In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

by Jerry Apps

  Agnes was busy trying to acquaint herself with the new people, Preacher Ketchum and Quarter Mile Sweet.

  “Hey der, honey, what kinda preacher did you say you are?” Agnes asked the pastor.

  “I am the shepherd for the flock of the Church of the Holy Redeemed.”

  “Shepherd, you say. You got sheep over there at that Church of the Holy something?”

  “It's Holy Redeemed, madam.”

  “Well, you may be Holy Redeemed, but I ain't no madam. Never was, never will be.”

  “So be it,” Preacher said, astonished at her response.

  “Didn't your church come from them holy rollers or was they holy jumpers that used to set up here in Link Lake with their summer tent show? Remember that when I was a kid. They'd drive into town, put up that big old ratty tent down there by the lake. The preacher'd work everbody up so as some of them folks would commence jumpin’ and yellin’ and even rollin’ on the ground. Yup, my pa said some of them folks got so excited they rolled right out the tent and kept right on a-goin’. Preacher told them folks they was headed to hell, and most of them commence believin’ it, too.”

  “Are you saved, madam?” Preacher Ketchum asked, interrupting Agnes's reminiscence.

  “Saved, hell yes I've been saved. At least three or four times I been saved. ’Member once when we was out in a boat on Norwegian Lake fishin’ for bullheads and the boat took to leakin’ real bad. Pa, he said we should hang on just a little longer ’cause them bullheads was bitin’ pretty good. You know those big yella belly ones with the big ugly flat heads?” She looked around the room as if to make a comparison to those who had gathered around her and the preacher.

  “Madam, I mean saved by the Lord,” Preacher interrupted. But either Agnes didn't hear or she chose to ignore the question as she continued her story.

  “By the time we got that old leaky boat beached, it was about sunk. About to go under. And I weren't no swimmer either. That old boat a-sunk, I'd been down there swimmin’ with them big bullheads. There was another time I ’member bein’ saved. We was milkin’ cows then, the mister and me. Lightning struck the barn, came in on the metal stanchions, knocked down a bunch of the cows. Killed one and knocked me ass over end—pardon my French. Lost my hearing out of that deal, but it all came back in a couple weeks. Talk about being saved, why I know about being saved.”

  The rest of the factory crew was taking all this in, smiling and giggling, because those who knew Agnes knew this was just her way of having a little fun. Andy didn't interrupt her. He knew she could work with just about anybody. Some she made comfortable right off the bat with her palaver, others she made squirm. Preacher Ketchum found himself in that second category.

  Before Preacher had a chance to open his mouth with some sort of rebuttal, an old-model Chevrolet car pulled up to the loading dock. Three kids and their old man piled out and began hoisting gunnysacks of cucumbers onto the receiving platform. Andy recognized Pat Patterson, who farmed out by Saxeville on a few sandy acres.

  “You get the prize for bringing in the first cukes of the season,” Andy said as the pickle factory crew took their places by the big green sorter. “How's the crop this year, Pat?”

  “Fair to middlin’. Could be better. Could be worse,” Patterson said. He was a big burly man with a two-day growth of red whiskers. His redheaded kids climbed up the steps to the receiving platform and watched their cucumbers being dumped onto the sorter and jiggling along the machine from one end to the other, the little cucumbers falling into the first bushel box, the biggest ones holding on to the end and going over the back into a box. Most of them tumbled into wooden bushel boxes under the number-two and number-three chutes.

  “Good looking cucumbers,” Andy said as he watched them get sorted. “Got a good color. No blemishes.”

  “We try to take care of ’em,” Patterson said. “Project for the kids, you know. A little extra money for ’em.”

  Andy knew that the Patterson family was scarcely making it. In fact, he'd heard they had missed a payment on their land taxes, so he knew the cucumber money was going for more than extra money for the kids.

  Andy weighed each box when the sorting was done, wrote some numbers on a sheet of paper, and carried it over to Helen in the office. A few minutes later she handed a check to Andy, which he in turn gave to Mr. Patterson.

  “I thank you for your business,” Andy said, smiling.

  Patterson glanced down at the check. “Hopin’ it'd be a little more.”

  “Next time you'll do better. Crop is just starting. We get a rain in the next few days and your next check'll be a lot bigger.”

  Patterson got back in his car, and the old Chevrolet sputtered up the factory driveway, kicking up a little cloud of dust. Redheaded kids waved out the car windows.

  5

  Grist Mill

  The same day the pickle factory opened, several farmers gathered a half-mile away at the Link Lake Grist Mill. The mill, a substantial three-story building, stood next to the concrete dam that stopped up the stream that poured out of Link Lake and held back enough water to provide the mill with power. City folks passing through town often stopped to photograph the mill and the water spilling over the dam. They claimed it was one of the most restful scenes in the area and that one look at the tumbling water had a kind of quieting affect on people and made them sleep better at night. Out here the locals figured a day picking cucumbers, or making hay, or shocking grain would do as much for a good night's rest as about anything that someone might think of, including watching water pour over a dam.

  Water powered the dam, turned the big millstones, and had enough energy left to generate electricity, which the miller sold to the Wisconsin Power and Light Company.

  The mill's exterior had once been painted a bright red, but now had declined to something less than pink. A porch was strung across the front of the building, and it was here that farmers hoisted their gunnysacks of cob corn and oats from their pickups, or from the back seats and trunks of their cars if they couldn't afford pickups. Once they had the gunnysacks on the porch, they dragged them into the mill proper. Three or four farmers always stood around, waiting to unload, waiting for the grinding, or waiting to load the sweet-smelling and still warm ground meal—now mixed ground oats and cob corn that the farmers would feed to their cows.

  The mill had once ground wheat into flour, but since farmers stopped growing wheat fifty years ago and shifted to milking cows, the mill switched to grinding cow feed. The miller, Ole Olson, was a big Norwegian fellow whose father had come from the old country and taken up milling. Olson sported a big handlebar mustache; you couldn't tell its color—in fact, you couldn't tell much about the color of anything concerning Ole, because he was white from head to toe, covered with grain dust. A city kid viewing him on Halloween night would surely think he had seen a ghost.

  Ole howdied everybody who pulled up to the mill, asked them about their families, and inquired about their cows and their crops. He was that kind of friendly fellow who made coming to the grist mill, a nearly weekly event for most farmers, a newsy experience.

  On this Tuesday morning, Isaac Meyer had just unloaded several sacks of cob corn and oats from his Ford pickup and was dragging them to the square holes in the mill floor. He untied a gunnysack full of cob corn and dumped it in one of the holes, then a sack of oats, and then another bag of corn. The corn rattled down the metal tube on its way to the millstones for grinding, a few stray kernels flying about.

  Ole Olson never talked about his chickens, but he had a small flock of White Rock roasters in a chicken house in back of the mill, just behind the little red brick building that housed the electrical generator. Everyone figured that Ole had never bought a pound of feed in his life but depended on farmers’ spilled grain to keep his chickens fed. In the fall he sold the live chickens to whoever wanted a good roaster for their oven. Nobody complained about Ole's chicken project because they knew he didn't earn much money grinding farmers’ cow
feed and selling a little electricity to the power company.

  Oscar Wilson, a skinny little man from east of Link Lake, was waiting to unload, and Thomas John Jones, the fiddler—most everyone called him T.J.—waited for Ole Olson to weigh his grist so he could settle up and load his ground feed.

  “How's the old man today?” T.J. said to Isaac with a smile, for he was recalling Isaac's sixty-fifth birthday party at the school.

  “Able to get around,” Isaac answered. “Able to get around.”

  “How the cows doin’?” T.J. asked.

  “Purty good. Purty darn good. Pasture's been fair so far. When the pasture's green and growin’, the cows do good. Pasture dries up, milk production goes down.”

  “Pretty fair milk prices this summer,” Oscar Wilson chimed in.

  “Could be better,” Isaac said.

  “Yup,” said T.J. “Sure could. Never been able to figure out who's makin’ the money on our milk. We sure as hell ain't.”

  “See the pickle factory opened up this morning. Your kid still runnin’ the place?” inquired Wilson.

  “Yeah, he is. Every year it's hard to find good help. Can you believe the preacher from that Church of the Holy Redeemed signed on this year?” Isaac said.

  “’Spect they'll be gettin’ a little religion while they're saltin’ cukes,” Ole Olson laughed. He had been listening to the conversation as he weighed T.J.’s sacks of ground feed on the scale.

  “’Pears that way,” Isaac said. “By the way, T.J., how your cukes doin’ this year? You usually grow an acre. How they doin’?”

  “Lookin’ good. Nice and green. Good vines. Lots of vines. Kids and I'll start pickin’ tomorrow if it don't rain.”

  “How about you, Oscar? How your cukes doin’?”

  “Could be better. Got too many weeds. Didn't get the hoein’ done. Hoein’ came right in the middle of makin’ hay, and I decided to make hay first.” He paused for a moment. “Heard that your neighbor out there by Rose Hill School has himself thirty acres of cukes and a field full of Mexicans pickin’. Did I hear right?”

  “Yeah, don't know what's got into Jake. He's been playing footsie with the Harlow Company that's encouraged him to put in those big fields. Cucumber experts from the college in Madison came right out to his farm and told him how he ought to set things up. Jake says that's the future. He thinks that some day Harlow won't be takin’ in cukes from us little guys. That they'll only deal with the big growers like Jake Stewart.”

  “The hell you say,” scoffed T.J. “We've had little pickle patches every year as long as I can remember and a long time before that. Jake musta got it wrong somewhere.”

  “Nah, it's what he tole me. Old Jake's got a bunch of shortcomings, but I've never known lying to be one of ’em,” said Isaac.

  “I tell ya, things are going to hell in the rural areas,” said T.J. “’Fore you know it all us little guys will be out of business—be doing what Emil Simpson is doing. Remember Emil's farm out west of town? Fairly decent farm it was, somehow he couldn't make a go of it, couldn't pay his taxes, I guess. What's Emil doin’ now? Sweeping floors at the Link Lake High School, that's what he's doin’. Damn shame for a man to go from farming to sweeping floors for a living.”

  “It is a damn shame,” Isaac agreed. “But what's a man to do? He's gotta feed his family, put clothes on the kids’ backs and food in their bellies. Know what happened to his farm, who bought it?” Isaac asked.

  “Nope, ain't heard,” said T.J.

  Ole Olson piped up with the answer, “Guy and his wife from Milwaukee bought it. That's who did. They're gonna retire here, rent the land out to old Jake Stewart.”

  “Things is really going to hell around here, that's for sure,” T.J. offered, shaking his head. He was loading his sacks of ground grain into his rusty pickup.

  6

  Pickle Factory Crew

  After sorting, boxing, and weighing the few sacks of cucumbers the Patterson family had delivered, the pickle factory crew waited for the first truckload of cucumbers from Jake Stewart's place. J. W. Johnson had called and said the truck was on its way and that he'd be at the factory when it arrived, “to make damn sure everything goes the way it's supposed to.” Andy thought, The arrogant bastard. I've been running this place for four years and he wants to tell me how to sort cucumbers.

  While they were waiting, Agnes, Blackie, and Quarter Mile Sweet pulled some pickle crates together and began playing cards.

  “Quarter Mile—you don't know how to play poker, do ya?” Blackie asked. Blackie didn't appreciate newcomers at the factory, especially college kids. He thought anyone going to college was a sissy and looking for a way to get out of work.

  “Yeah, I know how to play poker,” Quarter Mile said.

  “How about you, Preacher, you good for a game of poker?” Blackie asked.

  “Cards are the devil's work,” Preacher said smugly. “The devil's work.”

  “Suit yourself—may be the devil's work, but it's the people's fun,” Blackie said, grinning. Preacher turned and walked toward the factory office without saying anything.

  “All right, we start with a little five-card stud,” Blackie said. “Throw a nickel in the pot to get us started.” Blackie tossed a nickel on the burlap bag they'd spread across a wooden pickle crate.

  “You in, Agnes?” Blackie asked. His tone of voice changed when he talked to Agnes. He knew better than to mess with her; he knew she'd put him in his place, as she had a few times before. He remembered the first summer he worked at the pickle factory. He had said something about why such an old woman was allowed to do man's work. You'd have thought he'd hit a stick against a wasp's nest. She bristled up, grabbed him by the shoulders, and looked him straight in his dark eyes. Her usual good humor completely vanished.

  “Listen to me, you little bastard—I'll do my job, you do your job. And you keep your big mouth shut about what's woman's work and what's men's work. You understand?”

  Blackie was so stunned by Agnes's reaction that all he could think to do was shake his head up and down. Since that first bit of personal communication between Agnes and Blackie, they had gotten along fine.

  “Yeah, I'm in,” Agnes said, tossing in a nickel. Quarter Mile followed with his nickel, and Blackie began dealing.

  “Say,” Agnes said, her eyes sparkling, “did you hear the one about the fella who walks into a restaurant and asks the cook how he prepares their chickens?”

  Quarter Mile, a good straight man, said, “No, don't think I have.”

  “‘Well,’ the cook replies, ‘we don't do nothin’ special. We just tell ’em they're gonna die.’”

  There were groans all around as Blackie continued dealing the cards.

  Andy thought this would be a good time to check on the condition of the rest of the pickle vats. He wanted to make sure the iron rods holding the wooden tanks together were tight and not slipping, and that there weren't any broken boards on the vat covers. These cover boards were forever breaking because workers piled boxes on top of them.

  Helen Swanson sat at her desk in the office. A big, new colorful poster was thumbtacked to the wall behind her: a picture of a farm kitchen with a white-haired woman working over a woodstove, having just removed a jar of cucumbers from the canner on the stove. Big red words shouted: “Mother Harlow Knows Good Dill Pickles.”

  “May I come in?” Preacher asked.

  “Sure, come on in,” Helen motioned to the one wooden chair that sat alongside the old, badly scarred wooden desk.

  “You . . . you're crying,” Preacher blurted out.

  “No, something in the air is bothering me.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” Preacher asked quietly. Helen's blonde hair came nearly to her shoulders. Her usually bright blue eyes were red and swollen.

  “No . . . no, I don't think so.” Helen fumbled with some papers on the desk and put them in a neat pile. “Nobody understands.”

  News travels fast in a small town, and P
reacher knew that Helen had recently gotten divorced. He'd heard her husband, Karl, had returned from the Korean War a changed man, mostly for the worse. Before he was drafted, Karl Swanson had been well thought of in Link Lake, a star on the high school basketball team, and then a dependable employee at the Link Lake Sawmill. He married Helen just a few months before he left for Korea, and when he came back two years later, he spent every night and weekend in the Link Lake Tap. The sawmill foreman fired him when he came to work drunk one morning, and after that they depended on Helen's salary from her job at the high school. When he was home, which wasn't all that often, Karl just sat staring silently out the window of their little house. He mostly ignored Helen, and when he did talk to her he barked like a dog would bark at a stranger. As much as she loved him, Helen couldn't take it any longer, so she had filed for divorce. They had signed the final papers only a few weeks before the pickle factory opened.

  “I know about your divorce,” Preacher said quietly. He handed Helen his handkerchief, which she used to dab her eyes.