, and the frail old lady who had the four equal rings showed remarkable patience in taking my calls, intended for the postman with two long two short. Sometimes I even reached an entirely unknown party who had the ring one long three short.

  It is not that I was especially unmusical. I could sing the signals to myself in the purest tones and the most exact rhythms; I could have played them on the piano or on the harmonica. But to carry that over to the heavy crank on the telephone box—that was the unusual problem. Producing even a ring like one long one short, a combination that sounded like an interrupted melancholy melody—a deep sigh with a short gasp—took me a long time, and the carpenter’s wife with two equal rings often helped me by turning her handle in the right pattern for me, because on our line, where we hear all the rings, it makes no difference who turns the crank.

  I am glad that I do not know the people with two long one short—that melodic crescendo that breaks off so suddenly. Communication with them would be difficult since they are hard of hearing and their neighbors must often go to them on foot to ask them to pick up their phone when their melancholy signal has been ringing repeatedly, unheard for hours.

  When you have reached a certain level of competence in turning the crank on the telephone box, you are also able to interpret correctly the cranking of others. There are the impetuous ones who sound out the long rings like a fanfare and let the short ones follow like accented eighth notes. Then there are the hesitant ones who chirp the long tones and wind up with soft, weak quarter notes. Finally there are the happy ones who let the tones fall in even intervals like cooling raindrops. Even the operator in Bethel, who rings automatically without a hand crank, has her own style, and anyone who has heard the telephone cry its alarm in the middle of the night knows that it is either a matter of accident or death, or someone is calling from Hollywood and has forgotten that the sun sets four hours later there, and that an evening conversation at eight o’clock wakes the sleeper in the East out of his best repose at midnight.

  That is then our telephone, a much talked over and versatile instrument that nine partners play.

  It is very often busy, but an arrangement has been worked out. You lift the receiver, and if you hear the same persons still talking after a half hour and have the feeling that the important things have been discussed, then you turn the crank. It doesn’t ring shrilly in the speakers’ ears, but makes a grinding sound when the telephone has been lifted. Then follow the speakers’ usual remarks: “I think someone wants our line. Goodbye till later.”

  We have had to develop a certain division. So I would try, for example, never to call on Sunday after church. Rather I lift the receiver and listen to all the delicious recipes for pies, those delicacies whose flaky melting crusts are a work of art and whose contents, from apples to berries to pumpkins, contain everything you can and can’t put in a cake.

  At first, when I was a newcomer, I didn’t recognize the rings, and often foolishly answered when someone else was wanted; then I withdrew discreetly from the conversation. But when the snow lay very deep around the house and the storm howled and I was afraid that it might take the telephone wires and cut us off from the world, something that not uncommonly occurred, then I felt an irresistible desire to stay in touch with the rest of the world as long as the connection held.

  Every conversation on our line can be heard by all the partners on the same line. You can participate silently in the conversations of the others and share their cares, troubles, and joys and thus participate in their lives. A soft click in the line showed that someone had picked up a phone. Generally the audience listened quietly without a sound, but it sometimes happened that someone had to cough or sneeze and thus betrayed his presence. We all knew one of our neighbors by his asthmatic breathing; he was so used to his asthma that he made no effort to hold his breath when he was listening in, and so our conversations were sometimes accompanied by his measured rattling.

  This not being alone in a conversation, this telephoning in the midst of an invisible circle, had the disciplinary effect on all of us not to say anything bad about our neighbors and to present for the public a certain friendliness. My own consideration went so far that, when I was talking to German friends, I said everything unimportant in German, while I translated into English everything significant about the farm, our life, and the weather so that our telephone neighbors could understand it.

  Once it even happened that I was forced from the position of passive audience into that of active participant. One Sunday our neighbor with two long two short was called so sharply and insistently that I was sure something had happened and went to the phone. I learned that the farm of the mother of two long two short was burning and our neighbor had to hurry immediately to help. I stayed on the line and could now hear from all eight neighbors, in turn and in stages, the course of the fire, although the burning farm itself was on another line. Now they were taking the cows out of the burning barn, then—there went the floor—the beams were cracking—the roof was on fire—the pumps were working—the barn was burned down—the fire was out—the farmhouse was saved—the barn was insured—all these events were shared by our telephone neighbors. When the fire was out I went back to the kitchen relieved, but then came the signal again, two long two short, over and over, melancholy and worried. I knew that my neighbor could not be back home yet and picked up the phone.

  An excited voice insisted that she had rung two long two short and would not let me get in a word. She was calling from town and had heard frightening rumors about the fire. “You don’t need to be alarmed,” I interrupted her. “The fire is out and the damage was not great.”

  “Who am I speaking to?” she asked surprised. “Did I get the wrong connection?”

  “No,” I said, “I am on the same line.”

  “Are you sure that the fire has been put out? Did they call you directly and tell you?” she asked, still upset.

  “No,” I repeated, “but I am on the line.”

  “Oh, of course,” she answered relieved. “You are on the same line. Thank you very much for the news.”

  We nine on the line, we don’t want sensational news—we want to hear the everyday things: conversations about recipes, illnesses, weather disasters, weddings, auto accidents, cattle sales, and deaths. Once when a summer guest on our line was involved in suspicion of a poisoning murder and this was discussed in all its details on our line, we laid the receivers down disgusted because this sort of event did not fit our frame of experience.

  It is also unacceptable to break the frame and to mix into other people’s conversations, as an old farm woman once tried to do. She lives in the wilderness with her brother, who looks like an elf king and is a little feeble-minded. He can neither read nor write, but he understands how to care for the cattle and plow the fields. She (the old farm wom
an) is a large, strong woman with sharp bright eyes. She wears a dilapidated felt hat and a coon skin that is practically hairless and shows bare leather over wide areas. Her swollen legs are wrapped in rags, and on her feet she wears felt-topped boots. She walks with a cane and tells her brother how to do the work. She looks after the chickens—she loves her chickens and lets her favorites hatch eggs in her bed. Once in a hard winter it happened that she became sick, and her little old brother had to fight his way for hours through the deep snow to the village. Farm women came to help, cared for her and took care of the most necessary things.

  The old farm woman got well again and had long forgotten the fright of the illness when Red Cross workers came up to her isolated farmhouse in the spring to lay a telephone line. The town had decided to give her a telephone so that she could telephone for help in case of illness and not have to die alone in the mountains.

  The old woman, who had been accustomed to complete isolation for half a century, suddenly had a machine on her wall that connected her with the world from which she had so long been cut off. She didn’t understand that this apparatus was intended as a way of giving information. She used it as a way to express herself and audibly joined our circle.

  She criticized the recipes, she scolded mothers for using the wrong medicines for different children’s illnesses, she told the farmers how to plow and to milk, she mixed into lover’s conversations and told them what love could lead to—even though she was an old maid herself, she knew all about snow and ice and rain, she knew better about everything and joined into every conversation. We could no longer say anything—she controlled the whole line. Sometimes it even happened that three or four neighbors joined forces against her, and an exchange of words took place that made a mockery of the idea of the telephone as a means of creating understanding.

  In the winter, when the old lady was housebound, her participation in the lives of all of us became more intense, complaints increased, and in the next spring help was sought. Again workers from the Red Cross climbed up to the farm, took the telephone out of the house and fastened it to a tree which stood not far away. Then they built a small booth around the phone to protect it from wind and weather.

  The old woman stood at the window of her room and watched what the workers were doing. Then she took an old rusty rifle from the Civil War out of the corner and with it limped out to the tree. “What is this all about?” she asked the workers. “What is the purpose of what you are doing?”

  “You may keep the telephone,” answered one of the workers, “but here outside you won’t want to mix into other people’s conversations anymore.”

  The old woman stood speechless for a moment and stared at the workers. Then she understood what had happened. She lifted the Civil War rifle and struck the telephone booth with the butt over and over again, until it broke from the tree. Then she smashed the telephone that had fallen out of the booth and was lying on the ground. After that she turned the barrel of the gun on the workers.

  “You,” she screamed, “are not going to teach me what I should do. I don’t want your telephone if I can’t say what I think; I don’t need your telephone if you forbid me to speak. Go to the devil, or . . .”

  Since that time it has been quiet again on our line, and fairness and peace are reestablished. We nine are again all hanging onto one ski tow, and we submit ourselves to the friendly old New England custom of making the best of a difficult situation.

  THE PET ANIMALS

  In henndorf it was different: Zuck always had dogs there. He lived with the dogs. They were his dogs.

  There were two pedigreed dogs, lovely brown spaniels, and later we kept one of their sons.

  The female had a litter once a year. Then the house echoed with noisy young spaniels until they were sold or given away. But the original pair always remained, a worthy decoration for the house.

  Then Zuck gave me a St. Bernard. That was my dog. He died of poisoning two years later, and afterwards I promised myself never to become attached to or to love another animal.

  I succeeded in remaining true to this vow for quite a while. Then in America animals began to besiege me, to force themselves upon me, and to lay claim to ownership by me without my being able to defend myself against them.

  A cat was the first.

  In our second summer in America, Winnetou came home to spend her school vacation with us in Barnard, and she unpacked a cat.

  “I just had to bring her with me,” she said.

  I shook my head and said, “You know very well that I can’t stand cats.”

  “Yes,” said Winnetou, “I know that. But a stupid boy who is allergic to cat hair will be at the school over vacation, and so all the cats had to be sent away.”

  The exiled cat stayed at our house.

  After fourteen days she sneaked into Zuck’s dresser, built herself a nest out of his white shirts, and gave birth to five kittens in it.

  At the end of the summer, Winnetou packed up the mother cat again. Three of the kittens were given away, but we kept a black-and-white tom and a blonde tricolor and named them Pyramus and Thisbe. Thisbe soon became “Tipsy.” It was easier to say and meant “a little drunk.”

  In the first year of their lives Pyramus and Tipsy produced a single black-and-white kitten. We called it Puss in Boots.

  This Boots became the apple of my eye.

  At first he took a great deal of my care, because his mother Tipsy, who had nearly died in giving him birth, cared very little for him. In the first three weeks I had to capture Tipsy and force her to nurse, because the difficult birth had made her an unnatural mother. If Pyramus had not been the father, Boots would have grown up as an orphan.

  Pyramus, the stately tomcat, groomed, licked, and took care of Boots just like a mother, but at night Boots would snuggle up at the foot of my bed. This arrangement lasted even after he was quite grown.

  Boots survived many terrifying and life-threatening kitten diseases, though often professional help had to be summoned. The veterinarian explained that tomcats are always more susceptible than females, and that this was a very weak tom. If he had distemper once more, it would be the end of him.

  Through his many illnesses Boots became as self-centered, willful, and spoiled as a child who is often sick, but always gets well again, and can count on the attention and care of those around him.

  Meanwhile we moved to the farm. Tipsy lived like a true country cat in the barn and went mouse hunting. Our good Pyramus fell victim to a cat epidemic. Boots, now grown into a 1½-year-old tomcat, lived in the house with us in civilized fashion. He was not wild and detested the free life of country cats.

  A transformation happened overnight.

  One morning, right after sunrise, Zuck came into my room and stood at the foot of the bed. His face had that purposely blank expression that heralds the announcement of noteworthy and startling news.

  I was grumpy about being awakened early, because I had a nearly sleepless night behind me.

  Boots had been sick again, and had writhed all night with cramps. I could only relieve his suffering with valerian tea, with the magic touch of my hands, and with old nursery songs.

  Finally, just before sunrise, we both fell asleep exhausted.

  Now Zuck stood in the room, looking neither at me nor at Boots, and asked softly, “Did you hear the tomcats last night?”

  “Of course I heard them,” I said. “They fought like tigers under my window all night long and howled like stinking coyotes. Was Tipsy in heat again?”

  “No,” said Zuck, whispering, with a wary glance at Boots, “no, it wasn’t Tipsy.”

  I gasped. “That just isn’t possible,” I stammered, looking horrified at Boots.

  “But it is,” said Zuck. “Boots is a female.”

  By the next week Boots was quite healthy again, and a few weeks later he bore three kittens.

  After that he often had kittens. He competed with his mother Tipsy in bearing offspring. We often had even mo
re cats than mice in the house. However, when Boots was without kittens, was not nursing, and had forgotten his offspring, he behaved himself handsomely, proudly, and calmly as a tomcat, and we were careful not to speak of him as “she.”

  Boots understood every word that was spoken, and he was aware of everything that happened in the house. He made it clear that he wished to remain the lord and tomcat of the house, and he forced us to regard his periods of motherhood as brief transformations.

  He looked at us with his green eyes as big as saucers, penetrating and searching, a gaze that drove fear into many strangers. They thought that the expression of his eyes might someday break out into human language. They spoke of transmigration of souls, and they were afraid of his claws. He became the master wizard of the house, and we obeyed him.

  Then the dogs joined the household.

  The spaniels had remained in Austria. In spite of the fact that a large Swiss circus had tried to get them, they were not allowed out. They were “confiscated property.” Whether they had really been expatriated I was unable to find out later in the records. They were saved from starvation by a woman of Henndorf who had worked for us for many years. She cared for the dogs faithfully and lovingly at her own expense until, one after the other, they died of old age in her arms.

  After the loss of his dogs Zuck was not enthusiastic about having others, but we had to get dogs because the property was so isolated, and also because dogs are supposed to provide good protection against large and small predators.

  Late in the summer of the year that we came to the farm, our weekly newspaper ran an ad for a good place for two young wolf-hounds.

  The mother of the young dogs lived with two old ladies in town. The ladies had a lovely house with antique furniture, genuine porcelain, and cut glass. They owned many small dogs that lived in the house, but the wolfhound and her puppies were housed in the garage.