In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

by Jerry Apps

  Soon the truck rolled out of the driveway and disappeared down the road. Isaac had out his big red handkerchief and was blowing his nose. “Cattle stirred up lots of dust,” he said.

  That evening, there were no cows to milk at the Meyer farm. No hay to toss down from the haymow. No straw bedding to spread. No calves to feed. Andy and his dad walked out to the barn after supper, as they had done for as long as Andy could remember. They pulled the barn door open and rather than sense the warmth associated with a building filled with animals, they noticed the barn was cold for the first time. Andy and his dad stood back of where the cows once stood, neither saying anything, and then they went back to the house. Isaac flipped on his favorite new television show, Gunsmoke, for it was Saturday night.

  A week later, on December 17, Andy and Amy helped his folks move into their new place in Link Lake, a little bungalow that had a view of the lake and was within easy walking distance of most businesses.

  Amy and Andy moved furniture from the Stewart place to what would become their new home and even bought a few new pieces with a little of the money Amy had gotten from Harlow. By the time of their wedding on Christmas Day, the Meyer house had taken on a new look. It was now Andy and Amy's home. Amy wanted it to be special yet have hints of the history associated with both their families.

  The days flew by for the young couple as they worked on their plans for doing something quite different from what either of their fathers had done. Andy worked at transforming the cattle barn into a retail store where he hoped they could sell jams and jellies, pickles of various kinds, and fresh homegrown vegetables. Of course, all would be grown on their farm and other smaller farms in the community.

  Both he and Amy spent days sweeping and scrubbing the upper part of the barn, where hay had been stored for the cattle. They planned to make this huge space available for wedding receptions, polka dances, and anniversary and birthday parties.

  Finding a name for their operation proved more difficult than they had anticipated. They scrapped several early attempts, “Meyer-Stewart Vegetable Farm,” “Homegrown Vegetable Farm,” and several other equally bad names. Finally they agreed on “Rose Hill Farm Market,” after the country school that they had both attended.

  On a sunny day in mid-March, with the winter's snow melted and the frost out of the ground, a crew of workers from the H. H. Harlow Company set in posts and nailed up boards to enclose the entire thousand-acre former Stewart farm with a white board fence. Every few hundred yards, the workers erected signs that read, “H. H. Harlow Experimental Farms. No Trespassing.”

  That same day, Amy and Andy sat at their kitchen table with seed catalogs spread in front of them. They were making a list of vegetables that they believed would attract people to their farm—people who wanted to buy homegrown vegetables that were sold where they were grown. Or, people would have the option of picking the vegetables themselves—green beans, peas, onions, sweet corn, beets, rutabagas, potatoes, and of course cucumbers. Amy also wanted to grow pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns.

  Additionally, the young couple listed several varieties of strawberries and raspberries they planned to grow, along with several kinds of apple trees. It would take a few years for the various fruits to become established, especially the apples.

  Andy had just returned from the mailbox when the phone rang. Amy answered it.

  “It's for you, Andy.”

  “Hello,” Andy said. He listened for a few moments. “I don't work for Harlow anymore.” He listened some more. “Ok, I'll meet you at the pickle factory.”

  “What was that?” Amy inquired. She had begun preparing lunch on the new gas range they had recently purchased.

  “Marshal Quick wants me to meet him at the pickle factory. Can't image why. I'd better get down there.”

  When Andy arrived at the old pickle factory, which looked even more tired and worn since last fall, when it had closed for the last time, he noticed a special railway tank car on the siding near the back door of the building. Nothing unusual about this. Each year about this time, Harlow sent workers to each of its salting stations to transfer the cured cucumbers and brine to a railroad tank car, which hauled the cucumbers to their main processing plant in Chicago.

  Marshal Quick stood at the door, his hands on his hips and his big cowboy hat pulled down low. “Men found something in one of the tanks,” Quick said. “Something mighty interesting.”

  “What?” Andy asked.

  “Couple of dead bodies. Pickled bodies.” The marshal smirked when he said it.

  “Do you know who?”

  “Yeah, I do. No doubt about who they are. No doubt at all.”

  “Well, who are they?”

  “It's that runaway preacher and your bookkeeper. That's who.”

  “Preacher and Helen?”

  “That's what I said.”

  “What were they doing in a pickle vat?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “How am I supposed to know why they turned up in a pickle vat?”

  “You ran this place didn't you? You were the one in charge.”

  “Yes, I was in charge.”

  “Did you know about this last summer and keep it to yourself. Are you keeping information from the law?”

  “What?” Andy said, incredulously.

  “You heard me,” the marshal said. He rested his hand on the butt end of his pistol.

  Just then Dewey John arrived, notebook in hand.

  “Hi, Andy,” Dewey said. “What's going on here?”

  “They found Preacher and Helen in a pickle vat.”

  “What? When?”

  “About an hour ago, when they began moving pickles into that tanker car.”

  “Anybody know what happened?” Dewey asked. He turned to the marshal, his pad and pencil at the ready. “Marshal, what do you know about this?”

  The marshal cleared his throat. “This morning, employees of the H. H. Harlow Pickle Company of Chicago discovered two bodies in a pickle vat. They were entirely covered with cucumbers.”

  “They were the Preacher and Helen, right? The ones that came up missing last summer?” Dewey asked.

  “That information is correct,” the marshal said.

  “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “I have been interrogating Mr. Andrew Meyer, former manager of the pickle factory about that matter. The county coroner is also doing an autopsy to determine the cause of death.”

  “Do you have any theories about what might have happened?” Dewey asked. He continued to make notes on his pad.

  “As a sworn lawman, I only deal with evidence, not theories,” Marshal Quick said.

  “I see,” Dewey said, smiling. “Andy what do you think happened?”

  The newspaperman and Andy walked over to the number-two vat where the bodies were found. The bodies had been removed earlier, as had most of the cucumbers. They leaned over the edge of the wooden vat and glanced inside. There were still three or four feet of fermented cucumbers floating in the eight-foot-tall tank. The sides were still slippery from the brine. The pungent smell of cucumbers and salt brine filled the air.

  “Got any theories, Andy?” Dewey asked again.

  “Well, here's my take on what happened. Flimsy wooden boards covered those pickle vats. They were breaking regularly. And sometimes, when you piled something on the edge of one, the cover would tip and dump whatever was on top into the vat. Then the cover'd flop back into place and nobody'd know what happened. I think that's what happened to the preacher and Helen that night. Maybe Helen and Preacher snuck back into the pickle factory after it closed for the day. Helen had a key. They decided to, . . . well, enjoy each other on top of the number-two vat and fell in when the cover tipped. They drowned because there was nobody around in the middle of the night to hear their cries for help. The sides were too slippery to crawl out,” Andy said.

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Dewey said. “What do you think, Marshal?”

&nb
sp; “Can't rule out murder, never can rule out murder. In fact probably a good chance they were killed,” the marshal said. “Next step is to question their families, see if they had any enemies.”

  The following item ran in the Gazette that week:

  RUNAWAY PREACHER AND BOOKKEEPER

  FOUND IN PICKLE VAT

  Workers from the Henry H. Harlow Pickle Company on Monday found the bodies of the Reverend Arthur Ketchum, 35, and Helen Swanson, 30, in a pickle vat at the Link Lake Pickle Factory. Justin Quick, village marshal, believes they were murdered and dumped into the pickle vat to hide the bodies. However, Prudence Wordsworthy, a longtime member of the Church of the Holy Redeemed, said, “I believe our beloved pastor was so overwrought with guilt from his wrongdoings that he and the harlot, Helen Swanson, committed suicide by leaping into the vat.” No suicide note was found, however.

  Preacher Ketchum's wife, Ethel, was so overcome with grief that she was unable to give a statement.

  Andy Meyer, summer manager of the pickle factory, believes the two were in the pickle factory one night and fell into the pickle vat and drowned.

  Marshal Quick, offering some historical perspective on the tragedy, said, “The last killing in Link Lake took place in 1904, when Marshal Maynard ‘Shorty’ Lightfoot confronted bank robbers who blew the safe at the Link Lake National Bank. Lightfoot tracked the robbers out of town and accidentally stumbled onto them in the big woods north of Link Lake. He ordered them to halt, and when they didn't he said he would shoot. When he pulled back the hammer on his revolver, it accidentally fired, killing one of the robbers.”

  The investigation of the pickle-vat murders continues, with Marshal Quick in charge.

  “I anticipate this inquiry will take a long, long time,” Quick said.

  32

  Barn Dance

  Andy Meyer got up early this June morning, as the sun was rising. After a couple of days of welcome rain, raindrops still hung on the little cucumber plants as he worked his way down the row, hoeing out weeds. He was enjoying the quiet. He heard a mourning dove call in the distance, and sitting on a nearby fence post, a meadowlark was singing its spring song. A slight breeze rustled the needles of the row of majestic white pines that bordered the pickle patch, making a soft, soothing sound.

  Andy's father, who nearly every day drove out to the farm from Link Lake, would arrive soon. Isaac, as he had done for years, would hitch the old gelding, Claude, to a one-row cultivator. The two of them, the old plodding draft horse and the old farmer, were much alike. They both moved slowly and methodically, but they got the job done. Above all, both horse and man enjoyed what they were doing. Isaac would work until noon today, turn Claude out to pasture, and then return to his home in Link Lake.

  At the end of the row, Andy stopped to rest. He gazed across his fields of potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, and pumpkins. He looked at the long rows of carrots, lettuce, beets, broccoli, onions, cabbage, sweet corn, and squash—all crops Amy and he planned to sell at their new Rose Hill Farm Market.

  How everything had changed from a year ago, Andy thought. At that time, he was sure he would be milking cows and working part-time in the pickle factory for years to come. But now the cows were sold, the factory was closed, and his dad and mother had moved to town. And—he was a married man. As he stood looking across the many rows of vegetables, old worries about making big changes returned. He knew how to farm like his father and his grandfather before him. He knew how to care for cows, how to make hay and grow corn, and how to raise cucumbers. Running a farmer's market and processing fruits and vegetables was new to him. Andy worried about change, even wondered about the goodness of it. Wouldn't life be easier without everything changing, when you could depend on things being the same, day after day, month after month, year after year?

  He had talked to Amy about this, probably too many times. Change had been one of the topics where the young couple had had the most disagreement. She pushing forward, he always holding back.

  Before this past year, Andy hadn't thought much about the big agribusiness firms that were marching out into the countryside, contracting with farmers to grow chickens, hogs, beef cattle, vegetables. When Harlow issued its contract edict, it struck him. Andy made up his mind that he would not sign such a contract, and because of what had happened to her father, it wasn't difficult to convince Amy. He and Amy wanted to keep control of their farming operation. To farm as they wanted to farm, to grow as little or as much of any crop as they wanted, and to sell directly to those who wanted fresh produce. They wanted to make their own decisions without somebody in a suit looking over their shoulder.

  Andy and Amy had big dreams for their new ideas about farming. They had worked hard since April, tilling the ground and planting row upon row of vegetables. They had planted several hundred apple trees—McIntosh, Cortland, Jonathan, and Red Delicious. It would be several years before their new orchard would bear fruit, but they enjoyed planning for the future.

  Andy noticed a red car coming down the country road, then turning into their driveway and stopping by the house. Traveling salesmen interested in selling special cow feed had mostly stopped coming, once they heard the Meyers had sold their cows. So Andy wondered who this could be. Amy was working in her flower garden in front of the house. She stood up when the man approached and then pointed to where Andy worked in the pickle patch.

  As the man came closer Andy saw that he was tall and thin, and wore khaki trousers.

  “You Andy Meyer?” the man inquired. He spoke softly.

  “I am,” Andy answered.

  “Name is Hopkins, George Hopkins,” he extended his hand to Andy. “Got some good-looking cucumber plants.”

  “We try,” Andy said. He wondered what the fellow wanted to sell.

  “Heard that you were planning to process these vegetables here on the farm and sell them at your farm store.” He made a sweeping motion that went beyond the pickle patch to include the other vegetable fields.

  “That's right. We'll make dill pickles, sweet pickles, pickle relish, sliced pickles. We'll sell jams and jellies, canned sauerkraut, pickled beets—about any homegrown product you might think of, and, of course, we're selling fresh vegetables, too.”

  “Believe you're the first around here to do this,” Hopkins said.

  “Probably so.” Andy was becoming more curious about what the fellow wanted.

  “I may be able to you help you out.”

  “Oh, you wanna hoe? Think I've got another hoe down in the shed,” Andy said, smiling.

  “Nah, I did my share of hoeing when I was a kid. My dad had a vegetable farm near Kenosha.”

  “So how you gonna help me out?” Andy said, wanting to get back to his hoeing.

  “Well, my company represents gift shops and grocery stores all over the Midwest,” Hopkins said.

  “What's that got to do with me?”

  “It would work like this. The excess product that you have, beyond what you can sell in your store, we'll distribute for you. I'm talking about the processed stuff, of course: dill pickles, jams, jellies, canned sauerkraut, pickled beets, that sort of thing.”

  “What do you get out of the deal?” Andy asked.

  Hopkins smiled. He'd heard about Andy's father and how closely he kept track of his business, especially where his money went.

  “We take a small percentage,” Hopkins said. “And you get your “Rose Hill Farm” name in gift shops and grocery stores all over the Midwest.”

  “Amy and I'll have to talk about this. These kinds of decisions we make together.”

  “Want to help out if I can. Story of what you and your wife are doing has gotten around—don't know if you are aware of that.”

  “I've heard so,” Andy said. “But like my pa always says, ‘Believe only half of what you hear and be highly suspect of the rest.’”

  “Will you give it some thought?” Hopkins handed Andy his business card.

  “We'll do that,” Andy said. “And t
hanks for stopping by.”

  “Good luck to you and your wife,” Hopkins said as he shook Andy's hand and walked off across the sandy field.

  Andy quit hoeing at noon. The big open house for the Rose Hill Farm Market was planned for this evening and they still had some cleanup to do. They had invited all their neighbors, as well as the businesspeople from town. The open house included a potluck supper and then a polka dance in the hayloft of the barn, which had hosted two wedding receptions so far this June.

  That afternoon Amy and Andy polished the display cases and dusted in all the corners of their new store on the ground floor of the barn. The cases prominently displayed strawberry jam and jelly, both with the new Rose Hill Farm label that featured a wild rose with the lettering around it. They'd bought the strawberries from a neighbor, because their strawberry plants wouldn't begin bearing fruit until next year. Another neighbor, Barbara Jenks, worked with Amy in their new commercial kitchen—the former milk house—to make the jam and jelly.