Little Joe

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  Spider crawled under Little Joe’s neck and purred, spinning herself tight against him like a ball of yarn.

  She fell asleep first, then Little Joe and Eli, until the orange splinters of daybreak woke them up. The rain had stopped tapping on the barn roof. Eli could hear the sound of the bull calf’s heart beating in his ear. “Guess we got our own story to tell,” he whispered. “About the night you got weaned and it hurt so bad I stayed with you. And Spider, too. All night.”

  Little Joe’s breath was softer now, and slower.

  Eli figured there’d just be puddles outside, now that the rain was over. He could hear the birds again and the gutters gushing water. “I’ll try and remember to tell you that story when we win the blue ribbon,” Eli said. He could just imagine the silky blue prize pinned onto Little Joe’s halter. “We will. You’ll see.” Eli stroked Little Joe’s nose. “I promise. And this’ll be your stall now. It’ll get better from here on in.”

  All three of them were covered in sawdust when Pa came into the barn. Eli stumbled to his feet and shook off the bits of wood.

  “What are you doin’ here, son?”

  Eli rushed to get the feed bucket outside the pen. “The calf keeps growin’, Pa,” he murmured. “Thought I’d feed him. In case there was a flood or something. On account of all that rain.”

  Pa craned his neck, looked up at the pen’s ceiling, then kicked up some sawdust. “Looks dry to me,” he said. “Listen. He’s gotta learn to be on his own, Eli.”

  “But he’s barely a teenager.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Grandpa.”

  Pa took his cap off, then put it back on. “Sounds like you’re spending a whole lot of time talking and not enough on chores.” Pa walked to the tack room and got out the spade, the one with the sharpest point. Eli knew what that meant. “Just ’cause you got a bull calf don’t mean you can quit on your chores.” Pa handed him the shovel. “It’s time you dug up thistles.”

  “But I got school.” The hair on Eli’s arms bristled. He hated digging up thistles. And he was certain Pa knew it. Last year he got at least one bubbly blister from the wooden handle, and his eyes stung whenever a pricker whittled its way into the work gloves.

  “Start with the pine fields, Eli. There’s at least an hour before school.”

  Eli snatched the shovel away from Pa.

  “Remember, slice the roots at least two inches below the soil to make it worthwhile. And don’t go moving them. That’ll just make the seeds spread.”

  “I’ve done it before,” Eli hissed.

  Pa swung around and stared hard at him.

  “You showed me, Pa.”

  A sudden movement in the barn caught Pa’s eye. He looked in the direction of the pen. Little Joe was peeking over the wall and blinking at him.

  “You’re gonna need a fan for that show stall,” Pa said. “To keep him cool so his hair don’t shed.” Pa brushed some sawdust from Little Joe’s neck with his hand. “We’ll hang one up after school. Once you got the thistles done.”

  Chapter Nine

  First Cut

  Grandpa took the show stick and lifted the pale green sheet. Eli knew what was under it. Every June since he could remember, Eli’d helped Grandpa get out Old Red, the trusty Farmall tractor, for the first hay cutting of the season.

  “Still in mint condition,” Grandpa said. He whistled, he was so pleased with the looks of Old Red. “The new ones just go faster and wear out quicker.” Grandpa opened the hood. “These engines are simple. They don’t go too fast and they don’t go too slow. How much faster do you need to go in a field, anyhow?”

  Eli stared at the glossy red tractor that had been kept inside Grandpa’s barn for nearly a year. “How old is Old Red now?” he asked.

  “Let’s see.” Grandpa poked at a zigzag indentation digging deep into the white-rimmed tire. “My own pa used it when I was young, and he’s been dead since I was ten. So Old Red’s gotta be more than fifty years old.”

  Eli whistled, too. “A tractor can last that long?”

  Grandpa tucked the show stick under his armpit. “A tractor should last at least a generation or two,” he said. “Same as a show stick.”

  Grandpa handed the stick to Eli.

  Eli’s face grew warm as he examined the show stick. It was nearly as tall as he was and big as a golf club.

  “Your pa took at least a dozen blue ribbons with that stick,” Grandpa said, “coaxing and prodding his show animals in the big rings. It’s yours now.”

  Eli clutched the silver part and eyed the glinting hooked tip. It was shaped like a bullet. He felt the sharp end with his finger and was surprised when it didn’t hurt.

  “I’ll show you how to use it soon,” Grandpa said. “Just like I did with your pa. It was his first show stick. Back when he had Shamrock.”

  “Shamrock.” Eli liked saying it out loud. So Pa did name his cattle. At least once, anyway. “Was that Pa’s first show animal?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why’d he name her Shamrock?”

  “’Cause she was born on Saint Paddy’s Day.”

  Grandpa got out the gas can and started feeding its clear amber liquid to Old Red. “Oh, he did all sorts of fancy things for that heifer, I tell you. Got a green-colored halter for her and everything. He even sold eggs and live bait on the side of the road all summer just to pay for it.”

  “How’d they do?”

  Grandpa capped the lid of the gas can and shifted his weight. But he didn’t answer.

  “At the fair, Grandpa?”

  “That’s a story for another time, Eli. Why don’t you come take a look at my tomatoes?”

  Eli followed Grandpa to the little tomato plot behind the barn, watching the metal on his show stick gleam whenever the sun caught it. He tapped the end of it on the checkered shell of a box turtle, crossing the old pasture to mate. Its shrivelly bald head disappeared inside the shell. Eli rested the show stick on his shoulder. It was heavier than he’d imagined, more like lugging a dozen eggs from the henhouse with one arm. He wondered if Little Joe would mind it and how easy it had been for Pa to line up Shamrock with it at one of the big shows. Maybe Shamrock didn’t like it at all. If Grandpa didn’t want to tell him about Shamrock, there must be a good reason, though Eli couldn’t figure out why.

  “They’re budded up already, see?” Grandpa bent over a spindly green plant tied to an arrow with a rag. “This girl’s starting a whole row of yellow flowers.”

  Eli looked to where Grandpa was pointing. The petals were pale as buttercups.

  “Thanks to Saint Francis,” Grandpa said, nodding over to the statue.

  Ever since Grandma died, Grandpa’s scarecrow in the middle of his garden was a clay likeness of Saint Francis of Assisi, Grandma’s favorite saint. He stood two feet tall beside a rusty arrow now used as a stake, tilting his head and clutching a strand of rosary beads to his chest.

  “Now I know it don’t make much sense when you think about it at first,” Grandpa admitted, rubbing the chipped toes peeking out of Saint Francis’s coffee-colored robe, “since he’s the patron saint of animals and all. And those are vegetables he’s guarding. But if you think real hard, you can see it just plain makes sense. Saint Francis loves animals so much, they listen to him. And I mean all creatures. If he tells ’em not to eat my plants, they won’t.”

  A crow who’d been sitting on the fence flew up and hovered around Saint Francis.

  “See?” Grandpa cupped a palm over his eyes and squinted. “Never seen a crow yet land on Saint Francis. He gets ’em to keep their distance.”

  Grandpa tightened an old shoelace he’d tied around the fence in case Saint Francis got too busy to keep the animals away. Then he started back to the barn. “Should we drive to Windswept Farms on Old Red?” Grandpa asked, waiting for Eli to catch up. “Or are you too old to sit on your grandpa’s lap for the ride?”

  Eli didn’t care if he was too old. He headed to the farm on Grandpa’s
knee, watching Old Red’s pipe belch up dark clouds of smoke. The engine rattled and hummed, and neither said much between the belching. They both knew this would be the last time. It would be Hannah’s turn next year.

  “Look!” Grandpa took a hand off the wheel and pointed to a mother deer and her fawn at the edge of the forest. “First time out.” Grandpa smiled at the little fawn, not much bigger than Spider, who paused to look at them. “She’s so new she doesn’t know to be scared yet.” Still learning to walk, the fawn took a step, then hopped forward with her back legs, catching up to her mother’s beckoning white tail.

  When they got to the farm, Eli jumped off and Pa fastened the cutter to Old Red. The late-day sun had turned the sky a burning orange. Eli and Pa watched Grandpa in shadow as he guided the tractor up the path and disappeared into the fields of timothy.

  Eli focused on the skyline where the grain tips met up with the clouds, waiting for Grandpa to surface. He listened for the sound of the tractor. Once he heard the chugging, it meant Grandpa and Old Red had turned around and were getting closer. Eli watched as they came into view, rising up the hill toward him. Round and round the cutter spun as Grandpa and Old Red paused before starting in on another row. As soon as the earth dipped down again, they’d vanish and be waist-deep in timothy once more. Eli followed the dark wisps of smoke from Old Red’s silver pipe until they melted into the sherbet-colored sky.

  “Next time Grandpa comes round, you be ready,” Pa said.

  “For what?” Eli looked up at Pa.

  “For driving the tractor.”

  Eli swallowed hard and felt his hands go limp and sweaty. He’d always wanted to drive a tractor instead of just riding on one, but it seemed awful sudden.

  “It’s just for a ways,” Pa added. “Old Red won’t go over ten.”

  Grandpa waved Eli over. He and Old Red were idling at the edge of the last patch of timothy.

  Eli hesitated for a moment, then felt his legs take him over to the fields toward Grandpa and Old Red.

  “Come on up, son. He don’t bite.” Grandpa stuck out his hand and Eli took it. “I’ll still be here. But you’ll be the one shifting the gears. Ready to try a row?”

  All Eli could do was nod. He felt Grandpa’s fingers over his, and they both clasped the black knob on the shift lever tight.

  “Put it in first, son.”

  Eli looked down and shifted the gear to the number one. Just like that, Old Red responded, lurching forward. Eli could hear the rattling of the cutter’s chains as they dragged behind them and smell the grassy scent of fresh-cut timothy. Pa’s watching, Eli figured, guiding Old Red up the hill. I wish Keller could see this, too. And Tess.

  “Time to turn,” Grandpa instructed, leading Eli’s fingers to the cutter handle. “Spin the wheel hard to the left.”

  A flock of hungry barn swallows dipped down to peck for insects Old Red had scattered. As soon as Eli got the tractor going in a new direction, the birds swelled up and down in waves, making frantic sounds, fluttering their wings skyward.

  When Eli had gotten through, Ma and Hannah were standing by Pa, watching. Grandpa shut off the engine and Hannah came running.

  “Did you really drive Old Red by yourself, Eli?” she asked.

  Eli nodded and climbed down just as Hannah screamed. He eyed a snake, hungry for any mice scrambling out of the empty fields. “It’s just a corn snake,” Eli said, watching the bright yellow bands on the snake’s brown skin slither past. But Hannah was already back on the grass, hiding behind Ma.

  As soon as Eli got the tractor going in a new direction, the birds swelled up and down….

  “Good thing you’ll be standing in the hay wagon when we bale,” Eli hollered, nudging the six-foot snake with his boot tip to make sure it went the opposite way. Last year, Eli was the one standing in the hay wagon doing the stacking. Now he was big enough to toss the rectangular bales into the wagon, or at least up to Pa.

  “Come here, son,” Pa said, putting his arm over Eli’s shoulders. “I wanna show you something.”

  Eli didn’t think the evening could get any better than it was. A tent caterpillar dropped down from the bordering crab apple trees and wriggled its hairy spine across Eli’s shirt sleeve. And the stars had come out, shiny and white as if the biggest moonflowers had decided to bloom right in the sky.

  Pa walked Eli across the lawn to the other fields, where the corn grew. “Right here.” He pulled back a vine, lime green and prickly, and showed Eli a pumpkin.

  “She’s a five-lober.” Pa beamed. “The nicest I’ve had. And she’s got the room.” Pa pointed to the main vine. “She’s ten feet out on a sixteen-foot main.”

  The pumpkin had already grown big as a baseball and was the color of creamed corn. Eli had to admit, she was a beauty. And big for this stage.

  “I’m one step ahead of Ned Kinderhoff,” Pa said, uncovering a plastic bottle. He gave it a squeeze. Creamy white liquid squirted out. “It’s milk,” Pa said. “And not the pasteurized kind you get at the store … real milk.” Pa dabbed his fingers with it, then coddled the leaf around the tiny pumpkin like it was a bitty baby bird, just hatched. “Kinderhoff’s fancy glass greenhouse won’t help him this year.” Pa stroked the cut in the vine where the milk got fed through. “I’m gonna beat him. No more red ribbons. This time, the color will be blue.” Pa turned to face Eli. “I got a way to speed things up with E-1, too. Boost his rations with corn silage and molasses.”

  Eli looked down at the pale-skinned pumpkin, its skin a waxy cream because of the milk. He sure hoped Pa would beat Ned Kinderhoff in the giant pumpkin division this year. He knew it’d be a first. But Eli didn’t want to go rushing Little Joe. Last time he did, he got dragged through the mud. And Pa agreed Little Joe’s rate of gain was higher than most. Three pounds a day! The valley was already talking about how impressive the calf looked. Grandpa thought the calf was plenty big enough, too, and better off on grass.

  “But you said Little Joe’s weight was fine, Pa. And Grandpa says calves fed on pasture are the healthiest.”

  Pa covered up the vine with some dirt. “Ned’s got an eye on that calf, and he likes ’em big and meaty.”

  Eli didn’t want to hear it. He wished he was out on a log, just like those noisy bullfrogs, swelling up their yellow throats and croaking loud as they could. Or burying themselves in the mud whenever they felt like it.

  “He’s got money to burn, Eli. The more weight on that calf, the better. You get paid by the pound. Kinderhoff will bid whatever he wants if he sees a calf he likes.”

  Eli didn’t want Ned Kinderhoff buying Little Joe. Ned Kinderhoff made Pa work late on payday, so Ma had to wait an extra day to go to the store. And he wore a belt buckle with shiny stones on it that you couldn’t buy around here. When Eli saw Ned Kinderhoff at the fair last year, he walked into the show barn with sticky gray hair, clutching that fancy belt and wearing a smile that looked glued on.

  “Wouldn’t it be something,” Pa said, “if we both had the biggest entries at the fair?”

  Chapter Ten

  Trading Eggs

  Ma was in Sassy Clippers washing a new batch of eggs in the hair sink. “Look how big my hens are laying.” Ma held up an egg to show Eli. It was peppered with chocolate-brown spots and nearly the size of a pear.

  “I’ll have that one for breakfast.” Eli smiled. He stuck his index finger next to the egg, but the egg was longer.

  “Sunny-side up or over easy?” Ma asked. She placed the egg in a measuring cup above the sink.

  “Sunny-side up,” Eli decided. “So I can see the size of the yolk.” Eli climbed up the slippery black chair at the other hair sink and reached for the egg. It was surrounded by plastic bottles with pointy tops like in the condiment caddy at the Hoagie Hut. Only the colors in these didn’t seem real. They were purple and orange and a metallic red that got used up every Saturday on a group of ladies. They waited outside—the old milk house wasn’t meant to hold more than a milk tank—for their hea
ds to get squooshed by a goosey-fleshed skullcap. Then Ma would take her crochet needle, weave it through the tiny pin-feather pricks in the cap and pluck. Whatever stuck out, Ma squirted with the color from the bottles. She smeared the mess around using a paintbrush before sending those ladies under the blower to roast.

  Eli still couldn’t believe Ma got paid for it.

  “It’ll only be a few minutes, Eli. Just one more rinse with cold water and the eggs will be clean.”

  “How come you’re washing them up so nice?” Eli wondered. “It’s only us.”

  Ma turned redder than the bottle of hair dye. “All these eggs aren’t for us, Eli.” Ma patted down the eggs with a towel. “They’re for my clients.”

  “You mean you give the extras away?”

  “No. Not exactly.” Ma pointed to the window. “Could you hand me one of those cartons by the windowsill?”

  Eli sat down on the vinyl chair, reluctant to move. “But Pa says we don’t sell eggs.”

  “They’re my hens,” Ma said. She walked over and got a carton herself. “Besides, I don’t sell my eggs; I trade them. For other things.”

  “Won’t Pa be sore when he finds out?”

  “I don’t interfere with the cattle and he doesn’t meddle with my hens. For the most part. I do what feels right, Eli, and I don’t always tell your pa. You need new roper boots for the fair and a new blower to groom Little Joe.” Eli went and got another carton by the window and started in on a dozen eggs.

  “I figure twenty-four more dozen eggs to Mrs. Krueger till we get them. She always comes down from the Agway and asks for two dozen on Mondays.” Ma winked at Eli. “Hand me that marker by the talcum brush, will you? And write down her name on this one.” Ma handed Eli the full carton.

  “How do you spell Krueger?” They both laughed, and Ma pointed to Mrs. Krueger’s name on the first dozen. “You know your pa’s not as bad as all that, Eli. He just saves his caring for when it matters.”