In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

by Jerry Apps

  Now Dewey was faced with how to report all this in the paper. Villages like Link Lake have several news sources, the newspaper being only one of them, and often the least significant. The news that traveled by word of mouth, in the taverns, at the feed mill, at the cheese factory, in the mercantile—this mattered most to the residents of the Link Lake community. The rumor mill was where all the juicy stuff was passed along, all the details, whether accurate or manufactured, all the gore, the indiscretion, all of it.

  In the minds of the locals, the newspaper seldom reported anything new. Rather, they saw it as a confirmation. “See, I told you. Here it is in the paper. Right here in the paper.” Once something was printed there, it was viewed as the absolute truth, never to be questioned.

  Dewey decided to report the preacher and Helen's disappearance on page two. He didn't detail the couple's antics, the details everyone was drooling to read. The older women would sniff at the awfulness of it all, and a few would secretly wonder if they could have an adventure like this. There was a certain romance to falling in love among pickle vats, the air heavy with the smell of fermenting cucumbers. Of course, some of the men had openly discussed what it would be like to run off with a pretty blond divorcée.

  Dewey had bigger news to report on page one. Unfortunately, because of the pickle factory affair holding everyone's attention, no one was talking about the real pickle problem. The spot-rot epidemic had decimated the cucumber crop in the area. It continued to close down the little patches. This would mean a smaller pile of Christmas presents under the trees this winter, fewer kids with new clothes for school, and many promises of new bicycles being put off for yet another year.

  Front-page news also included the upcoming election in the Rose Hill School District. People would be voting on consolidation in a special election scheduled for Tuesday, September 6, at the Rose Hill Town Hall.

  Often the paper took a stand on the Gazette’s editorial page arguing for how people should vote. This time it didn't. For his front-page story, Dewey John tried to collect as much information as he could. It was a tough assignment because he had never seen an issue divide a community so completely. He wrote about the pluses for consolidation—an improved science program (a laboratory), the opportunity for children to play in a band, a stronger math program, more expansive social study opportunities, and teachers who could concentrate on one or two grades rather than all eight.

  On the other side of the issue he noted that when country-school pupils entered high school they almost always did as well as, and often better than, the town kids. The country-school kids learned how to study by themselves. And they could progress according to their own abilities. If they were in fourth grade and good at reading, they might sit with the fifth or even sixth grade reading groups. Same with arithmetic, writing, and social studies. Country-school kids also helped younger students having difficulties in all sorts of subjects, both in the classroom and outside the school. For instance, it was not unusual for an eighth grade student to show a first grader how to hold a bat and hit a softball.

  Dewey wrote about the advantages of walking to and from school and how much cheaper it was for children to walk than ride a bus. And he noted the importance of country schools to their communities, how a country school gave a rural community an identity, including a name, along with a center for social activities.

  After the story appeared on August 31, the paper received a pile of letters to the editor. Many were filled with too much profanity to print. Some letter writers argued the county school must remain open at all costs: “The Rose Hill school was good enough for my grandpa, good enough for my pa, good enough for me, and good enough for my kids. Why change?”

  Others took up the tax question, saying that even though the consolidated school promised lower taxes, the evidence they had heard from neighboring communities whose schools had closed was that taxes had shot up. Still others wrote about the great changes occurring in the state and how rural children needed a better education to be prepared for the future.

  Even more vocal were Jake Stewart, who was clearly for consolidation, and Isaac Meyer, who was clearly against it. Both had traveled around the school district over the past few weeks, stopping at other farms and making their positions known. Emotions ruled, and facts played a minor role. Jake Stewart, as school board president, asked Marshal Quick if he would spend election day at the town hall. “Just park yourself out front and make sure people behave themselves,” Jake told the marshal.

  Of course the marshal was glad to oblige—it was one more way for the public to see him. On election day, the marshal wore a freshly pressed uniform and a specially cleaned white hat, and he had even shined his badge, which he wore on his shirt this day. His .38 revolver was clearly visible. As voters entered the town hall, the marshal said “howdy” and shook their hands. This behavior was probably not what Jake had in mind when he asked the marshal to spend the day at the town hall; it looked ever so much like politicking (which it was) than policing (which seemed hardly necessary).

  Cars lined both sides of the road trailing past the Rose Hill Town Hall when Dewey John stopped by that Tuesday afternoon. People with glum faces filed out of the building, having voted but still not knowing their neighbors’ positions.

  At eight o’ clock that night, with the votes counted, the school board clerk tacked the results on the town hall door:

  For consolidation and closing of Rose Hill School—60

  Against consolidation and closing of Rose Hill School—59

  The seventy-five-year-old school would complete one more school year, and then the school buses would rumble down the back roads of the former Rose Hill District and the little school would close its doors for good. For Dewey John, the vote was one sign of how rural communities were changing.

  The news was huge for the people living in the district. Not only would they have to adjust to their school closing, but, more importantly, they would have to mend the split in their community. Such healing would be difficult, perhaps impossible.

  21

  Auction

  Allan Clayton's fatal heart attack in mid-August had come as a surprise to everyone. Just two days before he died, he had delivered a pickup load of cucumbers to the pickle factory, and he and Andy had talked about what it was like ten years ago, when World War II had ended and farmers were just getting back on their feet. He had seemed perfectly healthy, tall, thin, and trim. He had told Andy he was planning to increase the size of his cucumber patch to maybe an acre next year, as long as the price of cukes stayed reasonably good.

  Andy said he had no idea about next year's cucumber prices, but was pleased the prices had stayed up during the current season. “Price depends on lots of things—how pickles are selling, how many tons of pickles Harlow has in stock, how the cucumber crop is in other states.”

  The two neighbors talked for more than a half hour as Clayton's cucumbers were sorted and weighed, and the check was made out.

  “You planning to stay on the home farm, Andy?” Allan had asked.

  “Yup, I plan to do that.”

  “You're different from my kids. They got to be city people. Seem to like it in the city. Like the bright lights, I guess,” Allan said, laughing.

  “Sounds like they're doing well, making lots of money.”

  “That they are,” Allan said. “But there's more to life than making money. Something about living on the land that's in my blood.”

  “Mine, too,” Andy said. “I could never leave the farm, funny as it may sound.”

  “There's not many young people like you anymore,” Allan said, folding his cucumber check and putting it in the top pocket of his bib overalls. “Don't know what's going to happen to this country. Young people moving off the land. People like Jake Stewart buying up hundreds of acres.”

  Now the bill for the Clayton auction had been thumbtacked to the pickle-factory bulletin board for a week. Andy studied it nearly every morning when he came to work. He
couldn't believe that his friend had died, just like that. With no warning. Andy had gone to school with the Clayton kids: Henry, now an attorney in Milwaukee; and Cindy, an accountant in Madison. The two kids couldn't wait to graduate from high school so they could leave the farm; it was obvious that they wouldn't be coming back to take over the home place. Iris, Allan's wife of forty years, had no choice but to sell. She planned to move to Madison and live with her daughter.

  1955 Season

  Auction

  Mrs. Allan Clayton, Link Lake, Wisconsin

  Reason for sale: Death of Mr. Clayton.

  Country Trunk A west four miles from Link Lake,

  then north a mile to the farm.

  Saturday, September 10

  Sale to start at 11:30 a.m. Lunch on the grounds.

  Farm will be sold at 3:00 p.m.

  Terms: Cash

  The sale bill went on to list machinery: Farmall H tractor, International quack digger, 3-section roll-up drag, Oliver 2–14″ plow w. Raydex points, John Deere low-wheeled 8 ft. grain drill with fertilizer and grass seed attachment. Two-section springtooth harrow. John Deere semi-mounted mower, 7 ft. cut. 4-wheel wagon and good hayrack. Case 8 ft. grain binder. Horse potato digger. New Idea manure spreader, John Deere 8 ft. tandem disc. Two-row horse corn planter. Dump rake. Hay loader and smaller items too numerous to mention.

  In addition to the machinery, the auction bill listed fifteen mixed-breed milk cows, a team of draft horses, and a 1948 Chevrolet pickup truck, plus several miscellaneous items: a thousand pound scale, stock tank, scalding kettle, 120 feet of 1 1⁄4 inch hayfork rope, eight milk cans, three bundles of new steel fence posts, chicken brooder, three cords of oak chunk wood, and a milk cart.

  The day of the auction was clear, cool, and bright. The hot spell that had settled over Link Lake for the past week or so had moved on east and cooler, drier weather had moved in.

  By 10:30 that Saturday morning, cars were parked on both sides of the road so that latecomers had to walk nearly a quarter mile to the farmstead. All the machinery was lined up in neat rows in a field near the road. The cows, each with a numbered sticker on her back end, were in the barn—usually they would be out on pasture this time of the year. Allan Clayton's prized team of Percherons, which he had often driven in parades, stood in their stalls. They, too, would normally have been out to pasture or doing some task such as pulling the dump rake or the manure spreader. Since Allan had gotten a tractor a few years ago, most of the heavy work such as plowing, cutting hay and grain, and disking was left to the tractor.

  A hay wagon had been pulled in front of the open machinery shed door and was piled high with pitchforks, nuts, bolts, hammers, wrenches, old barn lanterns, hay-fork pulleys, a length of hay-fork rope, curry combs for the horses, a partly used can of fly spray, an empty five-gallon gas can, two cans of unopened grease, a grease gun, three garden hoes, a couple axes, and a two-man crosscut saw, plus several coffee cans filled with assorted nails, bolts, nuts, and staples for repairing wire fences.

  Promptly at 11:30 the auctioneer, Colonel Stanford S. Strong, climbed onto the wagon. He wore a big white hat, cowboy boots, and a belt with a huge silver buckle that struggled against his ample stomach.

  “It's about time we got started,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Got lots of items to sell today. Here are the rules. All sales are cash on the spot; you settle up with the clerk over there.” He pointed to a man seated at a card table under a tree. “You buy it, and it's yours.”

  Henry Clayton was helping out and looking quite uncomfortable wearing bib overalls. He handed the auctioneer a long-handled hoe that had obviously spent many hours in a cucumber patch, as the handle was worn smooth and the blade was about half the size it would have been when it was new.

  “What am I offered for this good hoe?” Strong began. “Everybody can use a good hoe. Do I hear two dollars, two dollars, two dollars, anybody two dollars for this good hoe? Two dollars, two dollars, two dollars.” Pause. “Anybody a dollar?”

  “Dollar,” somebody near the front said as he held up his hand.

  “Got a dollar, now make it two, two dollar, two dollar, anybody make it two? Two, two, two. I'm gonna sell it for a dollar. Last chance. Anybody two? Sold, to this man up front who knows a bargain when he sees one.”

  So the sale went on, item by item, bid by bid, a quarter here, a dollar there—the tools of farming offered for sale: hammers and saws, barbed wire and crowbars, axes and splitting wedges, kerosene barn lanterns and cowbells. A wagonload of memories, each item with a story to tell, now sold as just another commodity, another piece of equipment that a new owner would find useful.

  A covey of antique buyers watched with interest and bid often, buying farm tools that would never find a home on a workbench again but would sit on a table in an antique store, crowded together with Depression glass, World War I insignia, old dolls, and toys.

  With the wagonload of equipment sold, the auctioneer crawled down from his perch and announced, “We'll sell the cattle next.” He walked off toward the barnyard where people had already gathered along the once-white fence.

  A young Holstein heifer, with a paper number, twenty-two, pasted on her rump, stood a few feet from the fence with her head down, eyeing the crowd and not knowing whether to run or hold her ground.

  “Got this nice heifer, here. She's a good one. Anybody tryin’ to improve their herd can't go wrong with this one.” He launched into his singsong chant, “And what am I offered for this good heifer? Who'll give me a hunnert for her, do I hear a hunnert, anybody got a hundred dollar bill for this fine little Holstein?”

  A man in the back held up his hand.

  “And who'll make it two, two, two, two, who'll make it two hundred dollars for this little Holstein heifer? Make somebody a good milker. Look at that conformation, look at them legs. She's got good legs. Gonna hold up for a long time, be in somebody's barn for a good long time. Got one who'll make it two?”

  “Hunnert and a half,” a fellow in the front row said.

  “And now two?” The auctioneer looked at the fellow who'd made the first bid. The fellow nodded yes.

  “And now two-fifty?” This time the auctioneer peered down at the fellow in the front row, who shook his head no.

  “I got two, who'll make it two-fifty, two-fifty, two-fifty?”

  Neither the auctioneer nor the crowd saw the little gray-haired woman standing near the farmhouse porch, watching the sale from a distance, tears streaming down her face. Iris Clayton stood alone, watching her life on the farm being sold piece by piece, animal by animal. Memories flooded over her, of milking the cows that now were numbered to be sold—cows that she knew by name, Susan and Florence, Sally and Lilly, Amanda and Polly. She knew each one, knew her personality, how she wanted to be milked, what she liked to eat, how much milk she gave. Information that no one else cared about, private information that she held and cherished. How do you sell a memory? she wondered. The tears continued down her face.

  “Iris, you alright?” a neighbor woman asked.

  “Got some dust in my eyes,” Iris answered. It was difficult for her to share her grief, to let others know she couldn't handle something as simple as an auction.

  Later in the afternoon, after the cows had been auctioned and the horses and the big machinery were gone and the plows and disc, the old grain binder, the Farmall H tractor with its cultivator attached all sold, the auctioneer announced to the crowd that remained. “We're gonna sell the farm now. What we got here is one hundred sixty acres of land. About hunnert and forty is tillable; the rest is woods. And the buildings, of course, go with it. Got this fine house and barn, and all these outbuildings—some of these could use some repair. Wouldn't want to lie to you about that. Corncrib needs a new roof, so does the granary. Rest are in fair shape, I'd say.

  “Anyway, who'll give me an offer? Who'll give me seven thousand for this fine farm? The Claytons took good care of it. Raised their kids, even made enough to send them of
f to college. This is a good farm. And, who'll start with seven thousand? Do I hear seven thousand?”

  “Six thousand,” a man no one recognized said. He stood in the front row and wore bib overalls, a plaid shirt, and a John Deere cap.

  “Got six thousand, who'll make it seven? Got six, who'll make it seven. Seven, seven, seven.”

  A hand went up in the back of the small crowd of people gathered around the auctioneer.

  “Seven thousand,” the man said. It was another stranger. He was wearing a hat, the kind you wore to church on Sunday, and a leather vest.

  “I got seven thousand, who'll make it eight?” The auctioneer looked at the man in the front row.

  “Eight,” the man said.

  “Got eight, who'll make it nine. Do I hear nine?”

  “Nine,” the man with the fancy hat and leather vest said.

  “Got nine, anybody for ten? Ten, ten?” Once again the auctioneer looked at the man in the front row. The auctioneer knew that this farm was not worth a penny over seven thousand dollars. The man shook his head, no.