by Kate Seredy
“It will,” Gran stated dryly, her head turned toward the open door. Father glanced at her curiously but no explanation was forthcoming. He shrugged. “All I want now is to hit the hay.”
He rose to his feet. No one said anything; all of them seemed to be on edge, listening. He heard, too.
“That’s only a cow bellowing some place,” he smiled at Mother’s tense face. “Sounds as if it were in trouble, too. Boy, am I glad it isn’t my headache . . . just imagine, sitting up . . . why . . . HEY! Where are you going?”
Gran and the children had already streaked through the door before he could finish the question. Mother was on her way too, but she paused long enough to tell him: “The deviltry, John . . . it didn’t wait and I’m afraid it’s multiplying.”
Then she was gone too. Father, alone in the kitchen, looked at Funnyface yawning luxuriously by the fire. “Me, too, Funnyface. But I can’t. I’ve got to find out what my family is up to, because, Funnyface, if they think they’re going to have all the fun . . . well, they have another guess coming.”
Smiling, he marched out and toward the barn.
It was almost midnight, when the tired and bedraggled family stumbled toward the house. Father was half carrying Mother and finally deposited her on a kitchen chair. Gran poured out a glass of milk for each of the children, then started to make coffee. She was humming and smiling to herself; her eyes on the job of getting a midnight snack but her ears very much on what Father was saying. He sat, facing Mother, both her hands held tight in his own.
“Look, nitwit,” he was saying in a voice that warmed Gran’s heart, “I’ll do anything you really want but . . . let’s think this over for a few days . . . huh? It’s a major decision, to pull up all our roots and start all over in a strange place, doing a job neither of us knows a thing about. We’re all having a good time now because everything is new and . . . sort of an adventure. The little calves are sweet . . . worth all the work and loss of sleep. I felt the way you did Molly, when at last they stood there, helpless, tottering, yet little beings complete, whole, healthy, and promising . . . I never felt so well satisfied after having done a job as I felt right then. But . . . look, Molly, we don’t know anything about raising young animals . . .”
Mother shook her head stubbornly. “A mother is a mother, horse or human or cow, that’s my lesson number two. It makes sense to me.”
“What’s that got to do with raising calves?”
“Well, we have raised two fine healthy children. Why couldn’t we raise fine, healthy calves or horses or whatever? The process is the same—feed them well, keep them clean, give them love, then leave them alone to develop. Isn’t that what we’ve agreed on.”
Father laughed. “Yes, but not to raise calves or horses. . . or whatever!” Then his eyes narrowed. “Say! I’ve heard horses mentioned a number of times tonight. Is there anything else having babies out there?”
“Oh no. Not until April,” Gran said calmly.
“The . . . transportation, John. Two. The nicest little mares. In the stable.” Mother’s voice was very giggly: “We couldn’t possibly take a chance on getting smashed up in Jake’s scooter . . . could we now?”
“I see,” Father groaned. He got up, jammed his hands into his pockets and started pacing the floor. “Anything else?” he suddenly roared, coming to a stop by Gran. She glanced up at him, startled, but the look on his face belied his voice. “That’s all,” she said, her own eyes crinkling.
Dick and Janet had finished their milk and now they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. A snicker from Janet called Father’s attention to them.
“You two scamper off to bed. I’m about to start a fight with two women and I don’t want any witnesses . . . to my defeat,” he hastened to add, because Mother was about to speak. “Got ahead of you that time,” he laughed at her.
“Oh, let them stay, John,” Mother said. “If we are to settle this thing tonight, they might as well be in on it. The decision will affect their lives more than ours.”
Gran set the steaming coffee pot on the table and brought in more milk. “Now. Sit down, all of you. Molly is right in letting the children stay; when you were a youngster, John, your father and I always discussed every major problem in your hearing. Remember?”
Father nodded, quite serious now.
“Well then,” Gran began, pouring coffee, “I shall open this round-table conference. What I have to say, won’t take long; it’s the essence of many years of dreaming and planning.
“I never have been really happy since we left the farm. It was a mistake, selling it, but your brothers didn’t want to stay. They wanted city jobs, city life. I am glad they had what they wanted . . . for a little while.”
Gran bowed her head and was silent for a few moments. So were the others; all thinking of Father’s two brothers who had gone to war in 1917, and had never come back.
“But,” Gran resumed, only a tremble in her voice telling of the heartbreak she had lived with since 1919, “I belong on a farm. And I am going to have a farm,” she lifted her head, determination in every line on her face, “THIS farm. We stumbled into it . . . more or less,” she smiled, “and I am going to keep it, John, whatever you decide to do. I’ve enough money to buy or rent it from you and to run it—you boys insisted on paying me what we had spent on your education. I can make this farm pay; I can do it with hired labor or we can do it all together.”
She raised her hand for silence, when Mother said impulsively: “All together.”
“But I want you to know, before you decide, what you’ll have to expect. Part of it, anyway. Don’t think for a moment that life on the farm is going to be all fun. Farming is a backbreaking, heartbreaking fight against Nature. A farmer has to fight bugs, parasites, and disease, rodents and predatory birds, frost, drought, and hailstorms, down-pours that wash out weeks of his labor, blizzards, and sudden thaws. Sun, wind, and rain are his friends and, if they come at the wrong time, his worst enemies. A farmer fights from the crack of dawn to the dead of night every day of his life. He has to give his land and animals everything he’s got in strength and love. He has to have courage and faith, ambition and perseverance and yet, no one pins a medal on him for valor, or raises his salary for doing his job well. Fame passes him by and wealth is something most of them only hear about. For his toil through the days of years and his vigilance through the nights of his whole life, money never could pay. But a farmer, if he is worthy of the name, does not expect a reward that he can put in the bank; his real reward comes from the same source as his strength: from within himself. He gives unstintingly his time and strength to a task to be done and regains it with interest when, in spite of all hazards, he again toils to harvest the results of his labor. He is of the soil and, as the good earth turns and continually renews itself, so does a farmer gain new strength from season to season. His task is never completed, never done, for each season bears its fruits but also carries the seeds of next season’s labor.”
Gran paused for a moment, then smiled at the serious, absorbed faces around her. “No, I don’t want any of you to come into this blindfolded. Think it over, talk it over. You have almost two months. I just wanted to make one thing clear. I have made up my mind and nothing anybody can say,” her eyes flashed with the spirit they all loved so, “will make me change it. I am here to stay.”
“Mom,” Father said after a long silence, “do you realize that what you said now is almost a dare? It left me with a lump in my throat, but, coming from you, I am tempted to translate it into: Well, John, let’s see if you are man enough to tackle this job?”
He was smiling at Gran but she didn’t smile back. She was very serious when she said:
“No, Son. I am not scheming now. You either have that love for the land that makes a farmer, or you don’t. If you haven’t, and you are the only judge of that, I don’t want you to even try. You would only turn into a . . . ‘seven year come’n go bird,’ ” she finished with a smile.
“Dad,” Dick said, “why don’t we vote? There are five of us, three out of five wins. I’m going to . . .”
“Hold it!” Father cried. “That’s a good idea, Dick, but we don’t want to know who votes which way. We ought to vote twice, now, and on the first of September. That’ll give us a chance to make up or change our minds.”
Gran didn’t seem to approve; she was shaking her head. Father turned to her: “I am not making a game of it, Mom. These coming weeks, we’ll think and talk over everything involved. Schooling, finances . . . everything. In the meantime we will all give this place the best that’s in us; be it your farm or . . . our farm. This first vote is just to show what we would . . . like to do. The second will show what we KNOW we are able to do. All right?”
“Sensible,” Gran nodded.
“Here is some white paper,” Father went on, “get me something else, Dick, that wrapping paper will do.”
He cut five small pieces of each paper and handed one of each to everyone. “White means city, brown means farm. Now, behind our backs, like this, we’ll take our choice in our right hand, then I’m going to blow out the candles and we’ll put our votes on the table. Be sure now! Ready?”
“Ready,” they said, faces smiling and secretive. In a few moments he lighted a candle again. There were five little pieces of paper on the table—all of them brown.
“Well,” Father sighed when no one else broke the silence, “I want to paint two rooms tomorrow, so we might as well go to bed.”
CHAPTER IX
MIKE, AMERICAN
WHEN Father said that, for the coming weeks, he would give the farm the very best that was in him, he meant it. He was up and around before sunrise every day and kept working in and out of the house until he could hold his eyes open no longer. He even went, without a murmur, to help Mr. Van Keuran with the haying. He grew lean, brown, and muscular; work in the sun for hours at a time had burned his skin a dark Indian brown down to his waist. And he wasn’t the only one who spent all the coming days working. As days went by, Mother took over more and more of the household tasks and, in addition, started to make slip covers for the substantial but ugly “parlor-suite” she had bought at the auction. Dick and Janet, after a few messy attempts, learned how to paint furniture neatly. Gran and Mother scrubbed the bureaus and tables, then the children painted them. But that was only a spare-time job. Dick, before long, had learned to take care of the horses alone; after the morning feeding and cleaning he led them out to pasture where they usually stayed all day. Both Lady and Clover Girl loved the children; at sundown they came running to the pasture gate and followed them right into the stable. Janet had full charge of the chickens; now she and the few hens supplied the household with eggs.
Gran, of course, was here, there, everywhere, as usual. She milked Daisy and Buttercup, took care of them and their little calves, although, in less than a week, she had taught everyone to milk and feed them.
They found time to pick baskets full of wild strawberries. Gran and Mother canned most of the berries, but some they dried in the sun, spreading them on clean papers. Gran was as happy as a lark; she never seemed to tire and nothing ever escaped her attention. The only thing that began to worry her as days went by and June turned into July, was the question of hay. They still had some of the old, dusty hay left, but she scolded every time she had to handle it.
“It isn’t fit to bed the cows on, let alone feed to them,” she said to Father one day, “besides, it’s getting late and we must get our own hay cut and stored.”
“Well, if we bought a mower and a rake,” Father said, “I could do it.” Gran shook her head. “Easy there. Haying time is not the time to buy those. Wait till the fall. Get them much cheaper, secondhand, and have all winter to repair them. Besides, you could not do it alone . . . even if you are in trim,” she smiled at him, as he flexed his arms. “We could ask Jake . . . although it would be better to hire someone to do it this year.”
“I’ll find out from him if there is anyone around here to hire, Mom. I’m going over right now, anyway. It might rain,” Father east a questioning eye at the billowing July clouds, “and I wouldn’t want to see his hay get wet. Gee, Mom, the field we raked yesterday . . . that hay is good enough to eat. It was a joy to handle it.”
“You don’t say!” Gran looked at him with shining eyes. He laughed and kissed her quickly. “How’m I doin’?” he asked, holding her at arm’s length. But Gran wouldn’t commit herself. “New broom. Time will tell,” was all she said.
“There is a farmer over the hill,” Father said next evening, “whom we may get to do the haying. Jake spoke to him last night at the Grange meeting. Say, Mom, about the Farm Bureau business . . . it might be a good idea to join. Get Government pamphlets and they test the soil for you . . . give you advice on what to plant to improve it and so on. Jake belongs . . . what do you think about it?”
“Be a good thing,” Gran nodded. “We didn’t have anything like that in my time. Not that I don’t know WHAT to do,” she bristled a little, “but they might have found better ways TO do it.”
“The Government is doing a lot,” Mother started to say, then exclaimed: “That reminds me. How about trekking out to the car for a spot of news? About due now . . . six o’clock.”
They sat around the car, listening to the radio. After the news broadcast was over, Father snapped it off and sighed:
“That Russian ‘scorched earth policy,’ ” he said musingly. “A month ago, it wouldn’t have meant more to me than just . . . well, something rather unpleasant happening to poor farmers a few thousand miles from here and a few centuries removed from where I THOUGHT I was, But now, I have to think . . . all this, our home, these promising fields, the woods, Jake’s crops waiting to be harvested so rich and heavy with life, all the goodness and beauty around us going up in flames our own hands had kindled, to keep some invader from profiting by it. Those people in Russia . . . Poland . . . China
Norway . . . oh, all of the little people with their beloved little farms and cherished little possessions, why, THEY are the unsung heroes of wars.”
His voice dropped into silence; all of them were thinking of what they had heard on the radio, thinking the way he was, with their eyes on the rich land, bearing its fruit in peace for people who knew that tomorrow and all tomorrows would find them going about their work without fear, or terror. The thought gave them all a heart-chilling awareness of what so many millions were suffering; little people who didn’t make wars, people who were no better and no worse than they. Dick’s young voice was tense with feeling when he said: “I WISH I were old enough to fight. I would . . . I . . .” he choked on his own words, young fists clenching.
“Hello,” shouted a merry voice close by. A strange, short but husky man was walking toward the car. When he reached them, he grinned an irresistible wide grin and pointed to himself. “Me, Mike. Want man for to hay, Mister?”
Father smiled and held out his hand: “Me, John,” he said. “Glad to know you, Mike. This is my family.”
“Good,” Mike approved after a friendly scrutiny of each. Then he beamed at Father again. “Mist’ Jake say, you big-city man. Me think, you not much good. Now, me think you big strong man like Mike, huh?”
“Glad you think so,” Father chuckled. He invited Mike into the house and they all sat around the kitchen table. Father and Mike quickly came to an understanding. Mike had a strong team and the machinery; he lived only a mile or so away and he could, and would, do the haying with Father to help him. While they talked, his small, deep-set eyes roamed around the kitchen. His grin took in Gran, Janet, and Mother when he said:
“Clean. You fix? John Crawford . . . he smell alla time. You no smell.”
“Thank you,” Mother said gravely. “What nationality are you, Mike?”
“Me? American,” Mike said proudly, then, after a little pause, added: “First, Slovak. T’urty year come from old country. Long time American,” he beamed and bobbed his head for empha
sis. “Got boy and two girl. T’ey no speak Slovak. T’ey all American.”
“Slovakia . . . that’s some place where the worst of this is going on,” Mother spoke to Father, then turned to Mike again: “We were just listening to the radio, Mike. Isn’t the war awful?”
Mike shrugged and spread his hands wide, but didn’t speak. Father said: “You used to live close to where they are fighting now . . . tell me what you think of the war.”
Mike looked at him. He evidently had no trouble understanding English, but he frowned and tensed up in an attempt to express himself. “Me, no THINK. Me KNOW.”
“What do you know, then?”
“T’ey crazy—t’at what Mike know. Look, Mist’ John,” he leaned forward, using words and both his hands to express his thoughts, his broad cheeked, deeply lined ageless face solemn with concentration:
“I, Mike, young boy in Slovak land. Live in litt’ place. Litt’ place near Russ’a, near Germ’ny, near Czech land, near Hung’ry . . . all big country. We have hun’red, maybe two hun’red people in village. Litt’ place, litt’ people, good people. Have litt’ house, litt’ farm, one, two goat . . . you know, Mist’ John?”
Somehow, with his hands cupped together like a nest and his head bent gently over them, with his anxious, gentle eyes questioning Father’s face, all of them, listening and watching, could almost see the small Slovak village and its poor, but gentle and good people.
“T’en,” Mike went on, wrinkling his forehead and narrowing his eyes, “one day Russ’an come. Many Russ’an say: ‘T’is now Russ’a. You now work for Russ’a.’ Priest, good man, oh so good man, he no like Russ’an. He say: ‘No, we Slovak. We no work for Russ’a.’ Boom, boom, boom, no more priest. So. We work for Russ’a. Litt’ time go by. Me, I am young buck, feel good. Have litt’ house, one, two goat. Work, work, work. So. T’en German come. Many, many, many German. T’ey say: ‘T’is Germ’ny now. You Slovak dog work for Germ’ny.’ Judge, he good man, good friend. He say: ‘No, we Slovak. We no work for nobody, only Slovak.’ Boom, boom, boom, no more Judge. My brot’er, neib’r, fat’er, friend, old man, young man t’ey no like German, t’ey say, we no like German, boom, boom. Shoot like dog. So. Mike, he no say. Mike, he work. Litt’ time go by. Me, Mike, I am marry with girl Linka, she my wife. Come litt’ Mike, we happy . . . oh we happy. T’en, Hung’rian come. Many. T’ey no shoot, boom, boom, but say: ‘You bad Slovak. You stupid Slovak. You come for to work in Hung’ry, we take land to grow tree, many tree, for wood!’ Hung’rian no like German. German no like Russ’an. T’ey all fight, boom, boom. Big fight, alla time. People die, litt’ houses die, goat, t’ey all die. Me, Mike, have no brot’er, no friend, no house, no goat. Have Linka an’ litt Mike. And alla time, alla time Mist’ John t’ey come, t’ey shoot, t’ey holler, t’ey all crazy. We Slovak litt’ people, good people. We no do bad to Russ’an, German, Hung’rian. So I, Mike, go to work litt’ time in Praha, I make litt’ money, I come to place I hear about . . . America. Go to work in mill, make litt’ money, send for Linka and litt’ Mike. Here, no bad man, crazy man holler and shoot Slovak. Here I work. By’n’by I have money in bank, buy bi-i-ig farm. Ten acre maybe twenty. Good BIG farm. Buy cow. One, two . . . five cow. Buy horse. Oh . . . good horse, fat. Have good neighbor, good friend. One Mist’ Schmi’t, he German. One Mist’ Benio, he Italian. Mist’ Jake, he alla-time American. But Mist’ John, we all like brot’er. We all American. No fight, no shoot, no holler. We work an’ we happy, Linka, Mike an’ kids . . . We all happy. T’is country, GOOD country. Mike Mogor,” he slapped his chest with both palms, all the weatherbitten, sharp lines on his face raying into one great happy grin, “me, American!”