by Janette Oke
“Lou had a machine long before she had diapers to wash.”
“It works good?” Grandpa surprised me by asking.
“Real good,” I answered. “I’ve used it myself. You just stand there—or even sit, and work the handle back and forth, and the agitator does the washin’ of the clothes. Then when you’ve washed them long enough, you put them through the wringer and rinse them in the rinse tubs, wring them out again and you’re done.”
Grandpa took the straw from his mouth and teased one of the barn cats with it. It batted and swatted, enjoying the fun but never able to hit that straw. Grandpa always moved it just a bit too soon.
“I’ll think about it, Boy,” said Grandpa. “Might bear some looking into.”
That was as close to consent as I expected Grandpa to come to right off.
There were other changes I felt needed to be made on the farm, but I reminded myself that it would be smarter to take them one at a time. For now the most important one seemed to be to get Uncle Charlie some help with that washing.
We headed back to the house then, both of us studying the evening sky to see if we could read what kind of a day we would have on the morrow.
“How’s that east field coming?” Grandpa asked.
“Should finish tomorrow,” I answered, “if the weather holds.”
“Looks good,” said Grandpa, his eyes back to the sky. “We’re getting the sowin’ done in time. Should have a fair crop.”
When we reached the house Uncle Charlie was still puttering with the supper dishes.
“How’s Mac?” he asked.
“Nothin’ wrong with Mac,” Grandpa answered easily. “Josh here did ask if his hoof needed a bit more trimmin’. But it was really just a ruse.”
When Uncle Charlie looked up, I avoided his eyes and washed my hands so that I could wipe the dishes.
“He was really worried about other things,” went on Grandpa. “Hates to see you wringing out those clothes on washday. Thinks you need one of those fancy machines.”
I cringed. The way Grandpa was putting it, it sounded like I was making Uncle Charlie out to be some kind of sissy. I hadn’t meant it that way at all, and if Uncle Charlie took it that way, he’d buck the whole idea.
“I’ve thought about that myself,” said Uncle Charlie slowly. “Watched Lou use hers. Seems like a sensible gadget.”
Grandpa just nodded like he wasn’t surprised at all.
“Josh says that it is,” he informed Uncle Charlie. “Guess we should look into gettin’ one. We got the money for it?”
Now Grandpa had never concerned himself much with the day-to-day expenses of the farm and house. That was Uncle Charlie’s job. You couldn’t really say that he kept the books. There were no books involved, but Uncle Charlie always knew to the penny just where the financial matters of the household stood.
“Guess we’ve got the money if we decide we want one,” he answered honestly. “Happen to have a bit extra right now. We had talked about adding some new hogs to the pen—”
“That can wait,” said Grandpa.
“Suppose we’d have enough to do both,” went on Uncle Charlie, “but hate to get too low just in case somethin’ should happen to this year’s crop. We get hail or anythin’, and it might make it tight.”
Uncle Charlie went on washing dishes and I began to dry them and place them back in the cupboard.
“We don’t want to be short,” Grandpa said emphatically. “No sense doin’ that. We can wait on those new hogs.”
In all my years of living at the farm I had never heard Grandpa and Uncle Charlie discussing finances as openly as they were now.
“We’ve got what we laid aside for Josh,” went on Uncle Charlie. “Now that he’s not heading right off to college—”
But Grandpa interrupted him. “He still might go this fall, and we sure don’t want to be short of funds. We’ll just leave that right where it is for now.”
“We’ve got our savings—”
“We’re not touching a penny of that,” Grandpa said adamantly. “We worked hard to earn it and we sure aren’t gonna go spend it.”
Uncle Charlie nodded in agreement. It was the first I had heard of savings, or of the money for my further schooling.
“How much does one of those there machines cost?” asked Grandpa.
“Dunno,” said Uncle Charlie. “I’ll check next time I’m in town.”
They seemed to have forgotten all about me. I dried the dishes and rattled them a bit as I put them back on the shelf. That didn’t seem to work so I cleared my throat. They still ignored me.
“If you find out that it’s what you want, just go ahead and order one,” Grandpa was telling Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie nodded.
“How long do you think it’ll take to come?” Grandpa pulled back a kitchen chair and sat down, removing his work boots and pushing his feet into his slippers.
“Dunno,” said Uncle Charlie again.
I cleared my throat again. I had been there when Uncle Nat had ordered the machine for Aunt Lou. I knew what he had paid and how long it had taken to come, too. But I wasn’t being asked and I hated just to butt in.
“Throat botherin’ you, Boy?” asked Grandpa.
I shook my head, feeling a bit annoyed and embarrassed. Uncle Charlie turned to me then.
“Do you recollect what Nat paid for Lou’s machine and how he went about choosin’ it an’ all?” he asked me.
By the time I finished telling what I knew, Grandpa and Uncle Charlie had picked the make they wanted and decided that Uncle Charlie would head for town come morning and order himself a washing machine. I felt good about it as I headed up to bed. I had initiated one small change for improvement on the farm.
CHAPTER 7
More Decisions
I WAS SO BUSY that spring and summer I scarcely even got to town. If it hadn’t been for Sundays, little Sarah Jane would have grown up without me even seeing her. As it was, she seemed bigger and stronger and a little more attentive each time I saw her.
She soon learned to smile when she was talked to and to coo soft little bubbly noises. Soon she was content to lie there and talk. Her dark hair got lost somewhere, and when her new hair thickened and lengthened, it was a soft golden brown. Her eyes changed, too; they weren’t as dark now and were showing definite blue.
As Sarah was growing physically, Mary was developing spiritually. Willie still picked her up for church, but now he was bringing her ma along, too. Mary was really excited about that, and Mrs. Turley seemed to enjoy the church services.
Willie was all excited about leaving in the fall for school. He kept getting letters telling him about the courses and what he was to bring, and every time he got one he’d rush right over and show it to me. He’d usually bring it out to the field where I was planting or cultivating or cutting hay.
We kept talking about fishing but we never did get around to going. There was just so much to do that we never had time. When I finished one job I was already behind in taking on the next one. I hadn’t realized that farming kept a man so busy.
Grandpa said I should slow down a bit, but I kept seeing things that needed to be done. I hadn’t been around long before I realized that some areas had been rather neglected in the last few years. I guess the farm had become too big a job for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie. I could remember a time when neither of them would have let such things go unattended.
Aunt Lou and Uncle Nat were pretty busy with church affairs and didn’t get out to the farm too often. One Friday night they joined us for supper, and Aunt Lou did the cooking. Boy, was it good, too. Uncle Charlie did his best, but his meals were mostly boiled potatoes and meat.
“How’s the work coming, Josh?” Uncle Nat asked after I had finished off a second piece of lemon pie.
“Good,” I said, feeling kind of grown up and important. “We’re haying now.”
“How’s it look?” Uncle Nat had been in a farming community long enough to know how important a go
od hay crop was.
I sobered a bit then. “Not as good as I had hoped,” I said honestly. “Don’t really understand. We got lots of rain, but it still looks a bit skimpy.”
Grandpa entered the conversation then. “Soil’s getting a bit tired,” he offered. “It’s been planted for a lot of years now. That hay field has been givin’ us a crop for nigh unto forty years, I guess. Deserves to be tired.”
“Could you use some help tomorrow?” Uncle Nat asked. “I could spare the day.”
“Sure,” I grinned at him. “I sure could use someone on the stack.”
“I’ll be here,” he promised.
“I’ll send the lunch,” promised Aunt Lou. “I’ll need to get rid of the rest of this chicken somehow.”
I looked forward to the next day as I climbed the stairs to my room that night. It would be good to have Uncle Nat’s help. But more than that, it would be good to have his company.
The day was a hot one; both Nat and I sweated in the midmorning sun.
When it was time to take a break for lunch, we decided to slip into the shade of the trees on the creekbank to have our meal. We gave the horses a drink from the stream, then tied and fed them and lowered ourselves to the cool grass in the shade of a large poplar.
After Uncle Nat asked the blessing on the leftover chicken and Aunt Lou’s other good things, we chatted small talk for several minutes. At length Uncle Nat looked directly at me and asked candidly, “How’s it going, Josh? You liking being a summer farmer?”
“Sure,” I answered. “Like it fine.”
“Are you any nearer an answer?”
I hesitated. “You mean, about what I should do?” Uncle Nat nodded and I shook my head. “Still bother you?”
“I guess it does,” I answered honestly. “If I let myself think on it, it does.”
“You planning to go to school somewhere this fall?”
“That’s the problem,” I said quickly. “I’d thought that I’d just come on out and help Grandpa get the crop in and then I’d stay long enough to help with the hay. But as soon as haying’s over it’ll be time to cut the green feed, and then harvest— and on and on it goes. There doesn’t seem to be a good time to leave.”
Uncle Nat nodded.
“Another thing,” I said confidentially. “Things need a lot of fixing up around here. I hadn’t realized it before, but I guess farming is getting too hard for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie.” I hoped with all of my heart that Uncle Nat would understand my meaning and not think I was being critical of the two men. After all, I was still smart enough to know that they knew far more about farming than I did.
“I’d noticed,” said Uncle Nat simply.
I took heart at that and dared to go on. “This hay crop, for example. I think Grandpa is right; the land is tired. But it’s gotta do us for years and years yet. There isn’t any more land than what we’ve already got, Nat. We’ve gotta make this do for all the years God gives us. What do we do about it? Do we just wear it out?”
It was a hard question, one I had been thinking on a good deal lately.
“There are ways to give it a boost,” said Uncle Nat, reaching for another sandwich.
I perked up immediately.
“Like what?”
“Well, not being a farmer I don’t know much about it,” Uncle Nat went on, “but I know someone who does.”
“Who?”
“There’s a fella by the name of Randall Thomas who lives about seven miles the other side of town,” went on Uncle Nat. “I was called out there to see his dying mother. She wanted to talk to a preacher. Don’t know why. She had things to teach me. A real saint if ever I met one.”
I wasn’t too interested in the saintly woman who probably had gone Home to glory by now. I wanted to hear about the farmer.
“Well, this farmer has been busy studying all about the soil and how to—what did he call it?—‘rotate’ crops to benefit it. Real interesting to talk to.”
I was all ears. So there was a smarter way to farm the land!
“You think he’d talk to me?” I asked, very aware of the fact that I was still only a boy in some folks’ thinking.
“I’m sure he would. Said if there was ever anything that he could do for me in return for calling on his mother, just to let him know.”
I took a deep breath.
“So when do you want to see him?” asked Uncle Nat. “Well, I don’t know. Hafta get the hay off, and then the green feed—”
“And then the harvest,” put in Uncle Nat.
“But I would like to talk to him,” I continued. “I’d like to get the crops planted right next spring an’—”
Uncle Nat was looking at me.
“So you plan to farm again next year?”
I shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, I still don’t know what else I’m supposed to do, and Grandpa still needs me an’ …” It tapered off. There was silence for a few minutes and then I found my voice again.
“Do you think I’m wrong? Do you think that I should be tryin’ harder to find out what God wants me to do with my life? It’s not that I don’t want to know, or don’t want to obey Him.”
“Are you happy here?” Uncle Nat asked me again. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“You don’t feel uneasy or guilty or anything?”
“No.” I could answer that honestly. I was still puzzled, still questioning but I didn’t feel guilty.
“Then, Josh, I would take that as God’s endorsement on what you are doing,” said Uncle Nat. “For now, I think you can just go ahead and keep right on farming. If God wants to change your direction, then He’ll show you. I’m confident of that.”
It sure was good to hear Uncle Nat put it like that.
We tucked away the empty lunch bucket and moved to the creek for a drink of cold water.
“And, Josh,” said Uncle Nat just as we turned to go for the horses, “while you are here, you be the best farmer that you can be, you hear? Find out all you can about the soil, about livestock, about production. Keep your fences mended and your buildings in good repair. Make your machines give you as many years of service as they can. Learn to be the best farmer that you can be, because, Josh, in farming, in preaching, in any area of life, God doesn’t take pleasure in second-rate work.”
I nodded solemnly. I wasn’t sure how much time God would give me to shape up Grandpa’s tired farm before He moved me on to something else, but I knew one thing. I would give it my full time and attention until I got His next signal.
CHAPTER 8
Sunday
WILLIE CAME OVER TO SAY goodbye before boarding the train that would take him away from our small community to the far-off town where he would continue his education. He was so excited that he fairly babbled, and for a moment I envied him and his calling. I would sure miss him, I knew that. It wouldn’t be quite the same without Willie.
“You’ll write?” Willie asked. “
’Course I will.”
“I’ll send you my address just as soon as I’m settled,” he promised.
“Let me know all about your school.”
“I will. Everything,” said Willie.
“What happens now—with Mary?” I asked suddenly, feeling concern for Mary and her mother.
“What happens? What do you mean?”
“For church? How will they get to church?”
“Mary is going to drive. I suggested that you might not mind picking them up, but Mary insisted that she’d drive them.”
“Good,” I said, and then hastily added, “but I sure wouldn’t have minded taking them.”
“I was sure you wouldn’t, but Mary is quite independent.” We were quiet for a few moments; then Willie broke the silence. “Take care of her, Josh. She’s a pretty special person.”
I looked at Willie, my eyes saying, “I told you so,” but Willie didn’t seem to catch the look.
“She’s my first convert, you know,” he went on, and then added quietly, “She often surprises m
e. She knows some things about being a Christian that I still haven’t learned in all my years of trying to live my faith.”
I nodded. Mary certainly was putting many of us to shame.
“I saw Camellia off yesterday,” Willie said, and my head jerked up. I had hoped to learn of Camellia’s parting date so that I could see her off myself, but I had been so busy with the farm. A funny little stab of sadness pricked at me somewhere deep inside. I couldn’t even answer Willie. “She sure was excited,” Willie went on. Yes, Camellia would be excited.
“Her pa seemed excited too, or proud or something, but her ma didn’t seem to be too sure that they were doing the right thing.”
I wanted to ask Willie how Camellia looked, how she was wearing her hair, what her traveling dress was like, all sorts of things so that I could sort of picture Camellia in my mind, but I didn’t.
“She had more trunks and baggage than would be necessary for ten people,”Willie was laughing. “I think her ma even packed her a lunch.”
I still said nothing, and Willie thought that I’d missed his point. “They feed you on the train, you know.”
I hadn’t known. I had never traveled by train in my life, but I didn’t admit my ignorance to Willie.
“She hasn’t decided if she will get home for Christmas,” Willie went on, answering the question that was burning in my mind.
“Will you?” I asked, making it sound like that was the most important thing in the world to me at the moment.
Willie shook his head slowly. There was concern in his eyes. “I wish I could, but it’s far too expensive to travel that distance. I’m sure I will be ready for some familiar faces by then. Four months away is about long enough for the first time from home, don’t you think?”
I nodded.
“Well, I’d best get going.” Willie reached to shake my hand. I extended mine, and then we both forgot that we were grown men saying goodbye to each other. We remembered instead that we were lifetime buddies, and the months ahead would be very long. Before I knew it we were soon giving each other an affectionate goodbye hug.