Best Person Rural

by Noel Perrin

  Mine is a generation that has wanted to be in delivery rooms. Our fathers took our mothers to hospitals, and there surrendered them to masked obstetricians. They themselves sat meekly in waiting rooms. When all the drama had taken place, behind closed doors, they might be permitted to see the new son or daughter through a glass window. Birth was a mystery to men.

  My generation wanted to change that, and did. I was present in the delivery room of a humanistic hospital when my elder daughter was born. I was in the big upstairs bedroom at home, helping Dr. Putnam with the delivery – or possibly just getting in the way – when the younger one arrived. What’s certain is that I was able to bring my southern wife a bottle of Dr. Pepper fourteen minutes after Amy was born. I liked that.

  Seeing how eager men have been to make their way back into the human birth ceremony, it is not too surprising that some of us also want to assist at the birthings on a farm, or at least be present. Certainly I wanted to be around for the arrival of the first calf to be born on my farm in my time.

  I knew the arrival date quite accurately. Michelle and the bull had gotten things started on November sixteenth, just after lunch. The gestation period in cows is about the same as in people, or a shade longer. You figure 285 days. The calf would therefore be due around August twenty-eighth. I say “around,” but being an almost mystical believer in animal powers, I really expected her to hit the precise date.

  The first step was to make sure I’d be here. As far as daytime went, there was no problem; in late August I’m nearly always home doing farm work anyway. But evenings are trickier. This is the last moment before summer people leave – at least, those with kids in school. They are feeling nostalgic and social. My wife and I usually get asked out as much during the second half of August – say, three or four times – as in all of September and October put together. It’s kind of fun.

  But first things first. We agreed that we’d accept no invitations for Delivery Day. And to leave a comfortable margin of safety, none for the day on either side.

  The next step was to keep Michelle accessible. Early in August I began taking her a scoop of grain every morning, with the idea of encouraging her to hang around the front of the pasture, where I could watch her. This had its tricky aspects, too, since it’s a great big pasture, and there were fourteen other cattle in with her. (One was mine; thirteen belonged to a real farmer.) All fourteen were as fond of grain as she, and at least six were her superiors in herd rank. It was not easy to make the snack an exclusive for her. But I mostly did.

  What I wanted was about a two-minute period each morning when Michelle was wholly concentrated on eating, and I could examine her. Hence grain. Cows are so passionately attached to the stuff that they will permit their owners almost any liberty, from putting a rope around their necks to looking under their tails, while they are consuming it. The latter was what I wished to do.

  Michelle stayed right on schedule. She had sprung bag way back on the fifteenth. Now her udder got even fuller. On the twenty-sixth of August, two of her teats were stiff with milk. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, all four were. No dilation when I looked under her tail, though. A cinch for the twenty-eighth, I thought.

  But the twenty-eighth came and went, and Michelle showed no signs of going into labor. We meanwhile missed one of the perhaps two large parties a year that occur in town. No sign on the twenty-ninth. Finally, on the morning of the thirtieth, something began to happen. Michelle, who up to now had comported herself like any other cow, began to walk quite slowly and stiffly. My neighbor Floyd, who has known cows about forty years longer than I have, attributed this to overindulgence in pasture apples – no connection at all with the pregnancy, he said. But I had seen my wife walk the same way; I was sure it presaged labor.

  Still, no dilation when I did my morning tail-check. None after lunch. That evening, though, just before my wife and I were supposed to be going out for the first time in a week, I noticed Michelle moving stiffly and heavily away from the herd. It is well known that cows like to be alone when they deliver. I dashed over, clean shirt and all, and found her partially dilated.

  It was a dinner party we were going to, in another town, seven miles away. I found I didn’t have the nerve to call my hostess and explain that I preferred to stay home and watch a cow. If Michelle had already started labor, I might have – but it could be another six hours before she did that. I resigned myself to missing the show, and to meeting a very young calf next morning.

  Next morning I couldn’t find either Michelle or the new calf. Ten of the thirteen other cattle were grazing quietly in the best part of the pasture – the rich, level section in front. Three were hanging around a section of fence further back, where my land adjoins Ellis Paige’s, and doing some mutual head-and-neck licking over the fence with his Angus steers. But no trace of Michelle, even though I walked to the very back corner, where the pasture turns into pine trees on low ridges, with grassy glades in between.

  About 8:00 A.M. I was plodding back toward the road, rather worried, and met Floyd walking briskly out. He likes births, too. Having just finished his morning milking, he was coming over to see how Michelle handled her first delivery. (He knew how I’d handle any medical emergencies: ineptly. That may even be one reason he came over.)

  Floyd cheered me right up. In a rolling pasture like mine, he said, and especially one where there are lots of trees and bushes and glacial boulders the size of delivery trucks, you can sometimes spend half a day finding a cow that wants to hide.

  We began a systematic search, walking fifty feet apart, like a couple of corvettes hunting a submarine in tandem. About eight-thirty, the senior corvette made contact.

  “There’s your calf,” said Floyd, pointing to a white spot on one of the pine ridges. “She’s got it hid in them pines.”

  But as we walked quietly closer, it turned out to be a single white birch hidden among the pines; the sun was lighting up a patch of bark just about the size of a Hereford’s head. We resumed patrol.

  By nine o’clock we had searched the whole pasture except Bill Hill. Bill Hill is on the eastern side; it’s about two hundred feet high, and practically vertical. There’s maybe an acre of good pasture up on top.

  I hadn’t even considered looking up there, because I took it for granted that a 287-day pregnant cow would not be able to climb up, especially when she’s got a dilated uterus and stiff legs. But there’s nowhere else to look. We now clamber up, Floyd in the lead.

  The pasture fence runs parallel to the top of Bill Hill, slightly down on the far side, and there are several bushy little glades right along the fence line. In one of these Michelle is lying. It’s about as private a delivery room as you could ask for, and delivery has just begun. Michelle has already passed the water sack that helped to dilate her, and she is having contractions about every three minutes. Each time she does, we can see two tiny light-colored spots appear. They are baby hooves.

  All this we have been watching from a safe distance – thirty yards, I’d guess. Floyd now wants to get closer, to make sure those are the front hooves we’re seeing. They’d better be. If they’re the rear, we’ll have to try to reach in and turn the calf. Otherwise there’s a high risk it will be stillborn, since the umbilical cord will break before it emerges and can start breathing. Very quietly we move toward Michelle’s glade. She watches us.

  When we get halfway, she heaves herself to her feet. Still walking in that slow, arthritic way (it is labor, not too many apples), she lumbers about a hundred feet down the fence line, and stands there looking at us. After five minutes, when we have come no closer, she lies down again in another little glade.

  This time we circle around the top of the hill and come over the crest directly above her. We are within thirty feet, but shielded by a clump of fire thorns. She seems not to notice.

  Another contraction, and the little dots appear. At this distance even I can recognize them as hooves, but it is still impossible to tell which pair they ar
e. I am bitterly regretting that I didn’t have the sense to shut the barway between the front and the back pastures last night before we went to the party. If I had, this scene would be taking place somewhere in the level front part. Suppose those are the rear hooves, and we wind up having to call Dr. Webster. He isn’t going to be thrilled at the prospect of treating a patient on top of Bill Hill.

  The contractions are beginning to show results. The little hooves now come out a couple of inches each time, and they remain visible between contractions. That happens five times. Michelle must be exhausted, because now she simply stops the whole process for about ten minutes, and rests. Chalk up one for instinctive animal powers.

  Then there is a powerful contraction, and we see something white. A calf’s nose! Those are the front hooves, and all is well. Another minute, and the whole head is out. Michelle rests briefly again, and then with a second powerful contraction pushes the calf halfway out.

  At this minute Floyd gets up from where we are sitting quietly behind the fire thorn and starts walking directly toward her. “Floyd! You’ll make her get up again,” I hiss.

  “Want to,” he says, and keeps going. Slowly, but straight at her.

  When he’s about ten feet away, Michelle finishes bearing the calf with one mighty contraction, gets up, and backs away. We can now see that it’s a bull calf (the females in the house will later name him Armand) with dark red curly hair. Already at birth he has a bull neck and the big clumsy ankles of a Hereford. He’s charming and babyish – though a big baby, eighty pounds at least – but the only thing about him you’d call delicate is his little white head.

  Floyd, still walking slowly, comes right up to Armand, who is now about thirty seconds old. He is lying just as he was born, his whole effort concentrated on trying to breathe. Not too successfully: he is rattling and wheezing. In my own childhood, human babies got spanked under these circumstances. What Floyd does is pluck a handful of dry grass, wipe the mucus from Armand’s nostrils, and then knead his chest. The calf begins to breathe normally. He is one minute old.

  We are not the only visitors who have been watching this birth. As Floyd turns to get another handful of grass, a series of dark spots appears on the little white head. Flies. Five of them. You’d think they might have given him one free hour, but that’s not the sort of thing that occurs to flies.

  Floyd has his new handful of grass. He quickly dries the calf’s body, and then steps back to where I am. We watch anxiously to see if Michelle, that young and totally inexperienced mother, will own her child. Meanwhile, Armand takes his first independent action. He shakes his head briskly, and the flies depart. The motion attracts his mother, who comes over and begins to lick his rear end. God bless instinct. It’s true she started at the wrong end – she should have begun with the head, and thus cleaned his nostrils – but this is still owning. At about the second lick, Armand moos for the first time – a soft baby moo – and Michelle answers. A few more licks and he has a bowel movement. He is four minutes old.

  Michelle continues to ply her tongue, and as I watch I begin to understand that old phrase about licking something into shape. She is working gradually up toward his chest, and clearly it makes him feel good. He gives a little grunt, pushes with his front legs, and tries to stand up. He makes it halfway. But he hasn’t learned how to coordinate all four legs at once yet, and he instantly falls down again. Michelle keeps licking.

  By now it is ten-thirty, and Floyd and I both have a day’s work ahead. And I, like the flies, am ready for breakfast. But we would like to see the calf on his legs. We decide to wait a few more minutes. Armand tries twice more to get up and twice more falls down. On the fourth attempt, he makes it. The general rule is that a healthy calf ought to be up within an hour. Armand has done it in twenty-six minutes. It takes him only two minutes more to find his mother’s udder. All is well; Floyd and I start down the hill.

  That afternoon, the entire human population of the farm – four people – climbs up the hill. The little glade where the birth took place is empty. There’s not even a trace of the afterbirth, which Michelle has obviously eaten, as cows are supposed to. We go further back along the hill, my daughter Elisabeth in the lead. Suddenly she gives a cry of triumph. There in a thicket of young poplars is the calf, standing with his legs splayed out, perfectly motionless. Michelle is nowhere in sight. Presumably she’s off grazing, and has hidden her son here, leaving him orders to stay perfectly still. How a cow conveys such an order, no one knows, but there is no doubt that she can.

  Elisabeth tiptoes up and pats the small white head. The calf rolls his eyes, but otherwise stays perfectly motionless. “You darling thing,” Elisabeth says. “I think I’m going to call you Armand.”

  Our farm is now a farm.

  [1983]

  Two Letters to Los Angeles

  I

  NOVEMBER 10, 1980 – Today it snowed six times in Vermont. These are the fourth through ninth times it has snowed so far this fall.

  Before you start imagining pretty white flakes drifting down, let me describe a few of today’s snowfalls. The first two were mere flurries, grayish, sleety snow that didn’t even stick. The third was bigger, but no more romantic. It began about 11:00 A.M. I was out in my woodlot, stacking red maple logs that I had cut and split yesterday. Promptness matters here. If I don’t stack them within a day or two, they freeze to the surface and are locked in until spring.

  Quite abruptly, a sharp little wind came up, and then the ground began to hiss. Snow pellets were falling thickly – not straight down from the heavens, but blown at a twenty-degree angle from the east. They didn’t come hard enough to punch holes in the dead leaves, or even to sting the face much. Just hard enough to hiss against the ground.

  When the squall stopped around eleven-thirty, the woods were actually rather pretty. By early November the fallen leaves have mostly lost their color – but in the right light you can still see traces of their once-glorious reds and yellows and oranges. The end of the squall produced a few thin gleams of sunlight that were the right light. Most of the woods’ floor was covered with a quarter-inch layer of snow pellets, precisely that oyster color that some women seem to prefer for painted woodwork. But in the lee of each evergreen tree, and even behind the trunks of the larger maples, there was a patch of bare leaves, faintly glowing. Think of those as comparable to the windows in the oyster-colored houses. Though I was a little cold, and my leather gloves were sopping, I took an appreciative walk before I got back to stacking cordwood.

  The afternoon was worse weather than the morning, at least for my purposes. Now out of the woods and back home, I was waiting for a neighbor to come and slaughter our lambs. Meanwhile, the sky had changed from alternating sun and snow to a steady, mean gray.

  George arrived with his gun and his set of knives around 2:00 P.M. From then until dark, he was busy killing and skinning lambs, and I was busy salting down the hides, burying guts in the garden (terrific fertilizer), and helping him on two-person parts of the job. All of this would have been a good deal more pleasant if the temperature had not remained a constant thirty-three degrees, and if, at intervals, we hadn’t got another handful of snow pellets flung in our faces. You can’t skin lambs with gloves on; you can’t even properly salt down hides that way.

  Just before dark – that is, about twenty to five – we put the carcasses in the back of my pickup and took them over to Enoch Hill’s. Enoch lives half a mile away, and is a country butcher. About a week from now he’ll return me four legs of lamb, many packages of tiny lamb chops, and more sheep kidneys, hearts, and lungs than I ever know what to do with. I was so cold by then that I went home, crammed the main stove as full of logs as it will go, and went upstairs to take a hot bath.

  This, of course, is autumn. We still have winter to come. Today’s bit of snow will almost certainly melt, even on the north sides of buildings. But some time two weeks or a month from now we’ll get snow that means to stay. We’ll have it until the end of
March. When it goes, we’ll have more in April – big wet snows that stick. Once in a shady cove on the river, I found snow on the fourth of May.

  Why on earth does anyone choose to live here? There are known to be options, including places where November might yield a string of languorous days in the eighties.

  Enoch was born here, and in that sense maybe didn’t choose. (Though he could always emigrate, as a God’s plenty of his forebears did. There’s a steep ridge not ten miles from our village which for more than a hundred years has been called California Hill. From its top, Vermonters setting out west in their covered wagons took a last look back at the frostbitten landscape they were leaving.)

  But George and I were not born here. We both came fluttering into the state like moths, drawn to the light. So what is it that draws us?

  My mother used to say it was masochism. She could understand coming for the brief, lush-green summers, but a will to spend the other seasons here she could only attribute to perversity.

  Myself, I think there are two quite different reasons. One depends on the well-known theory of challenge and response. If you want to have responses, the theory says, you need challenges. These our rotten climate provides. I didn’t really want it to be thirty-three degrees and snowing when we dressed off the lambs. In fact, I wondered out loud to George when he arrived if it wouldn’t make sense to wait for a better day. He answered like a good Vermonter that (a) there might not be any better day, and (b) in any case best get it done now, while the knife was sharp. And once we had done it, and even though I only assisted, I felt a little bit heroic, as if there’d been an accomplishment. To feel that is an agreeable response.

  The other reason is simply the human love of variety and perhaps even of unpredictability. This love is, of course, balanced by an almost-as-strong love of sameness and predictability, which is why uniform “national” products are so reassuring, why people stay at Holiday Inns, where, when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and so forth. But love of the unpredictable is a shade stronger, strong enough, sometimes, to keep people out of paradise.