by Peggy Rowe
Despite my mother’s reservations, I was allowed to return to the farm, where I helped with the grooming and stable work. We sometimes rode the trails together, Bill on his favorite bay mare, Cindy, and me on the young Jet.
If Mom had concerns about Bill, she didn’t voice them to me, except to say that he was exploiting my labor. I assured her I loved every minute of it. My father visited often when he dropped me off or picked me up. He’d chat a few minutes with Bill and then be on his way. One Saturday morning Dad wired Bill’s stable for electricity—two simple light bulbs that Bill said would change his life.
As bad luck would have it, Bill’s farm was near enough to the Elmwood Music Studio for me to ride my bike to my Tuesday piano lessons. After I had mucked stalls and groomed horses, my long-suffering piano teacher could smell me coming. To her credit, she resisted the urge to draw the curtains and lock the door. Instead, she smiled good-naturedly while I removed my boots then nodded toward the stairs where a bar of Lifebuoy soap awaited on the bathroom sink.
At the end of summer, the gods smiled, and Mrs. Schiffler called my mother.
“I’m afraid Peggy’s heart isn’t in this, Mrs. Knobel. That might change some day, but for now, I feel guilty accepting your money.”
Praise the Lord! A little horse sweat and manure had accomplished what I’d failed to do in five years.
The fishnet blouse mysteriously disappeared from my bottom dresser drawer; I wasn’t sure when. Unlike the Titanic, her maiden voyage had accomplished miraculous things. I remember her fondly.
The sight of my mother and father sitting in our living room on a weekday afternoon was unnerving. I was reminded of the death of my grandfather when relatives sat unnaturally still beside the coffin in my aunt’s parlor.
I might have worried that some other beloved family member had died but for my parents’ cheerful expressions. I shuddered to think that they might have been engaging in a little afternoon intimacy. I had heard of such goings on from the more mature kids at school, but surely not in broad daylight.
I couldn’t be in trouble. I’d walked the straight and narrow since discovering Bill’s place. There was no way I was going to jeopardize my visits to the big gray horse I’d fallen in love with. These days, I tackled chores with the cheerfulness of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and completed school assignments with the efficiency of my sister. My reign of terror in the neighborhood had come to an end without disgrace, and, at the age of fourteen, I was a model citizen and dutiful daughter.
Yet, there they were sitting on the living room sofa at 3:30 in the afternoon. Normally, I returned from school to the aroma of chicken soup or beef stew or apple pie. Today it was the scent of Dad’s Old Spice aftershave. He wore a pale blue shirt the shade of his eyes and a pair of khakis with a crease as sharp as the ax that rested against Grandma Daisy’s chopping block. Mom was her usual presentable self.
“What’s up?”
“Your father and I are going to take you for a little ride.”
It sounded so creepy I had to chuckle. My friend’s father regularly threatened to take their disobedient dog for a little ride. A little one-way ride.
“Can’t it wait? Bill’s away, and I have to feed the horses.”
“It won’t take long,” said my father. “We’ll drop you at the stable afterwards.”
“And wait for you,” my mother added with a sniff that said, No argument! She still hovered, the way she had at the Jacksons’ farm, popping up at the most inopportune times, like a television commercial interrupting The Lone Ranger.
The fact that I was happy helped Mom overlook the shabby appearance of Bill’s farm, or as she described it, “the neighborhood eyesore.”
Still, I lived in fear that one day she would throw up her hands and say, “Enough! No daughter of mine is going to spend her time in this junkyard!”
There was one event that especially worried me. One day when Bill was away, some older, teenaged would-be cowboys were hanging around the stable showing off and using foul language. They wanted to rent some horses and gallop over the countryside like a posse. I told them it wasn’t a livery stable and continued cleaning stalls.
What I didn’t realize was that my mother had chosen this time to drop by and was at that very moment standing just outside the door. After getting an eyeful, as well as an earful, she came bursting in like a whirlwind.
“You boys cannot be here when Mr. Bill isn’t home.” Startled, the three teenagers looked up. “Who says?”
My mother folded her arms, stood her ground, and did what she did best.
“Leave. Now!” she said, her eyebrows out of sight.
I held my breath, gripping the pitchfork tightly and hoping I wouldn’t have to come to her defense.
The boys looked at my mother’s no-nonsense expression for only seconds before slumping away.
I didn’t know what to feel that day as we put my bike into the trunk of our car and headed home. I was angry, for sure, at being hauled off like a kid yet strangely in awe of my mother’s triumphant standoff at the OK Corral. Was she afraid of anything? I could still see her face as she confronted those boys. It wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed that expression. I had seen it the day she and Dad rescued me from a saloon where my drunken friend, Lois, had fallen off her barstool. Most of all, I had been afraid that Bill’s farm would be deemed an unsuitable place for a teenaged girl. Mom had seemed far away on that drive home from Bill’s, and her visits became more frequent after that day.
But that was a while ago. On this day, all I knew is that my parents were oddly giggly about taking me on a drive. I ran upstairs to change, but not before seeing the conspiratorial smiles on my parents’ faces as they sat together on the sofa. Something was definitely up.
Minutes later we were driving down a quiet country road with me on the front seat between them as though I were a young child. After crossing a rattling bridge with sturdy iron sides, Dad pulled off the road and parked at the end of a long black driveway that snaked up and around a farmhouse, then circled the outbuildings beyond. I’d seen the quiet farm before, not unlike the dozens I had drooled over on weekend drives through the countryside. Cutting through the gently rolling landscape was a wide stream that flowed along the front of the property beside a small orchard.
“That’s Stemmers Run,” Dad said. “I built a dam there for swimming when I was a kid and caught eels and sunfish under the old iron bridge.”
The two-story, brown-shingled farmhouse stood in the afternoon shade of a towering willow tree. A flock of sheep grazed peacefully to the right of the driveway beyond a stone wall. It was like a picture on a calendar.
“How would you like to live here?” my father asked, turning to me, a grin spreading across his face.
“What?”
“It’s ours!” he said. “Your mother and I just signed the contract.”
“What? You bought a farm? For me?”
“Don’t be silly,” my mother said. “We bought a farm for our business and our family. See that bank barn?” She pointed to a sturdy structure built into the side of a hill and roughly the size of the house. “It’s perfect for your father’s business—plenty of space on the lower level for tools and electrical supplies and room upstairs for the men to gather for their assignments and materials.”
“And that’s a poultry building,” Dad said, pointing to another large structure. “It would make a perfect stable. What do you think?”
I was speechless. Never in my wildest dreams had I pictured our family living in such a paradise.
Renovations and repairs to the aged farmhouse took months, but there was nothing my clever parents couldn’t do—plaster, paint, wallpaper, and install new hardwood floors. After we moved in, Dad gradually transformed the poultry building into a stable with a wide aisle and four box stalls—not to mention water and electric. Then we fenced in a pasture and a schooling ring. I continued visiting Bill’s farm and Jet during our move and renovation process, groo
ming, cleaning stalls, and exercising the horses. Every day, I pictured Jet in my new roomy stalls and green pasture, but I knew that my parents could hardly afford to buy a horse on top of all the other expenses. Besides, Bill had always been firm about never selling his animals, saying, “These poor creatures have already had one bad break. They’ll have a home with me until they die.”
When our new stable was ready, I summoned the nerve to ask Bill if he would sell Jet and, if so, for how much. But he stood firm and refused to sell me the big gray horse. He did, however, give him to me on the condition that he could reclaim him at any time if I didn’t care for him properly. This sent my mother into fits of laughter when I told her.
“That horse is going to think he died and went to heaven! And Bill is going to miss you a lot more than he’ll miss that big horse’s appetite! He has been exploiting your labor, you know!”
And then one day a neighbor stopped by and offered me a beautiful, quiet, mature bay gelding, free to a good home.
“Shaker is sound and a perfect beginner horse,” she said. “I don’t use him anymore, and I just need to know the old boy has a good home. He’d make a perfect stablemate to that gray horse in the field.”
My mania was at an all-time high: horses before and after school whinnying to me from the field; horses in the quiet darkness before bedtime, and long summer days spent in the schooling ring and splashing through the stream. Nothing beat jogging over crisp autumn leaves on wooded trails or plowing through the winter snows on Jet. On Saturday mornings, there were riding lessons to neighborhood kids on the sweet, quiet Shaker. And on Sundays, the occasional horse show.
When Mom wasn’t cheering for the Orioles or shouting obscenities at umpires, she was busy being lady of the manor—surrounding the house with flower gardens, tailgating at horse shows, attending the point-to-point steeplechase and the Preakness, dressing in tweeds, and so on. Most importantly, she always knew where I was. She had only one complaint.
“I don’t like to see you ride cowboy style. It isn’t ladylike!” What she meant, of course, was that the rich, refined people rode English, not Western.
“But Mom, Jet’s strictly a pleasure horse. I can show him in more classes if I ride English and Western.”
When Jet won trophies at horse shows, she displayed them on the dining room buffet beside her silver service—even when they were won in Western classes.
It was paradise all right, until the evening my mother appeared at the stable door. I was reclining on Jet with my feet resting on his mane, working on my Spanish homework with Broadway show tunes playing quietly on the radio. Suddenly Jet lifted his head and pricked his ears forward.
“My, my,” she said, looking around at the meticulous stable and gleaming tack room. “Your bedroom never looked this good!”
There was no pretense with Mom and me. She knew that I was as interested in polishing furniture and vacuuming as she was in soaping saddles and mucking out stalls.
She had all but given up on my domesticity—for now. As long as I maintained my grades, cut the grass, and did the weeding, she didn’t bother me. Truth was, my mother liked to do things her own way. Her inner perfectionist was content to have me out of her domain, and I was more than happy away from her scrutiny.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of grass-cutting advice. Who knew that mowing a front lawn required blueprints? It wasn’t enough to make the grass shorter—oh no. The mower had to leave an aesthetically pleasing geometric design.
“People driving down Trumps Mill Road see our front lawn,” she said at least once a week in the summer. “It’s important to make a good impression!”
My mother’s next statement as she stood in the aisle in front of Jet’s stall sent me bolting upright, dropping my Spanish book onto the straw below.
“I’ve decided to take up riding. You can teach me on Shaker. I’ve watched you giving lessons. I know I can do it.”
“But Mom, y-you have such a busy schedule.” I didn’t remind her she was in her forties. I was too busy picturing her riding beside me at horse shows, telling me what to do and how to do it. I knew it was all too good to be true.
Her mind was made up as she stepped into the stall and handed me my Spanish book.
“We can ride together! You can give me my first lesson tomorrow afternoon.” She stopped at Shaker’s stall and neatened his forelock and mane. He was lying down with Penny, my pet Rhode Island Red hen, perched on his withers.
“Oh look, she’s laid an egg in the corner of the stall. Bring it in with you.” She actually giggled as she left the stable, saying, “None of my friends know how to ride a horse.”
I was puzzled. My mother had shown as much interest in riding as I had in sewing draperies. Was she merely being lady of the manor and trying to impress friends? Or was she bored? Her energy was boundless. Besides housework and gardening, she played cards and had church commitments. And, of course, there was her real job in our new, modern basement office. Dad had offered to build her an office in his shop, but she preferred the comfort of the house. As the backbone of Dad’s business, Mom spent countless hours behind the scenes. She was the equivalent of a modern office manager, CEO, and CFO rolled into one. Her toughness was invaluable. If a client missed a payment, Dad was—well—Dad.
“You never know,” he’d say. “They might be going through a rough patch. We’ll hold off and send another bill in a month or so.”
Mom would listen patiently then pick up a stack of bills. “Carl, these bills are due now: three from the supply houses, one for college tuition, and one from the feed store.”
Then she would bill the client again with a reminder that payment was overdue. If that failed to get results, she gave Dad moral support as he made those dreaded phone calls. Despite his non-competitive nature and lack of toughness, the business flourished. Church friends, Lions Club friends, and neighbors benefitted from his success and generosity when he hired their sons as helpers, giving them an opportunity to learn a skilled trade. Even an unemployed nephew came on board as an apprentice.
Despite her advanced age (forty-something sounded so old to me back then), my mother was a quick learner and, before long, began joining me on the occasional trail ride. Naturally, she was dressed in my best show boots, britches, and jacket. Like everything else, these rides were always a production.
Just as Mom delivered freshly folded laundry to my bedroom, I delivered an impeccably groomed and saddled Shaker to the kitchen door. “Your mount, Lady Thelma,” I’d say, handing over the supple braided reins.
One day she had my father take our photograph. It looked like the picture on our cookie tin of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Anne riding together on the palace grounds.
My mother, riding the handsome bay gelding, caused quite a stir as she led the way through the adjacent neighborhood to the trail. Women looked up from their sweeping and gardening, and children paused in their play to stare. In fairness, I never actually saw her wave like the queen. But then I wasn’t always watching.
As it happened, my mother’s foray into the equestrian world was brief. Our final ride together was that unfortunate summer day a man greeted us on the trail behind a construction site. I’d been whistled at before and was prepared to ignore him. As usual, Mom was dressed for the World Equestrian Games when the man waved—a bit too enthusiastically I thought. She was busy putting on her regal smile when he unzipped his trousers, dropped them to the ground, and flaunted the “family jewels,” such as they were.
“Peggy, don’t look!” she yelled, tightening her reins and picking up the pace. The last time I’d seen my mother with that horrified expression, we were taking a shortcut through the cemetery, and Shaker stopped to relieve himself on Victoria Van Keesler’s grave. In panic mode, she had clucked to her horse and even dug her heels into his sides to get him moving.
“You’re wasting your time, Mom. Shaker isn’t going anywhere until he’s good and finished.” But she was busy looking around to see i
f anyone had witnessed the desecration.
The man at the construction site stood perfectly still, as though he were posing for a statue (like Michelangelo’s David). I took one last look as we moved off at a brisk trot and chuckled that my mother could even think I would be impressed. I cared for two male, thousand-pound horses, after all. This display was more reminiscent of the mushrooms that sprouted in the manure pile overnight following a rain. Sadly, I missed the expression on the man’s face.
Mom discouraged me from riding the trails alone after that day, but she was way too busy to supervise.
The next hiccup in paradise came on a January evening as we sat down to dinner.
“Honey, your father and I have a surprise. We’re going to give you a sixteenth birthday party like we did for Janet.”
Thanks to her optimistic nature, there was still some hope for another well-rounded, refined daughter, though I wasn’t interested in boys yet and routinely ignored her pleas to participate in high-school social activities.
“Please don’t,” I begged.
“But it’s a milestone. We should mark the occasion. Some families give young debutantes coming-out parties.”
God forbid! “You took me to the National Horse Show in October, remember? Can’t we call that my birthday celebration?”
In the end, she took pity on me and settled for an evening of culture instead. A world-class performance by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was right up her alley. As far as I was concerned, anything was better than a wretched dress-up party with boys and dancing—plus, she could brag about it later to her friends and family.
I was the compliant birthday girl on that January evening, seated between my parents in the orchestra section of the Lyric Opera House, with the aromas of Old Spice aftershave wafting in from the left and Tigress perfume from the right. One minute I was fascinated by the melodic orchestral tones and graceful ballerinas—the next, bug-eyed at the men’s skintight costumes as they leapt through the air, defying gravity, while leaving little to the imagination. But for a thin layer of fabric and years of training (and some moral restraint), they could have been the man behind the construction site.