The Open Gate
Page 17
“Whatever way this war goes, gasoline will be harder and harder to get.”
“Well, we don’t need much,” Mother mused. “We never go any place. Too much to do.”
Father didn’t seem to hear; he went on with his own trend of thought. “But we can grow enough feed for a work team. We’ve got to have power; can’t use Mike’s team forever.”
“Get them soon then,” Gran commented. “Gasoline will be scarce for everybody; people will begin buying horses again and prices will go up. Never knew it to fail when there’s a war on. That reminds me; we’d better look over that old sugaring vat; might find it mighty nice to have our own sweetening if sugar gets scarce. Sugar! You’d think that wars are run on sugar the way it disappears in wartimes. The grove up Fox Hill way is a sugar-maple grove; we can tap in March.”
Mother stretched her arms. “What worries me most is, what are we going to do with ourselves through the winter? There is hardly anything to do, outside of taking care of the dairy, the poultry, the feeding of beef-stock, the horses, repairing that heap of scrap-iron John optimistically calls machinery, washing, ironing, and cooking for a bunch of hungry locusts, repairing sagging buildings, keeping one step ahead of Eureka’s appetite for wood, not to mention pot-belly in there and the fireplaces in the bedrooms, cleaning kerosene lamps, cleaning the house and now, maple-sugaring. I wish somebody would give me something to do!”
She was laughing by the time she finished. She looked so happy, that Gran did something very unusual for her. She went over to Mother and kissed her. Mother smiled up at her. “Thank you, Gran dear. I would rather have this than a gold medal or . . . be knighted by the King of England or something.”
“Silly goose,” Gran chuckled and went back to see what kind of a job Eureka was doing on her loaves of bread in the oven. Then she said over her shoulder: “Set the table for six, Janet. I’ve invited Andy for supper. Make the table look especially nice.”
After a while she turned to face them and the short sentence she meekly dropped into the contented silence, acted like a bombshell:
“John, I want a milking machine.”
Father dropped the horsecollar he was mending and stared at her. “We have no electricity.”
“Time to get it then,” Gran said mildly. They were all looking at her now, all round-eyed and unbelieving. Janet giggled. “Push buttons?”
Father sighed heavily. “Mom, I have known you for well over thirty years, but you still have the power to knock me into a cocked hat. First, you uproot a whole family, willfully and with malice aforethought, to wean them away from ‘push buttons.’ You succeeded. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. We have learned to depend on our own wits and hands. We like it. We LOVE it. And now . . . you . . . I just don’t understand!”
Gran smiled. “Well, now that all of you know how to swim without all the products of science holding you up, it’s time to learn how to float.”
“So we know how to swim,” Mother said in a contented voice. She smiled at Father’s bewildered face. “This seems to be the Prestons’ decoration day. That statement was another gold medal, John.”
“I don’t need medals for doing something I want to do,” Father said a little crossly, but Gran’s smile was so suspiciously angelic, that he began to laugh. “There is something behind this sudden desire for the blessings of civilization, Mom. Your nose is trembling like that of a bunny-rabbit smelling a fresh head of cabbage. What’s up your sleeve? Out with it!”
Janet and Dick looked at each other, their eyes signaling: “He knows about the castor-oil face too.” Gran dropped her gaze to her hands. “I think I am getting old, that’s all.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Father commented, but then footsteps sounded on the porch and Andy came in, his face and ears stung a bright red by the November wind. He greeted them all with a shy smile and went to sit by Dick. Gran began to bustle around. “We’ll discuss it after supper,” was her only answer to Father’s questioning gaze.
Andy was scrubbed and combed and slicked up within an inch of his life. He frowned at Janet’s admiring comments on his appearance, and ate his meal with a great deal of silent appreciation. He was casting approving glances at the long, tapering yellow candles in their squat blue holders, at the colorful, crisp salad, the golden brown cookies served on a bright red plate and the sprays of burning bright autumn leaves in the centerpiece. Gran said: “Janet fixed the table. You like it, Andy?”
“Right smart,” Andy said with a glance at Janet, but when he turned to Gran, his eyes were smiling and he said in a voice that carried a hidden thank you:
“Granma, she got some right pretty dishes too and she dug out red tablecloths from the chest in the garret. Red cloth it is, shiny-like, with white roses climbin’ all around it. She slicks up the table powerful pretty now, the way she never bothered before . . . well, before. She took down them antique glasses, the pretty ones with red squares on them, from the cupboard. We used them for cider on my birthday.”
“Your birthday, Andy,” Mother exclaimed. “When was that? We didn’t know it!”
“Never knew I had a one before either. Twentieth of November it is, Gramp told me. Gramp, he has one too, now, he says he just found it. In December his comes, the seventeenth. He’ll be seventy-two year old, Gramp will be. That’s powerful old, ain’t it?”
Gran smiled at him. “I think he was older at sixty than he’ll be at seventy-two. What do you think, Andy?”
Andy contemplated this odd statement, doing silent arithmetic on his fingers. His eyes lighted up. “Seems so, don’t it? Chipper he is now, a’singin’ and a’whistlin’. It seems like that . . . perspective thing you showed me, Dick. ‘Tain’t always what a thing IS, that you got to think about, at times you just got to let it be an’ enjoy it the way it seems. Works all kinds of ways, that. Works out right well on paper. I tried it.”
“You are doing very good work, Andy,” Father said. “I wish you had more time for your drawing.”
“Got a lot more’n I had before . . . well, before.” His shy references to the time before the Prestons’ coming into his life, were like the timid advances an untamed little animal will make toward a human hand that holds tempting food, wanting to trust and be loved, but not quite knowing how far to dare to trust. Now his clear blue eyes were set on Father’s face and suddenly he plunged, to give him all the confidence he had withheld before. “But I aim to get more time,” he said seriously, “and I’d be much obliged if you’d help. I’ve done a lot of thinkin’ and figurin’, but I don’t know how to go ‘bout what I aim to do.”
His ears had grown very red again and he seemed ill at ease. Father asked: “Do you want to talk to me alone? We could go to the parlor.”
“No, Mr. Preston. This ain’t no secret from anyone except Gramp and Granma, for a spell, that is.”
“Well go ahead, Andy boy. We’ll do all we can, to help you.”
“No need for you to say that,” Andy nodded. ‘He scratched his ear absentmindedly and twisted his shoulders, trying to getaway from the imprisonment of his new jacket.
“Take your coat off, Andy, it’s warm in here,” Gran said. “You too, John, Dick.”
Father winked at Dick. They were never allowed to eat in their shirtsleeves at night. It was a rule that nothing could break, nothing but kindness, now. Andy, seeing that they took off their coats, squirmed out of his with a grateful smile and drew a deep sigh of relief. Still he fidgeted and didn’t seem able to begin talking. Dick wondered what this might be all about and, hoping that he was wrong, hoping he would get a denial, asked just the same, to help Andy over the hurdle:
“Do you want to go away to study?”
The question drew an accusing glance from Andy, but it did break the ice.
“Naw! You ought to know that I ain’t goin’ any place. ‘Tain’t so much myself I’m a’thinkin’ about, Mr. Preston.” He now turned to Father. “Anyways you look at it, seventy-two is old. November-like, it is; times
November fools you into thinkin’ it’s summer, but it’s the beginnin’ of winter just the same; there ain’t much you can do ‘bout it. Gramp, and Granma, they work powerful hard, always have, I guess. Ain’t had much either beside work—and grief. Time’ll come when I can take over all the chores an’ ease the load, but time don’t come out right. Take another ten year for me to grow and every year will be harder on Gramp. He knows that.
“Now, about three year back, a man came to our house. He was from the electric company, he said. Wantin’ to know if’n Gramp allowed them to string wires from the crossin’ to our house. So we could have lights in the buildin’s and a coolin’ plant and milkin’ machines and such. Save a powerful lot of time and it ain’t half as hard on a man. Gramp, he was all perked up. He sure wanted it. ‘Put in more cows,’ he says an’ still get done with the chores in no time ‘tall.’ He sure wanted it.”
Andy’s eyes were clouded over. “ ‘Tain’t easy to see Gramp, ailin’ and crippled up like when cold winter comes. I’ve seen milkin’ machines work. It seems like no chore ‘tall. Anyways, Gramp, he was real perked up at what the feller said. ‘Sure thing, string ‘em up. You can have the timber for the poles and no charge for the holes,’ he said, funny-like. The man said that was fine and it’d cost Gramp only three hundred dollars the first year and ten dollar a month for . . . maintenance, he called it, every month for every year we used the wires, no end to that. Gramp thought the machines would come free, but when he heard that he’d have to buy ‘em special besides, Gramp, he just let out a holler and went for the pitchfork so we never saw the man again. Gramp never had three hundred dollar all in a heap, besides that was only for stringin’ them wires. Rest of the stuff comes powerful high too, I figured that from the letters that came, all trying to sell folks machines an’ coolin’ plants, if folks got the wires. Now, Mr. Preston, I got money and I want to figure if I got enough of it bred in the bank to fix all the wires and all t’other stuff for Gramp, maybe by Christmas time. Or maybe for his birthday, now that he’s found it. I figured, if I could have one of them smart fine lights a’burnin’ in the yard on Christmas Eve, lightin’ up every corner, bright as day, maybe then Gramp, lookin’ out the window would only see the yard. Maybe the new brightness would burn out of that yard the things he’s a’gazin’ at, come Christmas Eve. Things that ain’t there at all. Not for many a year they haven’t . . . only once. My Ma and my Pa he sees there, a’goin’ away all gay and laughin’ and singin’ in the sleigh. And he is just waitin’ and a’waitin’ the whole blessed night for somethin’ that’ll never come. Maybe if’n he had a new light to see by, maybe he would not be waitin’, maybe it’d ease his grievin’, that’s the way I figured.”
Andy’s voice had begun to waver, his eyes, overbright, searched every face. Dick, out of the corner of his eyes, saw a tear roll slowly down Mother’s cheek and hoped that Andy wouldn’t see it, But Andy had, and somehow it gave him support to hurdle the dangerous soft spot he had talked himself into. He frowned at the tear, but his voice was level and gruff when he continued:
“Anyway, that’s part of my figurin’ only. The other part is, fixin’ it so that Gramp and Granma and I would get done with the chores more easy. It’d give me time to draw and study ‘bout drawin’, out of those books you gave me. Over the winter now, they’ll both be ailin’, all crippled they’ll do the chores just the same. I can’t do them alone. Has the money bred enough to fix it right for Gramp?”
Father cleared his throat. “Wait, I’ll get your deposit book, Andy. We’ll see.”
He came back with the bank-book open in his hand. “You have, since August, saved over four hundred dollars. With interest, it amounts to . . . let’s see. About four hundred and sixty dollars all told.”
“How much has it bred by leavin’ it alone?”
Father smiled. “It doesn’t breed much in three months, Andy, your interest would be only about ten dollars.”
Andy was concentrating. “Well, seeing that I didn’t have to feed it, that’s not so bad. But the way I figure now, is this way: Putting in a milking machine, we can milk fifteen head more, easy, in half the time we milk by hand. If I buy what’s needed, milk check will be considerable bigger than the ten dollars for three months the bank gave me for the money. Figuring on feed and all, I’d be still doing better than the bank. Only thing is, there just ain’t enough left to buy what’s needed after paying for the wires. At least, if I do it alone, there won’t.”
Father’s face was undergoing a curious change. From serious concentration on what Andy was saying, his expression became that of dawning suspicion, then secret amusement. He raised his eyes, looking straight at Gran. Gran, however, was once again demurely gazing at her folded hands.
“Hrrrumph,” said Father.
Gran blinked, but didn’t look up. Father turned to Andy. “Yes. I see what you mean. Have you talked this over with anyone else before, Andy?”
“Only with Mrs. Preston. She said for me to ask you, seeing that you were figurin’ on getting wires strung too and two of us might make it all come out right.”
“Yes. I was figuring on getting a milking machine just before you came, Andy.” Father’s voice was full of suppressed laughter. “It’s quite an amazing coincidence that you should come to talk about it just the day when I . . . when I was getting the idea. Isn’t it, Mom?”
Gran blinked rapidly, her face turned a rosy red. “I always said you were a clever man, John. You always see to the heart of a matter.”
“Not as quickly as I should, seeing the experience I’ve had with you,” Father said in a slow, smiling voice, “but, this time I see to the very heart of . . . the matter. And I like it.”
“Thought you would,” Gran sighed.
“All right, Andrew Van Keuran,” Father smiled at the waiting Andy. “Tomorrow I’ll find out how quickly we can bring the wires in. They have to go past our place anyway, so we’ll go into partnership. I’ll pay for the powerlines, all the way to your place. You’ll have enough money to do the rest in your buildings. I’ll see to it that it will be done for Christmas . . . if I have to do the wiring myself. Shake on it, pardner, man to man.”
Andy blushed. He rose from his chair and shook Father’s hand solemnly. Slowly a rather surprised, happy grin spread over his face. He had begun to realize that the hand extended to him in kindness, was never going to hurt him, never going to hold him captive—it was the hand of a friend. Happiness burst out of him in a rush: “I’ll be jiggered!”
He immediately started to grope for his jacket. Struggling into it, he threw an apologetic grin at all the smiling faces. “I am much obliged . . . I’m sure. And I got to be going now. I just got to!”
Father, realizing his need to be a child again and free to run, to shout, like the boy he was, underneath the premature veneer of adulthood that his lone life with two very sad old people had pressed upon him, laughed and gave him a little push. “Run along, Andrew. You too, Dick, if you want to,” he answered an unspoken plea from Dick. He laid his arm around Janet, and whispered something in her ear. She pouted a little, but said:
“It’s too dark out anyway. They always pick the creepiest places to go to.”
Dick grabbed his coat from the hook and yelled to the disappearing Andy: “Be with you,” then shoved his untouched plate of cookies in front of Janet and pulled her hair good and hard to show his appreciation.
He caught up with Andy at the foot of the drive. They walked down the road, through the moonlit November evening, rapidly, side by side. Reaching the gate where they had first seen each other, Andy broke the silence.
“Race you up the knoll . . . city slicker,” he challenged.
“Catch me first,” Dick shouted, already hurdling the gate.
They arrived on top of the hill, panting, but, as always, side by side. Andy, gasping for breath, threw himself on the ground. “What I can’t figure,” he panted, “and I been figuring and pondering for the longest spell . . .”
Dick, taking this queer, unanswerable question for what it was—appreciation, approval, and a renewed declaration of friendship, just grinned comfortably as he, too, sat down: “Well, we are here now. To stay.”
EMERGENCY JOB
A WEEK later the family stood in the window of the back parlor, watching the men from the electric company swing and fasten the heavy cables on to the new poles. Father’s face was serious.
“I have a feeling that we are doing this none too soon. The company had to prove to the government even now that our places are not just private dwellings but producing farms. There is an ever tightening restriction on all materials that might be needed for the war effort. If we actually join the fighting, farmers will have to produce more than ever, so we get the powerlines.”
He turned from the window and went to sit in his chair. “The contractor is coming tomorrow or the day after, to wire the buildings,” he went on talking. “We will have to choose between two possibilities on his work, so, kindly lend me your collective ears.”
When they were all seated and waiting, he continued: “The contractor has far more to do than he can handle. War plants are taking every man who knows the difference between a screwdriver and a monkeywrench. I had to . . . well, explain a little about Andy and his Gramp, before he would even consider doing the job before Christmas. He can give us two days now, no more. That is enough time to wire one barn completely and maybe the other partly. Where is he to start? Here or at the Van Keurans’?”
“Van Keurans’,” four voices said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Hmm. That WAS a silly question, I can see that now,” he said contentedly. “He is also the agent for the milking-machine manufacturers, so we’ll be all set on both farms to go into big production in about four days from now. He ought to be through Saturday, that’s the sixth of December. On the seventh we’ll celebrate. Make whoopee . . . invite the Van Keurans, Mike and Linka . . . what do you say?”