Grand Change

by William Andrews

  The Old Man crushed out his cigarette butt between his thumb and forefinger and set it on the window ledge. “What do you need a trailer for?”

  “Because they say it takes some kind of genius to back a wagon with one of those things.”

  “What else should you might as well get?”

  John Cobly smirked. “That’ll probably do for a start.”

  “For a start.”

  “Well, you know there’s other things to make life easier. Hay loaders, tractor-built rakes and that.”

  “Yes, and where’s all the money going to come from?”

  “Banks are getting better these days with loans, Harv.”

  “What’s a tractor go for?”

  “Oh, fifteen hundred, give or take, for most all the little thirty-or-so horsepower tractors. They claim an extra acre of potatoes and a milk cow will keep up the payments.”

  “And what if the cow dies and the potatoes are worth nothing?”

  “All part of farming, Harv. The whole thing’s nothing but a gamble; you know that.”

  “Yeah, but there’s such a thing as going out on a limb.”

  “Oh yeah, ain’t that the truth. They’re getting them, though, here and there. Seem happy enough with them. If they give us a decent road, it’ll be tempting.”

  “Seems to me that tractors are for people like Fred James. Gone big enough to afford things without tick, got their own warehouses by the track and buying and shipping to boot. Seems to me, somewhere along the way, the bills are going to pile up more than we can handle.”

  “Ah, you’re too set in your ways, Harv. Progress, Harv, progress— can’t get in the way of progress. And that’s how it should be. There are people right now, small farmers like us, think we’re back in the stone age. The time for slaving and doing without is going to go.”

  The Old Man’s face broke into a wry smirk.

  “But we have to get the road fixed up first.” John Cobly flashed his sardonic grin.

  “No, first we’ll have to vote the right way, then we just might get the road. We just might.”

  There was a pause. John Cobly’s eyes shifted to me. “Well, Jake, feel like picking for me? I got work ’til Saturday depending on the weather. Feed you good, pay you on time, start you with a full section. Can’t handle that, we’ll give you a half. I’m a little short with them Cape Britoners gone.”

  “Might as well go ahead, Jake,” The Boss said. “We can look after the barn work. Make a few bucks for yourself.”

  “He’s a little young,” Nanny said.

  “Nah. It’ll make a man of him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Give it a shot, anyway.”

  “That’s the stuff,” John Cobly said. There was another pause.

  “How’s your crop this year, John?” The Old Man said.

  “Not bad, kind of small. Yours?”

  “Not bad.”

  “What’s a bushel worth now?”

  “I heard thirty cents.”

  John shook his head. “Might as well leave them in the ground. What about beef?”

  “Seventeen cents.”

  “Not that hot, either, eh?” John Cobly took out a match and worked the head around in his ear again, then took it out and flicked off the residue with his thumb. I’ve got two steers and a heifer to go. Couple of cattle buyers were around last week. Told them to come back after digging; figured the price might be half decent by then. Don’t seem like a lot of hope.”

  “Pork’s pretty good now,” The Old Man said. “There’s always something to prop things up. Sometimes I wonder if potatoes are worth bothering with, though. If you’re not digging, you’re grading and hauling, then you’re planting, then you’re roguing and spraying, then you’re back to digging again.”

  “She’s year round, all right. That’s for sure. Lot of lifting and lugging, too. But nobody complains when the big prices hit. And they better hit me pretty soon.”

  “Maybe we should leave them alone altogether, like Dan.”

  John Cobly’s eyebrows shot up. “But Dan is a walking miracle, no matter which way you look at things. How he manages things is a mystery. If he’s not drinking, it seems, he’s reading. I came by Sunday and he was standing out in the yard, two sheets in the wind. He wheeled around cross-legged, watching me go by. Don’t think he knew what end of him was up. Still manages to get the work done, though, and his horses and stock are just strapping.”

  “When it comes to farming there’s none better,” The Boss said. “It’s a delight to watch him plow, drunk or sober. He ever mention fixing up the porch anyways decent yet?”

  “Hammered a shelf or two to the wall. Studs are still bare, though.”

  “Beer crock behind the stove, I suppose?”

  “Oh yeah, you can count on that. And his books, that’s what the shelves are for. Keeps his dishes in the oven.”

  “Come up with any new rhymes lately?”

  “Probably has, but wouldn’t let on. Get him at a tyme half lit and you never know what’s going to come out of him.”

  “Better than what you’d hear on the radio, too.”

  “Oh yeah, radio can’t hold a candle to Dan. And never cracks a smile. Makes it all the funnier.”

  “Must get down to see Dan; haven’t seen him much lately. He don’t make a lot of sense when he’s got a jag on, and he’s pretty much had one on since the fire.”

  “I suppose you heard about the big wedding coming off,” Nanny said.

  “Yeah, Charlie is going to take the big leap. Agnes is taking up the collection and looking after the shower. We’ll tamarack her down. It’s coming off in June just after planting.”

  Nanny paused in her knitting and looked up. “What’s she like, John?”

  “Joanie Tripp? Seems like a nice young lady. Quiet. Her father got that store on Cobbler Road.”

  “Maybe she’ll be too quiet for Charlie,” Nanny said.

  “Well, there’s that. He’s a corker, that fellow, especially when it comes to hockey and step-dancing; make a dog laugh, too.”

  “He was doing the barn work for us last winter when we were all down with the flu,” The Old Man said. “He stuck his head in the door on his way home, the lugs of his cap up like wings, and them sharp eyes of his. ‘Let me know if you decide to kill that red steer by the pig pen,’ he said. ‘He just about drove his foot through my rear end. I’d like to get first blow at him, help send him off.’”

  “She might not be able to handle him, with his antics,” Nanny said.

  John Cobly chuckled. “You never know, though, about them women. They pretty well got a fellow figured out before they set their cap for him.”

  “And when they set their cap for a fellow, you might as well say he’s done for,” The Old Man said, eyeing Nanny.

  Nanny’s eyebrows shot up. Her needle clicks quickened. “I suppose men don’t set their caps for women,” Nanny said.

  “Not that I know of,” The Old Man said.

  “I guess maybe not. Pretty hard to set your cap and chase somebody at the same time.” John Cobly’s eyes gleamed, his face easing into a gleeful smirk.

  “Maybe if you hadn’t set your cap, you wouldn’t have been chased,” The Old Man said.

  “I didn’t have to set my cap to get chased.”

  “That’s because you were chasing me.”

  “Keep talking like that, you old horse, and you’ll get no lunch.”

  “The road of love is a rocky road,” John Cobly said giddily.

  “Now, you know you couldn’t get along without me,” The Old Man said.

  “Can’t get along without horses, either.” Nanny’s eyebrows had shot full height and the needles were clicking in high gear.

  “She loves me, John, can’t you tell?”

  “Haven’t the shadow
of a doubt.”

  “Speaking of lunch,” The Old Man said.

  Nanny put down her knitting, moved to the stove and reached for the tea caddy in the warm closet.

  “Don’t be getting me any lunch, Ella,” John Cobly said.

  “Ah, you’ll stay for lunch,” The Boss said.

  “You’ll have to stay for lunch,” Nanny said, pouring water into the teapot.

  “Well…Agnes will be wondering, but, ah, I guess she won’t mind. She put up with me this long, I guess she won’t leave me if I don’t get home right away.”

  There was a pause. I could hear Nanny bustling in the cupboard.

  “Thinking of doing something with the school, Harv?”

  “They’re talking about it. But they’ve been talking about it since I got on the trustee’s board. If they don’t do something soon, the first thing you know the place will be in the cellar.”

  “Still talking about a furnace?”

  “Once in a while. Talk about a lot of things. Bill spoke up the other night and said, ‘It’s about time we were thinking about getting running water and a flush toilet. It’s a shame, them little ones freezing their backsides off all the time.’ Clayton jumped in then: ‘I never froze my backside off when I went to school,’ he said. ‘That’s because you probably only went once a week,’ Bill said.”

  “Haw, haw, haw,” John Cobly belched out. “They’d be into it then.”

  “For at least half an hour. Would’ve been longer if old Harley hadn’t jumped in: ‘You bucks stop jawing and wasting time. Youse got more jaw than a government mule. We need to get a decent cellar under the place first, then a furnace so they won’t be freezing their backsides off sitting in their seats.’”

  “Sounds like when I was on the board; like pulling teeth, getting anything done,” John Cobly said.

  Nanny handed out our lunch plates and cups of tea and we took them on our laps and the conversation went on hold for a spell. A blow of wind buffeted the house. The burr of the fire stirred up briefly to fall with the wind.

  John Cobly finally coordinated his tongue around heavy chews on a thick beef sandwich and tea slurps.

  “I suppose you’ll be out tricking pretty soon, Jake?”

  “I don’t play tricks,” I said.

  “Course not,” The Old Man said.

  “The young beggars turned my outhouse over last year,” John Cobly said.

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I said.

  “Course you wouldn’t,” The Old Man said. “Best way to beat them at that is to move the outhouse off the hole. Joe Chase…”

  “Never mind, Harvey, were eating our lunch,” Nanny said.

  “I mind the time we took to work and hauled Wes Johnston’s light wagon up onto his shed,” John Cobly said. “Must have taken a couple of hours, us whispering and grunting and sweating. Just got it nicely sitting when he shined a flashlight on us. Wasn’t the old beggar watching from the porch all the time! ‘All right, boys; I know youse all, now take her down,’ he said.”

  “Kind of turned the tables,” The Old Man said.

  “Told my old man, too. Kind of hard getting out of cleaning out the pigs after that, among other things.”

  “I guess we all had our day,” The Boss said. There was a pause again with finishing lunch and replenishment of tea.

  “By the way, how’s your digger working, Harv?” John Cobly said.

  “Better than a plow,” The Old Man said.

  “Did most of the digging yourself with them, all the clawing and scratching,” John Cobly said.

  “Yes, and the whirligigs send the potatoes halfway across the field,” The Old Man said. “Instead of clawing and scratching, you’re reaching after them.”

  “Yeah,” John Cobly said. “I would have gotten an elevator if they were any good in wet and sod ground. Anyway, the reason I asked is because a claw on that old digger of mine got broke on a heavy stone. She still digs, but she smashes up the odd potato. I was wondering if I could get the lend of yours.”

  “Sure,” The Old Man said. “Might need to throw a little grease at her.”

  “That’ll be great. I’ll just hook her onto me wagon on the way home.”

  The Old Man and John Cobly rolled a making apiece, lit up and settled back while Nanny collected the lunch dishes.

  “Are they holding the tyme in the hall?” Nanny said from the pantry.

  “No. George is going to straighten up the main floor in the old mill, him and Charlie.”

  “I thought Alf wasn’t letting anybody near the old mill anymore,” The Old Man said.

  John Cobly chuckled with a belch of smoke.

  “And him blacksmithing in the west side room with the roof half buckled in and the windows about to pop out. They were out in the yard a while back jawing over it. Alf just finished shoeing a horse for me. ‘That place ain’t fit for man nor beast,’ George said. ‘You just stick to your farming,’ Alf said. ‘Them fences ain’t nothing to write home about, big mouth.’”

  “Now George is going to hold a tyme in the main floor and Alf thinks it’s too dangerous,” The Old Man said. “Sounds like them.”

  “Charlie and Joanie going to move in?” Nanny said.

  “Just ’til they get a piece built on.”

  “Poor Hilda,” Nanny said. She was back at her knitting. “It would be something if Alf got a woman.”

  “Alf is too busy with his blacksmithing and inventing,” John Cobly said.

  “He takes after Willard,” The Old Man said. “You’d go for grist and it would take half an hour to find him, then another half hour to get him away from something he was dreaming up. Remember the time he put the sail on the wood sleigh?”

  “Yeah,” John Cobly said. “Must have got her going fifty or more on a good crust of snow, with no way to steer it.”

  “No way to stop it either, but the woods did a pretty good job. Wonder he wasn’t killed.”

  “Then he put the windmill on the pump in the barnyard.”

  “Yeah, gust of wind took it while he was gearing it up and the thing started chasing him across the barnyard. Just missed him, too. Hit the barn and tore off a big patch of shingles.”

  There was a pause.

  “Don’t seem long since Alf took over the mill,” The Old Man said.

  “Didn’t run it long. Once the feed mill in town got underway and people started buying flour… Gorsh!” John Cobly stared at the clock. “Is that clock right? Is it really ten to nine? Agnes will skin me alive if I ain’t home soon.”

  “Jake, take the flashlight and give John a hand with the digger,” The Boss said.

  “No need, Harv. I can hook her on. Not much of a trick.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, no trouble.” John Cobly rose stiffly and stretched his stubby frame. “You and Ella will have to come over for a game of auction when things quiet down.”

  “I don’t know. Might not be enough competition.”

  “Just youse come on over. I don’t recall any Jackson ever giving me any trouble.”

  “We’ll be over. We’ll try not to trounce youse too bad.”

  “We’ll be seeing you,” John Cobly said. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and peered back at The Old Man. “Now remember to get ready to vote right, next election, so they’ll fix up the road.” He flashed another sardonic grin and left.

  Prelude to

  Late Fall and Early Winter on Hook Road

  When the potatoes were stowed and the binders and diggers were back in storage, the three-horse gang plows appeared along Hook Road, with the plowers limp-footing their way along, one foot on sod, the other in the groove of the overturned furrow, sometimes taking their hands from the plow handles to saw on the reins looping their necks to check the horses or brush a run from their
noses. While overhead, the grey-black clouds hovered in their slow, moody moil, adding their chill to the fall wind cuffing and furling the manes and tails of the horses and buffeting the circus of seagulls sweeping and banking and lighting to pick worms with quick pecks in the plows’ wake.

  A farmer was judged by his plowing. Indeed, if you could keep three horses in line enough to run a straight furrow, stones and rough ground considered, you were usually competent at everything else. The trick was to get the first run straight. The farmers would put something easily viewable, maybe a flour sack or an old shirt, on a post as a marker and proceed without taking their eyes off it.

  Box carts appeared, too, their shafts riding high on the backs of the horses, and the farmers hoed out the cabbage, turnips, carrots and mangels, loaded them and carted them to their cellars. Then they forked and carted sod until the sod banks ringed the houses against the coming winter frost.

  As late fall progressed toward early winter and what was left of pasture turned grey-brown and died, the calves and young cattle, half wild from pasture freedom, were driven, rope-hauled and tail-twisted into berths in the barns—except those selected to take a one-way trip on the truck of a cattle buyer. The stay of the one whose carcass would hang in any given woodshed for winter beef was somewhat shortened as well.

  Then half molasses puncheons were filled with water heated in double boilers, kettles and pots on kitchen stoves, butchered pigs were block and tackle-hoisted by the pointed sticks in their hocks and dunked, and there was the steamy-acrid smell of pig, blood and hair during the scalding, the knife shaving and the junking for the barrels of brine.

  Dan Coulter’s battered saw gear, a two-by-four spiked angle-wise across its spindly front legs for support, made the rounds, and the stationary engines, poised like ducks to fly with their high pulley and balance wheels and nubbing water tanks, in their turn, were skidded from the barn floor, crowbarred into position a belt length from the saw and pegged down. The starting procedure was simple: adjust for spark, flip up the jigger on the oil glass by the water tank, then heave on the balance wheel until the machine’s barks and sucks took hold and increased with the crank of the cylinder poking into its belly and the broad belt, soaped for traction, whirred and the machine resembled a rabid dog jigging and straining on a leash. Meanwhile, back at the saw gear, the thump of the first log on the worn, gouged table broke into the whispering hum of the saw’s talon-toothed circular blade and the shuttle of its frame.