Prairie Grass

by Joan Soggie

  “I get the impression from Eric that he certainly does not feel the same way as you do about education.”

  “No? Well, Eric left school early, when he was still just a boy. But it wasn’t entirely his fault. I’m probably the only soul alive who knows the whole story. Do you want to hear it?”

  Of course, I did.

  Like the schoolteacher he had once been, Derwood began his story with a bit of history.

  “That period between the two world wars really changed the face of the world. I think it may have also served to make the average Joe realize he had to take charge of his own destiny. In the 1920’s prairie farmers rallied together to form their own grain cooperatives, like Sask Wheat Pool. They were fed up trying to get a fair deal with the big grain companies. Crop yields were high and so were expectations for the future. It seemed everyone wanted to grow wheat.”

  By the mid-1920s, he continued, every quarter section for miles around the Tollerud farm was claimed. They now had dozens of neighbours, and more families meant more children. One-room schools dotted the countryside and filled with students almost as rapidly as they could be built.

  Eric (1926)

  Valiant School is an easy mile and a half walk from their farm for the Tollerud children, even for Gerald, who is now a robust six-year-old.

  In fact, if the daily walk to and from school tires him out, so much the better, Abigail remarks to Per one evening. Everyone knows she adores her happy-go-lucky brown-eyed boy, and they accept her complaints about his strength, size and rambunctiousness as merely a Norwegian mother’s peculiar form of bragging. She turns a blind eye to most of Gerald’s capers. But it worries her, and exasperates Eric, to see Gerald bringing Derwood to tears with his cheerful rough-housing.

  Although Derwood is a few years older than Gerald, he is no match for him in strength. Gerald’s grown heavier, broader and stronger than his bookish older brother. Derwood’s thin shoulders are becoming permanently hunched in anticipation of Gerald’s playful thumps.

  But Derwood, small and wiry, has one advantage over his brother. He can run. Ashamed to rely on Elise or Eric’s intervention, when the fall term begins, Derwood has taken to racing ahead of the others on their hikes to and from school. The schoolhouse is a refuge, the teacher his protector. No thumping is allowed within those four walls. Except by the teacher.

  The year starts well. They are in awe of gentle and ladylike Miss Smith, their teacher for the first weeks of the term. But unable to bear the solitude, she resigns, and is immediately replaced by stern Mr. Proctor.

  What Mr. Proctor lacks in stature he makes up for in severity. Everyone quickly learns infractions of any rule will earn swift punishment, lines to copy or sometimes a crack across the knuckles with the wooden yard stick. But everyone also knows that only serious offences like lying, swearing or sassing the teacher will bring out the dreaded strap.

  Some claim to have seen the black leather strap the teacher keeps in his middle desk drawer. It is rumoured that a teacher at Buffalo Basin strapped a boy’s hand until it bled. But none of the children here at Valiant have yet seen the strap used.

  Despite his severe reputation, Mr. Proctor likes children. Derwood understands this from the beginning. Mr. Proctor, too, is small and slight. He has a personally earned antipathy for bullies. He is determined his own schoolyard will be a model of decency and fair play. Corporal punishment is a necessity, he learned that in his few weeks of teacher’s training. A half dozen years later, when Derwood himself takes the same training and teaches in a similar country school, he fully appreciates what was going through Mr. Proctor’s mind on that day.

  As a novice teacher, Proctor is painfully aware of the need to gain control of his classroom early in the year. With over twenty students ranging in age from six to sixteen, he needs to establish his authority. The district superintendent gave all the novice teachers the same lecture.

  “Those big farm boys have to work like men. Some of them think they are grown men. You’ve got to teach them that, in your classroom, they are ruled by you. If any of them give you sass, pick out the ringleader. Use the strap. All it takes is one good licking.”

  It has not escaped Mr. Proctor’s notice that the middle Tollerud boy, a skinny, anxious child, often arrives at school breathless and red-faced. Sometimes the knees of his overalls are crusted with dirt, and he arrives with shirt tail flying as though he just escaped a scrimmage. Something else the teacher notices; the boy seldom lingers in the school yard like the other children until the bell summons them inside. Instead, Derwood slips through the cloakroom, slides into his desk and takes out a book, with a respectful “Good Morning, Mr. Proctor,” to the teacher busy at his own desk.

  Mr. Proctor makes a reasonable assumption. Someone is bullying the boy on his way to school. And since only the Tollerud children come from that direction it must be the big brother.

  Mr. Proctor has already been eyeing Eric before he draws this conclusion. Maybe he dislikes the boy’s direct gaze, his cool demeanor that seems to say, “You may have something to teach me, but it better be worth my time.”

  There are other minor annoyances. The teacher enjoys reading aloud to his students and sees in their delighted reactions evidence of his dramatic ability. Derwood has said to him, “Listening to you read, Teacher, is like seeing a play!”

  But Eric keeps his eyes cast down, intent on his slate. Mr. Proctor scowls when he discovers the boy working on his homework during that half hour of dramatic reading.

  However, such incidents justify no reprimand. But bullying is different. This cannot be tolerated. It’s his duty to intervene.

  Golden October sunshine slants through the windows. Mr. Proctor watches the children file in and take their places, little ones in double desks at front, the other grades ranged row by row with the girls seated side by side and the biggest boys at the back of the room. A few, like Eric, stand a head taller than he does.

  He marks attendance roll and gives first period assignments to each grade. As the clatter of slates and rustle of books gives way to near-silence, Mr. Proctor beckons Derwood to approach his desk.

  “Now, Derwood,” he begins, speaking in a low, friendly tone, “You often seem troubled when you arrive at school. Is someone hurting you?”

  Derwood looks up at him, wide-eyed, and whispers, “No, Sir.”

  “Don’t be afraid to tell me, Derwood. Is your brother beating on you?”

  Derwood stares at him.

  “Come now, Derwood,” the teacher prods, “This is a serious matter. You must answer truthfully. Is it your brother?”

  Shame-faced, Derwood nods.

  Dismissing Derwood to his seat, Mr. Proctor turns to the class. “Come here, Eric,” he commands.

  Derwood looks around at Gerald, seated with two other primary students across the aisle. Then his gaze swivels back to Mr. Proctor and Eric, and his mouth opens and closes as he takes in what Mr. Proctor is saying. The teacher glares at Eric as he declares, “I have told all you students repeatedly that bullying will be punished. It is especially reprehensible that a boy of your size should pick on someone as small as Derwood. Your own brother!”

  Eric stares at the teacher uncomprehending. He glances at Derwood, his expression more incredulous than alarmed. By this time, every student has put down his or her slate to gape at their visibly angry teacher.

  Mr. Proctor yanks open his desk drawer and whips out the strap. “Your behaviour must be punished. Eric, hold out your hand.”

  “No,” squawks Derwood, finally finding his voice. “No, Eric didn’t do anything! Please, Mr. Proctor, don’t hit Eric!”

  Eric says little the rest of the day but keeps his bruised and reddened hand hidden in his pocket. The youngest children are baffled and alarmed, guessing he must have done something “really bad.” Some of the girls cry, and avoid him, embarrassed, while others cast sympathetic glances in his direction. The boys are by and large excited by the incident and charge wildly out to
the playground at recess to run off their pent-up energy. A few adopt Eric as their new hero. Who would have thought that little Mr. Proctor could hit that hard? The strap had just whistled as he swung it down on Eric’s hand! Ten times! And not one cry from Eric!

  Derwood, on the other hand, has been unable to restrain his tears. His efforts to explain are rendered futile by sobs, and by his fear that Mr. Proctor might decide to strap Gerald, too. He wishes miserably that he could have taken the strapping himself. He feels responsible for the whole mess. When he tries tearfully to express this to Eric behind the school at noon hour, Eric brushes him off.

  “It wasn’t anything,” he says. “And it’s not your fault that Mr. Proctor is a fool. Anyway, it hardly hurt at all.”

  Derwood knew that was a lie. He can see anger, hurt pride, outrage in every tense line of Eric’s body. He longs to hug his brother. But Eric, like his mother, is un-huggable.

  That ends Eric’s formal schooling. His parents never hear the story. As former teachers themselves, they take the firm line that any punishment at school will be doubled at home. It never occurs to the children they might complain to them about a teacher. However, when Eric abruptly announces that he wants to “Stay home and help instead of wasting time at school,” his parents acquiesce. After all, the other children can now get to school without his help.

  And they do need Eric’s help at home.

  Chapter Eight

  Plains Rough Fescue. Erect, gray-green blades, tightly rolled and rough to the touch. Sheath purplish at base. Prefers fertile Dark Brown and Black soils, occasional on north-facing slopes in Brown soils. Often confused with Kentucky Bluegrass. Dense creeping rootstalk. Gabriella’s Prairie Notes

  Gabby (2012)

  Since Mr. Tollerud – that is, Eric — had dozed through most of my visit the previous day, I figured that he now owed me a wide-awake session. I would move on from the touchy subject of his formal education. We still had almost nine decades to cover.

  I’d downloaded some of the ‘Helps’ Diane forwarded to me (and, presumably, the other interviewers) and, over my breakfast smoothie, glanced through them. Apparently, early memories are most often linked to some out-of-the-ordinary experience. Well, duh. Excitement or terror or any strong emotion acts as an anchor for memory. That’s Psych 101.

  I would slay this next interview.

  As luck would have it, Eric was feeling chipper and open to promptings this morning. When I suggested we talk about his experiences as a young man., he nodded and began telling me how he had worked all one summer breaking a field for a neighbor. I had to stop him to ask, how do you break a field?? Or put it back together again? He did not appreciate my attempt at humour and explained slowly and carefully that it involved walking behind a plough, keeping your team of horses headed in a straight line, and using your own weight and sheer strength to keep the plough blade an even depth in the sod. He worked twelve-hour days and earned enough to make the down-payment on a steel-wheeled tractor, their first piece of motorized farm equipment. A typical humble brag.

  I gave myself full marks for listening patiently, even jotting notes on my iPad. I didn’t dare risk frustrating him by switching the subject too abruptly.

  “Did you ever have any close calls, with the machinery? The weather? In the day before cell phones and highways?”

  “You mean, in my entire life?” Eric responded drily. “You realize, I never owned a cell phone. It was only the last ten or so years on the farm that Catherine and I even had a phone you could use without going through an operator. Before that it was a party line, and before that a barbwire phone I rigged up myself. And before that – nothing.”

  He seemed to be really hung up on the changes in technology. Had to get him off that track. I thirsted for adventure. “How about weather? Ever get caught in a tornado? Struck by lightning? Freeze your toes in a snowstorm?”

  “Oh, you want to talk about adversity, do you? Well, we had a fair bit of that. But you know, the hardest part of any life is the day to day grind of just getting up and doing your job, whether you feel like it or not, whether or not anyone notices or cares. But I guess that doesn’t make much of a story. Not one you young people care to listen to.”

  He hmphed and looked out the window, the lines in his old face deepened by the sharp summer light, his eyes sad. I was almost about to apologize and say goodbye for the day when he began speaking again. An hour later when the aide came with his lunch tray and placed it quietly on the side table, he was still speaking, slowly, softly. And I was still typing, sporadically.

  Eric (1930)

  It started out as the most ordinary of ordinary days.

  Even the weather was dull. Late October could bring days of brilliant sunshine, when the sky was such a deep blue that it pulled you up into it, when light burned golden on the harvested fields and the call of wild geese filled your heart with exultation.

  This was not that kind of day.

  The flocks of geese and cranes that darkened the sky just last week were gone. The land was silent. Not even a breath of wind stirred across the harvested fields lying drab and empty under a low grey sky. And Eric’s mood matched the landscape.

  Harvest used to be a happy time. Hard work and long hours, but lots of sociability, too. This year had been different in so many ways. Part of it was the fact that crop prices were way down, after the disastrous stock market crash of ‘29. But even before that, there had been a big change. It was a year ago, in the midst of harvest, that his Dad had made his decision.

  “I’ve had just about enough of waiting on that dratted threshing crew. It’s high time we get one of those new combines everyone is talking about.”

  And so this year, instead of sharing in the noisy camaraderie of a threshing crew, Eric ran a tractor pulling the brand-new combine, alone in the field except for one of the younger boys with a team and wagon waiting for his signal when the hopper was full. Mastering that complicated and cantankerous combine harvester had been challenging, to say the least. Eric felt as though all the fun associated with harvest, the horseplay and team spirit, had been drained away.

  His younger brothers shared the work, of course. The boys tackled any job he assigned them, whether it was following the binder or hauling wagonloads of grain to the bin. But Eric was the one in charge. Not only was he expected to learn how to run any new piece of equipment, it was his responsibility to teach Gerald and Derwood how to run it, too, when and if he thought they were ready for it. His father had always preferred the role of manager. Now Per left most of the day to day decisions regarding field work to his son. No need to pay hired men for work his boys and the new machinery could do. He might make final pronouncements about crops and marketing, but he relied on Eric’s opinion now just as he had always listened to Abigail. His trust was at once Eric’s pride, and his burden.

  Their first step towards mechanized farming had been the steel-wheeled John Deere tractor, bought four years ago. Other equipment followed, harrows and binders and cultivators that required a second tractor. Horses were still necessary for jobs like haying, and luckily, Gerald seemed to have a way with horses. But machines were replacing muscles in farm work just as they had in manufacturing, and Per Tollerud was no Luddite. Comfortably slouched on the worn leather seat of his rocking chair, he would of an evening peruse his current stock of farm magazines and Department of Agriculture booklets, planning how to incorporate the latest technology into his farm. Besides the tractors and the combine, they now had a Model A. A big step for a man who, not two decades ago, had started farming with only a couple of oxen and a pair of mules.

  In those early years it had taken three days to make the sixty-mile round trip to the railroad line at Wiseton with a team and wagon load of grain. For the past nine years they had hauled their grain to the elevator in Hillview, the thriving village that had sprung up only a dozen miles away when the railroad finally reached this isolated part of the world. Eric had loved hauling grain to the elevator in
town, ever since the summer he turned twelve and was put in charge of the team and wagon.

  But that too had changed. They were farming more land now. There was too much grain to be hauled by horse and wagon. This year his Dad had hired a trucker. So instead of moseying along with a wagonload of grain behind a pair of Clydesdales, Eric was rattling and bumping over the rutted road to the homestead in the Model A.

  “Charlie should meet you there by noon with his truck,” his Dad had said. “Make sure he takes from the old bin first. He’ll need your help to load it.”

  Great, thought Eric. No rest for the wicked. Not that I have any time to be wicked, either. Not even a dance all summer, except for that one last month. And it had to be the one dance that had the whole community talking for weeks. It took four farm boys to teach that cowboy some manners. And ever since Dad and Mother heard about the six-shooter the guy was waving around, they seem to always have jobs planned that run late on Saturday evenings.

  Although the homestead and the main farm were operated as one unit, Eric started spending more time alone on the homestead this year. It gave him more independence but did little to improve his social life. One trip with a couple of friends in the Model A over twenty dusty miles of trail winding through the hills to Springwater Lake to watch the stampede. A few ballgames. That disastrous, but satisfying, schoolhouse dance. That was the sum-total of his social outings for the summer.

  But even so, he enjoyed his days at the old homestead. He never felt lonely while in the shadow of the hills. Now Eric thought about the traps he had left hung on the back wall of the shack and decided he would come back next month to set up a trap line. There would be muskrats, weasel, maybe a mink. He could bring some grub and stay in the shack for a few days, bring his .22 and hunt coyotes. The thought cheered him a little. He’d had good luck hunting coyotes in the hills. Their pelts brought him five bucks each.