To School Through the Fields

by Alice Taylor

  Then we washed our lunch bottles and filled them with cold spring water and, having drunk enough, we refilled them for the safari home. We ran to the bottom of the hill and in under the overhanging trees where our first glaise tumbled over green mossy stones. Here, if the humour was on us, we might block up a large pool and paddle in and out of it, hitching up our skirts by tucking them up the legs of our knickers. The boys had short pants, but they rolled them up further, revealing patches of white above their mahogany brown knees. Tiring of this we rambled along the next field which led to the only stretch of road on the journey home, a short bit of road made up mainly of a long stone bridge. Under this bridge the Darigle river hid itself between deep grassy banks, and sometimes we went over the low wall of the bridge to catch collies. Other evenings we hung over the bridge watching the water-hens darting in and out beneath the bank. The hens’ hatching time was eagerly observed and the evening the chicks appeared was as exciting as the arrival of a new baby at home.

  It was difficult to drag ourselves away from there, but leaving the road we parted with some of our friends and took to the fields again. Rambling on through two more glens we came to another glaise, which was covered with briars and bushes. We burrowed underneath them and splashed into the cool green water before climbing up a stone ditch at the other side. Now came our greatest test of strength: a steep hill which we zigzagged up very slowly, stopping half way to replenish our strength with our water bottles. Finally we reached the top where we sat down for a long time to finish our bottles. From this hilltop perch we looked back over the valley we had just come through and the school looked small in the distance, which felt most satisfactory. We watched the different herds of cows grazing and picked out the bulls. These were something to be reckoned with constantly on our journey to and from school: some were killers and had to be kept at a safe distance, which often necessitated putting extra fields between us and them. We recognised their different roars and checked every field to make sure of their whereabouts.

  Having recovered from our hill climb we often picked buttercups and made daisy chains. Then, as we sauntered on through the remaining fields, we checked our birds’ nests to see how things were progressing. An odd time we met one of the neighbours and if we were lucky got invited in for a cup of milk and currant cake. The last few fields were flat and mossy and we picked blackberries or sometimes, when they were in season, we filled our bottles with black sloes and buried them to make sloe wine – only we could never remember afterwards where we had hidden them. Finally we arrived home sun-soaked and relaxed, with school almost forgotten because it was, after all, only one part of a much larger cycle of education.

  A School Friend

  We walked to school

  Through the dew drenched fields

  Meeting where our paths crossed

  At the foot of a grassy hill.

  If one ran late, the other

  Left a stone message

  On the mossy bridge.

  He had muddy boots,

  A jumper torn by briars

  And hair that went its own way.

  Trivial details to a mind

  That raced amongst the clouds

  And followed rabbits down brown burrows.

  Gentle hands, twisted by a bad burning,

  Reached out towards the birds,

  And they perched on his fingers

  At ease with one of their own.

  Blessed with a mind that ran free

  From the frailties of his body

  He walked during his quiet life

  Close to the gates of heaven.

  Our Daily Bread

  THE DAY ON the farm started at about 7.00 a.m. with a quick cup of tea. Then, when the cows had been milked and my father had gone to the creamery, the rest of us sat down to a long, leisurely breakfast. Preparations for dinner meant going to the field where the potatoes and vegetables grew and digging a bucket of potatoes and cutting some heads of cabbage; a big black pot of potatoes was boiled every day and whatever was left went with the other scraps to feed the farm dogs and the pigs. Dinner itself was at one o’clock, and a shrill iron whistle that hung beside the kitchen door summoned us: we could hear it fields away. At four o’clock we had afternoon tea, and whatever time the cows were milked in the evening was supper time.

  The evening milking was a restful moment in the day. Men and women, tired after their work, slapped their little milking stools on the ground beside the cows. We called the stool “the block”, maybe because it consisted of a two-inch block of solid timber with three legs broadening out at the base to give balance. Having made sure that your block was secure, you sat down with a bucket between your knees and rested your forehead against the soft, silken flank of the cow. Then, wrapping your fingers around the cow’s warm teats, you milked to a steady, soothing rhythm. At first the milk hit the tin bucket with a sharp metallic sound, but as it filled it mellowed to a drowsy hum and the cold bucket grew warm between your legs.

  Milking time was singing time; it was debating time if your fellow milkers felt so inclined; or it could be just dreaming time. If, however, the cow felt that her presence was being ignored she could draw a sharp kick and send you sprawling into the centre channel of the stalls, baptising you with the bucket of warm milk. Most were tranquil animals, but we had a few of what my father called “kickers”. Each cow had a name and the kicking strain could follow from mother to daughter, and often we had a mother and daughter in the one herd.

  The cows were of many different strains and colours; specialisation had not yet come in. We had a family called “Legs”: these were long-legged white cows; and the other white cows were termed “Baney”. There was a strain of small brown ones we called “Mouse”, and we had both a mother Mouse and a young Mouse; I liked the mother Mouse particularly because she was so quiet and easygoing and never kicked.

  We carried the buckets full of milk to the churns, which we called “tanks”, on the stand outside the stalls, and around the top of each tank was a muslin cloth through which we strained the milk. When Dan was staying he, rather than my father, might sometimes take the milk to the creamery; however, this occasionally led to problems. These were the early days of hygiene inspectors and Dan resented inspectors in any form: he absolutely refused to allow any inspection of our tanks, demanding to know of them, “What did you ever do for your country that entitled you to go around smelling our milk?”

  After such an altercation a hurried SOS would come from the creamery to channel Dan in another direction.

  In early spring or late autumn when milk production was at its lowest we separated our own milk and made butter. We poured the milk, still warm from the cow, into the separator – a large iron dish with two pipes, which was attached to a motor with a handle. It gave off a soft whine when the handle was turned, and out of one pipe came cream, out of the other skim-milk. It was a simple but ingenious device and while my father manned it we young ones lined up with cups for drinks of cream.

  On the following day the cream was put into the churn to make butter. We had two churns: a hand one which sat on a table and could be worked by one person and a barrel churn which stood on a stand and required two churners, though if woman power was scarce, which seldom happened, one could manage it. After a certain amount of churning the thick cream formed into lumps of butter. The faster one could achieve this the better the butter, and this was the source of the country saying that “Long churning makes bad butter”, a saying which was considered applicable to many situations in life. The butter made, it was washed and salted; what remained in the churn was buttermilk, a grand drink on a hot summer day and a great favourite of the men coming in from the fields.

  The crops we had planted in spring grew through the summer months and as they ripened the differences between them became evident: the wheat was a golden brown, the oats a butter yellow, and the barley with its bearded head the old man of the three. Cutting the corn in the autumn meant the winding down of
the year’s work, and it was a task in which the neighbours came together and helped each other out. When the corn had been cut and bound into sheaves, stooks were made and finally handstacks; then the handstacks were drawn home with the horse and float and the different ricks (or “reeks” as we called them) were made.

  The threshing was one of the biggest events of the farming year; the sowing of the seeds in the spring, followed by the cutting of the corn, were all a build-up to this point. Now the wheat would be threshed into grain, which would in turn be ground into flour to give us our daily bread.

  Coming home from school through the fields we heard the hum of the thresher in the different farmyards and counted the days until it would pull into our haggard. Finally, on coming home one evening, we would be told that the threshing machine was coming to our farm that night. We waited in the haggard and kept our ears strained for the sound of the old engine, our eyes peeled for the sight of the smoke above the trees. Living still in the age of the horse, anything motorised that moved on wheels on the farm was to us a kind of miracle.

  At last we heard the engine grumbling its way along and saw the high, pink-timbered threshing machine between the hedges; as I watched it coming down the laneway I felt thrills of anticipation shooting out through my toes. Getting the long, unwieldy paraphernalia into the haggard was a slow and complicated ordeal and it was a great place to be if you wanted to learn any new curses. The greasy overalled engine men twisted and manoeuvred this iron monster, which all the time belched smoke and spluttered in protest. Finally, after much discussion and pacing of distances, the most suitable position was achieved: she was set and ready for action the following morning.

  After breakfast the engine was coaxed into life and as it coughed and finally roared it sent out smoke signals that brought the men from miles around. They came from across the river, down from the hill, across the fields and down the laneway. They were weather-beaten, work-hardened men and each one carried a pike; they came at a lively pace with a hunger for work in their stride.

  The threshing was a test of working skills in which men showed their mettle and, even though they often worked hard days at home, they did not always have such an audience. It was also one of the most sociable days of the year, for some of these men met only at threshings and so had a year’s events to discuss. Some of them opened the reek and threw the sheaves to those on top of the thresher. At the back of the thresher where the straw poured out was one of the toughest jobs in piking away the straw. Here a reek of straw was made, and as the reek of corn reduced in size this rose higher; there was skill in making a well balanced reek.

  The story of the harvest was told at the front of the thresher. Here the golden grain poured out of little trap doors into jute bags. This was where my father took control: he scooped up the first grains anxiously into his fist and examined them on the palm of his hand; then he put a few into his mouth and chewed them thoughtfully with his eyes closed. He was like a connoisseur sampling wine as he tested his year’s work. Finally, he opened his eyes and, rubbing his hands together, declared: “Great stuff, that.”

  It was lovely to watch the gold grain pour into the nut-brown bags. When it was about four inches from the top we quickly changed bags; then the full bags were carried on the backs of the men across the haggard to the loft, a long, low stone building with a timber floor. The grain was poured from the open bags on to the floor, starting at the back wall. As the bags were open-mouthed on their backs the men just bent forward without removing them and the grain poured out over their shoulders. I helped my father switching the bags at the mouth of the thresher and a sense of togetherness and harmony, with the satisfaction of a job well done, built up between us during the day.

  All that day the thresher droned and the men worked steadily, breaking only for dinner and tea. It took large supplies to feed the hungry meitheal (the group of neighbours who had come to work with us) and if Napoleon believed that an army marched on its stomach, my mother believed that the threshing men worked on theirs. There was an air of good fellowship and fun, both in the haggard and around the kitchen table. At the side of the thresher a large pile of chaff – featherlight bits of straw and empty ears of corn – built up and here, after school, the neighbouring children played, burrowing into it and throwing it at each other while the men shouted at them to get out of the way. The haggard was the realm of the men and children to which the women, busy in the kitchen, rarely came.

  Gradually, as the reeks of corn disappeared and the reeks of straw towered high, the threshing wound down; we children were sorry to hear it shuddering to a halt. Then the men helped to get the thresher and engine out, a complicated business because the wheels were so heavy that sometimes they sank into the soft ground. After much pushing and shunting, she finally got going and it was with a sense of sadness that I watched the whole gangling procession steam its way up the passage. The top-heavy thresher frequently swayed at precarious angles but always recovered in time to right itself.

  The threshing was over for another year and the men went home to their various farms to milk the cows, their children with them. The haggard, a hue of different shades of yellow and brown, was silent at last: the bright yellow straw, the soft yellow chaff and the rich dark earth where the wheels of the thresher had cut. My father stood with one hand on his hip and the other rubbing the base of his neck: it was his stance when everything was right in his world. He walked to the open door of the loft where the rich-coloured grain spread out in waves to the four corners. I stood beside him, silent lest I break the magic of his moment of inner peace. He was a man who was often aggravated by some of the aspects of farming, but at times like this he reached a high plateau of fulfilment, and later he and my mother would go together to view the loft.

  When the geese and ducks arrived back for the night from the fields there were shrieks of joy, for the haggard after threshing was a haven of rare delight for them. They screeched and they quacked and they tore into the chaff with all the sounds of ecstasy. They ate it, they burrowed into in, and they rolled over in it: such was their harvest thanksgiving.

  Later some of the grain was taken to the mill for crushing. A large quantity of the oats was left as it was to be fed to the hens and horses. The crushed oats and barley were used to feed the pigs and some of the cows, and the wheat was milled for flour. Some of the wheat was sold and more returned for our own use. My mother baked every day: big circles of brown and white bread baked in the bastables over the fire. Shop bread rarely appeared on our table. She made big currant cakes and apple cakes with the apples from our own orchard. We had huge old apple trees that produced an abundance of fruit which my mother stored in boxes in the loft; they seldom had time to dry out as our consumption was heavy and demand always exceeded supply. After a stormy night the pigs had a feast in the orchard eating the windfalls, but when my brother started beekeeping the hives were under the apple trees and the pigs were forced out. They resented this infringement of their rights, but when they made any attempt to force an entrance the bees went on the attack. I often saw the herd, with tails curled high, screeching in protest and running as fast as their short legs would carry them.

  A Rusty Love Affair

  In a sun-baked shed

  With black grained hands

  These iron men of steam

  Sweat oil pursuing an ideal.

  There she sits in state,

  This queen of the past,

  Waiting for her archaic

  Limbs to be greased

  Into motion, her joints

  Soothed gently by her

  Black lovers, unquestioning

  In their complete adoration.

  In this brown station yard

  Carriages grey with old age,

  Retired queens, proudly wear

  The grandeur of another day.

  Here, a dream in creation,

  An old train being reborn

  When men become gods

  Breathing life
into dead iron.

  My Father’s Butter Box

  IN OUR LOCAL creamery butter was stored in solid boxes, about two and a half feet wide, made of fine timber with a yellow waxen sheen. Many found their ways into local farmers’ houses where they were put to good use; one such was the butter box that came into our house and became my father’s tool box.

  It had lost its former waxen elegance and had turned a muddy brown, with a bit missing off the top at one side. Into this my father had collected a miscellaneous assortment of hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers, together with nails, washers and screws of varying degrees of antiquity. On top came bits of timber and rubber and all kinds of odds and ends left over from previous jobs. He never threw anything away in case it might come in handy in the future, but this practice was self-defeating as he could never find anything he wanted. His box was packed full to the very top and had to be dragged rather than lifted due to its immense weight.

  When he had a job to do out came the butter box. The jobs could vary from putting a handle on a brush to replacing a window or fixing the leg of a chair that was unable to withstand our daily assaults. The butter box was an essential part of these undertakings. At first my father dug and poked into its depths looking for a nail of the required length. Many were discarded in a rising tide of frustration and annoyance at their unsuitability until eventually, in a final crescendo of pure anger, the whole box was turned upside down on the kitchen floor. Ours was a large kitchen but when my father’s box was upended its contents scattered to the four walls with screws and nails rolling under all the presses and chairs. As most of the contents of the box had rusted to various shades of brown over the years, our kitchen now took on the appearance of a ploughed field. At this stage the whole household came to a standstill while my father poured a tirade of colourful language on the head of any nail that had the audacity to bend before reaching its prescribed destination. His favourite expression when he had reached the limits of his endurance was “hoor’s bastard!” and when I was young I thought that a “hoor’s bastard” was a crooked nail and that a “hoor” was a cow who would refuse to go through a gateway when my father intended that she should.