The Journey Home

by K'Anne Meinel

  Cass grinned at her; she was enjoying the extra work knowing that it made Stephanie happy to make money for them. Her eye on someday owning a truck, the added funds were helping to pay other bills that came about in the day to day care of the farm.

  Cal came around but didn’t stay this time. He dropped off his furs and took supplies. He didn’t say much but Cass wondered at his hurry as she watched his mules disappear into the woods. Everyone these days seemed a little tense.

  Butchering that year wasn’t as frantic as the previous year. She had of course the sow and her grown brood but there weren’t as many. Ray had gotten the wild boar, a dangerous looking big sonofabitch that the others talked about for quite a while. The party atmosphere was a little muted as Stephanie had jars of produce and bottles of juice for sale. Cass realized that the neighbors were insulted that these items weren’t given in the spirit of neighborliness instead of for sale and while some were given a little along with bacon, ham, and pork, Stephanie guarded her products fiercely.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  It was with wonderment that they listened to the radio on December 7th and heard President Roosevelt announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

  Cass stared in horror at what this could mean. The next day in town she stocked up with Stephanie offloading as much of their produce as she could manage. She was afraid that money would become scarcer with a war going on. The talk was not good as they filled the wagon with their winter supplies. Some had already boarded the train to go south and join up. Milwaukee was a key destination for many. Cass wondered at how this would affect her family and if they could weather it. It was not the time for a new enterprise and Stephanie’s grandiose plans for Scheimer Farm.

  “We got to keep to ourselves,” Cass told her. “I don’t want them officials looking into how much we make or if our cows produce enough milk or anything.” Some of the stories had already filtered north and church had been enlightening in more than one way.

  Stephanie said she understood but she was scared. Many of the women in town were scared too as the draft was to be enacted. That meant many young men would go off to war and never return, or if they did return they would never be the same. Stephanie loved their small town that had welcomed her. She loved her home with Cass and couldn’t fathom that it could or would change. She had looked for so long to have the comfort she had experienced here that she was afraid to lose any of it.

  They didn’t go to town for church once the snow began to really fly. They stayed at the farm and did what they always did, survived. Cass continued to cut trees throughout the winter, cutting boards, and wood for various projects whether they were her own or others that farmer’s traded for. Cash money was hard to come by and always had been in the Depression so barter was a way of life for them. Even her medical services she frequently had bartered for, proof was in the heifer she had in the barn from Ray for the three children she had delivered for him and Melanie.

  It had really bothered her this year to take the four cows including Ray’s to get serviced down in Brokaw. Paying the cash money to Marabelle’s husband stuck in her craw. She consoled herself that next year her bull would be old enough to service the cows and she would no longer need to pay for it. Marabelle attempted to be friendly, trying to find out more about the ‘housekeeper’ that she had heard about. Only she suspected the true nature of their relationship but Cass had shrugged off her insinuations. She was relieved when the cows were serviced and she could head back home riding her horse and herding them along, cows can only go so fast though and it was a long ride home, plenty of time to think. Cass didn’t want to think any more about Marabelle and what could have been. It was a long time ago. Stephanie was so much more than Marabelle could ever hope to be. While she had once loved Marabelle, she realized it paled in comparison for what she felt about Stephanie. Stephanie completed her in so many ways.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The winter wasn’t as rough or as deep in snows as the previous year but it was still bad. Everyone was talking about the news since the declaration of war. Cass was sick of hearing about it. She heard it on the rare occasions when she went into town for their mail or when Stephanie was in particular need of some supply. She heard it when she went about her midwifing to the various outlying farms around the area. She happened to see someone when she was hunting and all they wanted to talk about was the war. The radio had news all the time. She was sick of it all. It didn’t interest her, and then it did.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Cass, do you know where we can find Cal?” Doc Stettin stopped by the farm to talk to her. He admired their warm and cozy living room that he and another gentlemen had been invited into. It showed a family lived here and while the children had been herded out so that the adults could talk it was obvious they had been playing in here as the toys strewn about showed. Stephanie had plants of different kinds in the windows and on shelves growing and keeping the room cozy and warm looking with its greenery.

  Cass shook her head. “I haven’t seen him but briefly last fall when he dropped off his summer furs, took some supplies and left, all in the same day. Why? What you need?” she asked never expecting what was coming.

  “He’s got to register for the draft,” Doc Stettin explained. Every able bodied man from eighteen to forty four was required to register for the draft. There had been a draft registration in July for men who had reached the age of twenty one, again in February for men twenty to twenty one and thirty five to forty four years of age. In April men ages forty five to sixty four years of age must register but were not liable for military service. By June men ages eighteen to twenty would be registered and drafted.

  They were at war and it was required.

  “Cal won’t do it, you won’t find him either,” Cass told them.

  “Then he’s a traitor and should be brought in,” the man who was with the Doc exclaimed, he had introduced the man but Cass forgot his name very quickly. .

  Doc Stettin shushed him with his hand waving him quiet. “Cass, if you see Cal, you tell him to come see me. We need every able bodied man we can get. It’s his duty as an American.”

  Cass listened as the fever of patriotism was burning in the Doc, it was obvious he was in charge of making sure those in their area did their duty. Whoever the other man was, he wasn’t local, he didn’t know everyone like Doc did. She could tell he would like to go. As she got up to let them out Doc said to her, “You could even go, with your medical background you could be a surgical nurse. I’d recommend ya if you ever decided to go.”

  Cass was stunned, it had never occurred to her to leave the farm. She glanced at a wide eyed Stephanie who was holding the boys back in the kitchen as she let the gentlemen out the front door, something they never used through the den.

  “Do you think they will arrest Cal?” Stephanie asked later when they were alone. The boys, Timmy especially were old enough to absorb everything they heard and while they might not understand it all it did lead to some very astute questions and some uncomfortable ones.

  Cass shrugged, she didn’t know and she didn’t know where Cal could be. He could be deep in the woods of Canada for all she knew. He hadn’t consulted her. After all the work he did around here last spring, helping with the hot house she had been surprised he didn’t bother to socialize with them come fall. He had simply dropped off his furs, loaded up and was gone, all in the span of a few hours.

  “What about you, will you go?” she asked in little girl’s voice. She had heard what the Doc had said.

  Cass looked up surprised. She hadn’t thought about it. “I’ve got more to do around here. They don’t need me,” she said forcefully trying to reassure her lover.

  Stephanie was appeased, for now. She wasn’t sure though, these were really trying times and the news wasn’t good. The number of casualties were alarming. Good Americans, sons, fathers, and even women were losing their lives. The whole story had come out about the base in Pearl Harbor. No one in town had even really know
n where Hawaii was. Sure they knew it was part of the United States, everyone learned that in school, but it might have been on the moon for all they cared. Now, American soil had been bombed, the insult needed to be punished and they were embroiled in a war. The war to end all wars or so they said, but then they had said that about World War I as well. Stephanie was afraid that it might somehow, someway, touch their lives.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Spring came and Stephanie encouraged Cass to tap as many trees as possible. She wanted to sell Scheimers Maple Syrup and already had the bottles and labels ready and waiting. Cass laughed at the extra work but when Stephanie encouraged Melanie to join them and help, she found Ray out in the woods tapping more trees with her.

  “Boy Stephanie sure can talk you into things,” he commented with a laugh. The thought of additional monies though encouraged them all to do things they might not have thought of before.

  Cass told him about the fall harvest as they put new spigots in untapped trees drilling the hole before using a hammer to gently tap the spout in and hanging a bucket below it. “She had me in the tops of the trees throwing apples and pears down to her so she could harvest every last one.”

  He shared a laugh with her as she told how she had drastically trimmed the trees back so they wouldn’t be so high to climb next year and would grow out instead of up, she would encourage that.

  “Every berry, every cherry, she was up all nights canning and drying out that stuff, next year she will have your Melanie out there, you watch, she will.”

  Ray sobered at that. “Cass, I’ve been drafted. I leave June first,” he told her.

  Cass stopped from drilling into another maple. She looked at him in alarm. “But you have a family; you have five children and a sixth on the way.” She had been so angry at Melanie she hadn’t talked to her for months when she found out she was pregnant yet again. Their small cabin was bursting at the seams. “You’re a farmer, aren’t you exempt?”

  He shook his head. “My farm isn’t big enough to qualify and they need every able bodied man.”

  Cass was sick of that phrase, ‘able bodied,’ it was an excuse for young men and fathers to go off and get themselves killed in a war that had nothing to do with them. “What about Melanie and the kids?” she asked in alarm.

  “She’ll manage, you know how she is. The farm really isn’t so big that she can’t handle it. She’s tough; she’ll make a go of it.” He said it sadly and resignedly. He had made peace with it. They had talked it out and Melanie knew she could rely on neighbors such as Cass for help if an emergency arose. Their oldest son Ray Jr. would be a big help.

  Cass was angry. Not only was this stupid war taking people she knew but she now knew they were looking for Cal. Someone didn’t believe that she didn’t know where he was either. The letters that came for him were piling up. Cal never got letters and now there was a small stack of them waiting for him if he ever did show up.

  “I can probably have him declared exempt except he doesn’t work the farm, he never did. No one will believe he’s a farmer. They are gonna need men like him Cass. Strong, healthy, savvy. He can fire a gun well too, he’s a hunter, they need men like him,” Doc Stettin tried to console her and explain.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  When Cal did show up it was in a fashion that no one expected. He had tied himself to his mule and he slid or rather fell off his mount into Cass’s arms. A huge infection in his leg showed where an ax had cut into it. There was a time that Cass and Doc Stettin argued about whether to cut it off. Cass knew poultices and other natural remedies. Doc had shots and medicines he poured into the feverish man. They didn’t know if it was Cass or the Doc’s remedies or the combination of them but they saved the leg and they saved Cal. As it was it was weeks before he was coherent enough to tell what happened. He had gotten into a fight and an ax had ended up in his leg. He hadn’t thought it that bad and had jury rigged a poultice, it had gotten infected, severely infected and he had headed home. He had no idea that so many had been looking for him.

  “He should be under guard,” the man who had accompanied Doc Stettin the first time said hotly after seeing the patient who was on the couch in the den.

  “That man ain’t going nowhere, he might never walk again!” Doc contended.

  Stephanie tossed them both out of her home, she didn’t want Cal upset and she wasn’t going to listen to their ‘man talk’ under her roof! She fed and cleaned Cal for Cass’s sake but she didn’t like that he was there. He had brought the authorities into their home. That man with the doctor was the first of many. It was determined that Cal was now 4F which meant he didn’t have to go off to war and serve. It was such a waste really, he had been exactly what the services were looking for, tall, healthy, and a good shot, those that had come to see him shook their heads in regret. Had he been faking they would have taken him with them without regret. It seemed to affect Cass a lot more that it did Cal who hadn’t any intention of going off anyway. He had read his letters and burned them in the heater without a word once he was awake and able to sit up in the living room.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Stephanie, I’ve enrolled in nursing school,” she confessed after fall harvest. She felt getting that in was the most important. For their family, for the money it would bring in. It would have to be enough to tide them over. Scheimer’s Cider, Fruit Juices, Honey, Preserves, and whatever else Stephanie could manage to concoct would have to be enough to support them and the farm. Cal would be able to get around after a fashion and Cass wouldn’t be here to see it or to help anymore.

  “What do you mean, you’re leaving us? You’re leaving me?” she asked aghast.

  “Lower you voice, Cal can hear you down in the den and the boys are just down the hall,” she admonished. They were standing on opposite sides of the bed for this conversation. The children were all in bed, just. The adults had headed up not willing to listen to the dire news that seemed to be on the radio at every turn.

  “You’re leaving?” Stephanie asked in a more moderated voice.

  Cass nodded and went to stand in front of the woman she loved above all others. “I felt I had to. With Cal unable to, I had to go, I have to help.”

  “No you don’t, women don’t have to go. We need you here!” Stephanie tried to plead.

  Cass shook her head, “Don’t you see, with my medical training, they need me there.”

  “No! Tell them you won’t go; tell them you made a mistake. Stay! Stay here for me!” she started to cry realizing what this really meant, what this could really mean.

  Cass shook her head and tried to take Stephanie in her arms, “I can’t, it’s already done. I leave after butchering.”

  “That soon? But that’s not nearly enough time,” Stephanie panicked and backed away from her. The tears started pour out of her eyes in her fear. “But what can you do, what will you do?”

  “They have expedited training for people like me with careers in the medical field,” she sounded like a poster child for enrollment. It was almost exactly what Doc Stettin had told her. He had arranged this for her. He understood she felt guilty because Cal hadn’t gone. He also knew she was fully qualified. The Army though had to make sure too. He had written letters on her behalf and got her in. After her schooling she would be a Lieutenant in the Army and the rest was up for her. “I’m going to be a nurse.”

  Stephanie shook her head, her world; her comfortable beautiful world where they were making money from the products of their hard labor, where she was loved by this strong and beautiful woman, where she was comfortable for the first time in her life, all of it was crumbling. “No, don’t go, don’t leave me.”

  “I have to, it’s already done. I just wanted to prepare you…”

  “No, you don’t love me, you never loved me or you wouldn’t go!” her voice was rising again and she didn’t care.

  Cass grabbed her, both her strong hands taking an arm as she shook the nearly hysterical woman. “I do love you, I do, I have
to go, don’t you see it? It’s my patriotic duty, I have to go!” She realized how that sounded and gathered Stephanie into her arms holding her tight, not letting her go despite her struggles. She fought her, she tried to get out of her arms but Cass wouldn’t let her go she held her until her sobs made her weak and she went slack in Cass’s arms. Cass helped her to the bed and just held her until she fell asleep. She covered her, not bothering to undress her. They slept that way with Cass’s arms around her, both clothed; she grabbed a blanket and threw it over them but held her lover in her arms all night long.

  Stephanie was cold to her in the coming days but realizing that she was preparing to go began to feel needy again. She blamed Cal for Cass’s apparent abandonment of their family. It was his fault that he wouldn’t join up. It was his fault that she was leaving. She practically spit in his food, she wasn’t happy to wait on him and no longer bathed him. She made him use the crutches the Doc had left for him to use the powder room. A pan of water from the sink was what he ended up using to bathe in since he couldn’t manage the steps upstairs to the tub.

  “It’s not his fault you know,” Cass tried to explain.

  “Yes it is, if he had been man enough you wouldn’t have to go in his stead. You said you didn’t think we should be fighting in one of these foreign wars. You said you didn’t understand the politics. I don’t understand why you are going!” She refused to be appeased, she was angry that her little world was changing.

  “It was an accident!”

  “Humph so he says.” She wasn’t convinced.

  No amount of reasoning with her would do so Cass prepared the farm for her absence, making it easier for Cal and Stephanie to run it without her. They had three cows now that gave off so much milk that the cottage cheese, cream, and milk they now had had to go into town at least once a week, church was the excuse but commerce was the reason. Cal and she spoke about the fields and he agreed he might not be up to plowing them but they had neighbors that owed her favors and would plow them for Cal and Stephanie if asked. The planting, the hoeing, the harvesting, that would be up to them. She didn’t worry about her poultry too much, there had been natural gains, if all else they could butcher more of them and they could get money for the meat. She worried though about Stephanie.