The Farm in the Green Mountains

by Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer

  Once it happened, as we learned first from our weekly paper, that the rockets did not arrive on time.

  Two thousand people had come together in the town this day to see the parade, to marvel at the men, women, and children in old costumes dug out of trunks, to listen to the school band and to dance square dances—a kind of quadrille—in the streets.

  But the fireworks were supposed to be the high point, and you can see how the man in charge of them must have been feeling the deepest mortification and keenest distress when he put the following explanation in the paper:

  “On the 27th of June I had ordered the rockets. They were shipped on June 28th. But they didn’t arrive until July 7th, three days after the holiday. I know that many came a long way to the celebration and were counting on seeing them, especially the children. I know how terrible the disappointment must have been, and I assure you that I was in despair. In any case, I want to thank you for making the rest of the celebration a success.”

  Another noisy holiday is Halloween, the night between October 31 and November 1, when the witches are abroad.

  The word Halloween is supposed to be a combination of “the holy ones” and “even” and means “All Hallow’s Eve” (the eve of All Saints’ Day), although quite unholy things go on during this evening. Disguised figures growl and shriek in front of the houses, witches made of wax appear in the shop windows, skull lanterns are carried through the streets, and on All Saints’ morning the farmers find their sleds on the roof, the harrow on the top of the chimney, the barn doors open . . . and editorials appear in the newspaper, saying that the mischief has again gone too far.

  Three or four weeks later, on the last Thursday of the month of November, Thanksgiving is celebrated in memory of the first Thanksgiving, celebrated by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1623 after a terribly hard winter in their new colony. At that feast wild turkeys were eaten and in this way the turkey rose to the position of a ritual feast dish, something like the German Christmas goose or carp, or like lamb for Easter.

  Every year Thanksgiving is formally proclaimed by the governor of Vermont and published in the Vermont Standard:

  Whereas, since the days of our forefathers, who with great difficulty made a path through the wilderness to set up there the first colony to the glory of God and to enjoy freedom; and whereas it has become customary every year to set aside a time to give thanks to a gracious Providence for abundant blessings,

  Inasmuch as we acknowledge the priceless privilege of freedom to live according to our own knowledge, conscience, and judgment, and affirm the responsibility this entails.

  Therefore, as governor of Vermont, I declare the _____ day of November a day of Thanksgiving. Let us never forget that independence and responsibility are the characteristics of a strong nation. Let us fulfill our responsibilities to our fellow men at home and in the rest of the world. Remember that humanity the world over has the same concerns and the same needs, and think of the strength and the blessing which come from a united world. . . . Given and sealed with the seal of the state of Vermont on the 12th of November . . .

  From the second winter on we were always invited to spend Thanksgiving with American friends.

  This is perhaps the most American of all the holidays, and at the same time in the deepest sense a thanksgiving of the immigrants that they have escaped safely from their homeland and have survived life in the wilderness.

  Many of the explorers and immigrants to America came for the purpose of seeking treasures—from gold to the elixir of eternal youth—that would make them rich and happy.

  After King James I of England had announced, “I will make them conform, or I will hunt them from the land,” nothing remained for those religious people who wished to worship in their own way but to flee first to Holland and later to journey to America.

  Before they embarked to travel to an unknown land, finally and without thought of return, they held a day of prayer and penance, and for that their pastor chose a text from the book of Ezra (8:21): “Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.”

  No great-great-uncle of ours was there on that historic ship, the Mayflower, from whose small passenger list so many Americans descend that you get the impression after a while that it must have transported 500,000 ancestors.

  We had no ancestors aboard that ship, but we had experienced our own “Mayflower,” which we would never in our lives forget, when our ship left the still undestroyed city of Rotterdam, to bring us to an unknown land finally and without thought of return.

  Now we celebrate Thanksgiving, and we sit with our friends around a table in their lovely old house with the high windows and spacious rooms.

  The table is covered with a white cloth, and between the silver candelabra with light green, pleasant-smelling candles sits a great orange pumpkin, surrounded by rosy carrots, yellow and white onions, red beets, white and purple grapes, bright apples, and other tokens of the good harvest.

  Outside it is frosty. The trees are bare, the grass in the meadows short and brown, waiting for a blanket of snow. Inside it is as warm as in those late fall days that they call Indian Summer.

  On the table are fine porcelain, crystal glasses on silver coasters, and in glass dishes green olives, brown nuts, and pale celery. First there is a clam chowder that would do credit to a French chef. Then follows the turkey in dark brown splendor with a delicious stuffing. With it are small green peas, white onions in cream sauce, mashed potatoes, and the red cranberry sauce that has something of the taste of whortleberries.

  The man and woman of the house sit at either end of the table. He carves the turkey. She hands him the plates, which she has filled with the vegetables. We sit at the sides of the table with the children, two little girls and a boy, enchanting creatures that look like pictures of former times.

  Finally there is a pumpkin pie, whose pastry crust is tender and melting on the tongue.

  Then there is still cheese, apples, and other fruit. After the meal we go into the blue living room to drink coffee around the fireplace and later to be served whiskey.

  But even if it was not Thanksgiving, but another day when we were invited, it was festive, and the food was always prepared with elegant and delicious simplicity and was served by the man and woman of the house in the same manner.

  In this house there were servants, sometimes two girls, sometimes one, once in a while none. But even that made no difference because she and he could cook as well as their best cook. Once we ate with them in the kitchen, and it was no less festive.

  The house was a large farmhouse, situated on a hill, but when we drove up the steep driveway, we felt as if we were approaching a small castle.

  I noticed her in the first year, while we were still summer visitors. I saw her often in the stores making purchases. In the second year we greeted each other. In the third I learned from a shopkeeper who she was, and was told that she had asked who I was.

  From that came an acquaintance that developed into a friendship. Indeed, I don’t know how we would have survived all our experiences without their help. They knew and could do absolutely everything.

  He, who appeared like a well-dressed nobleman in the evening and wrote tender poetry, could be seen by day in undefinable, once-blue working clothes, driving a tractor on his wide acres, mowing or spreading manure. A friend helped him with the work, a hired man par excellence whose chief occupation was as a very gifted painter.

  When I called the central switchboard, the operator knew that I probably wanted the number of that friend, my standard source for all questions from storing vegetables for the winter to recipes for pickling pork and smoking ham.

  In 1944, when a hurricane from Florida was predicted, and we could not be sure that it would not go across Vermont as the unpredicted one did in the year 1938, I learned from her by telephone all the measures to take, where to shelter
the animals and where to take refuge ourselves. She spoke very calmly and sensibly, and I thought then: she even knows how to deal with a hurricane.

  She understood all house and farm work. She was a knowledgeable forester and decided herself which trees on their large forest holdings should be felled. She could not only direct others, but most of the work in her house she did with her own hands. At the same time she looked like a tall, slim aristocrat, and had nothing of the busy, perspiring, capable housewife about her.

  This combination was new to us. We were accustomed in Europe to the idea that people from a certain class who busied themselves with spiritual matters should and must be spared the work of everyday living. But here were our friends, unique people, but not the only ones of this sort, who came from the best families and were blessed with money, but still worked with their hands and at the same time always found time to spend on higher things.

  He had previously been a university professor, and combined a profound knowledge of literature, painting, history, and philosophy with a comprehensive knowledge of practical matters, so that abstract concepts came alive, and concrete things were lifted to a higher plane.

  Of the other holidays, such as Columbus, Lincoln, and Memorial days, there is less to report. For us it was more or less a question whether and which stores would be closed, a decision which was often made at the last minute and could differ substantially in the different states, cities, and towns.

  An important event in town life is Labor Day, which is celebrated on the first Monday in September and means that the summer vacation is over. After this day you may not wear summer clothing, shoes, and hats, no matter how hot it is.

  For us farm people, the seasons and the weather play the main roles, and no one near us can stop reading, writing, and telling about them.

  “Everyone talks about the weather, and no one does anything about it,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said about New England weather. I believe that, if ever the most amazing apparatus against drought, hurricanes, and hail were discovered, you would still not know how to master our weather or how to shorten our winter.

  It begins in November, around hunting season. Usually there is no snow, but it becomes cold, and a calm falls like that in the center of a typhoon.

  The oppressive stillness is broken nine or ten days after its beginning by the thoroughly alarming hunting season.

  There are great hunters, about whom the Standard reports:

  “Among the mighty hunters of America we number Daniel Boone, Buffalo Bill, and more recently the Jenne brothers of Reading. They have taken three bucks and four bears and, when our reporter hurried to their farm to photograph them with their catch, two of the brothers were already back in the woods hunting bear. He found only the third brother, who was preparing to leave and impatient to join his brothers.”

  As much as we admire the great hunters, just so much are we annoyed by the lesser hunters. Any youth of fourteen can buy himself a hunting license for a little money and hurry into the woods with his father’s gun. They shoot much, but very seldom hit a wild animal. They often hit themselves or each other, and they are apt to get lost. Zuck has had to show more than one such hunter the path back to civilization.

  During the ten days of hunting season we have to dress up like trained monkeys, with red caps and bright-colored jackets, even if we just want to go through the woods to the corner to pick up the mail, so that they won’t mistake us for fleeing deer.

  At this time, too, unknown wild men sneak around the house. If one of them is cold and has become separated from his hunting party, he may come into the kitchen uninvited. There he sits by the stove, drinks from the whiskey flask he has brought with him, and now and then lifts the stove lid to spit his chewing tobacco onto the glowing coals.

  At such times I always carried a kitchen knife around with me just in case, to feel more secure and to be able to defend myself against such unwished-for visitors.

  My worst experience occurred, however, one time before hunting season, when no one was prepared for any trouble.

  Zuck had gone away for two days. Since the beginning of our stay at the farm, two years and eight months earlier, he had not been away. But now he had to go to see his translator, who lived in the southern part of Vermont.

  Winnetou and I were alone in the house for the first time. It was a time when we had no hired boy, and we felt abandoned and unprotected in the big, lonely house.

  After taking care of the animals, we brought the dogs before dark into the garage, which could be reached from the kitchen door.

  Winnetou and I crept together into my big double bed. She had taken the Civil War gun from the cellar, and I had placed a long, sharp bread knife on my night stand. We turned the light off early, but couldn’t sleep and lay in the dark and waited.

  We waited to see if anything would happen. We lay awake, ready to jump. We lay in wait for the danger. About one o’clock in the morning it happened.

  From the forest road that was almost never traveled we heard a car coming.

  We jumped out of bed and ran with weapon and knife into Zuck’s room, through whose window we could see everything. We heard the motor howl as it fought its way along the road. Then the car stopped with a lurch by the pond.

  The motor was turned off, and we heard men’s muffled voices. Then it was quiet.

  I opened the door of the room in which we were standing. Winnetou took her weapon in both hands like a club, and I unsheathed the bread knife.

  Suddenly the woods were lighted as bright as day by a searchlight. We saw dark forms in the light, and then a terrible shooting from three guns began.

  The dogs, who were penned up at the other end of the house and had gotten no wind of the strangers, began to bark like mad after the shooting.

  We could now see quite clearly that there were three men. We heard them call and curse. We saw them carry something and load it onto the car. The motor was started up again, the searchlight turned off. They turned around by the pond, and the motor howled like a siren. It looked as if they would not be able to go back up the steep road into the woods. The wheels started to spin, and the gears ground.

  “If they want to get tools from the garage and break in,” Winnetou said through clenched teeth, “they will be torn to shreds by the dogs.”

  Suddenly the wheels caught, and the car struggled up the road and disappeared into the woods.

  We stood and listened, but heard again only the soundlessness of the night.

  “We have to go down and see if they are all gone,” I said, shivering from the cold, although I was wearing a warm bathrobe.

  “I think they must have shot the dogs,” said Winnetou. “They aren’t barking anymore.”

  We made our way into the kitchen, and then to the garage, where we found the dogs sleeping peacefully.

  When Zuck returned, we looked like pale, careworn pioneer farm women who had just survived an Indian attack. We swore that the next time he went away we were going to go and spend the night in the village, or get a lumberjack to protect us.

  Our fear was really justified because our visitors had been the worst kind of poachers, whose habit it is to blind wild animals with searchlights and then shoot down the blinded game.

  This sort of poaching is severely punished, so you are dealing with unscrupulous trigger-happy characters who are ready to shoot more than game if they feel threatened.

  Another time, when Zuck had to travel again, a friend of mine was visiting, a sturdy, courageous, valiant friend from Vienna. You could enjoy yourself with her, and in her presence I had no thought of fear. But in spite of her merry temperament she suffered from insomnia, so on the third night that we were alone as a household of women she took a good dose of sleeping medicine. Therefore she missed it entirely when around two o’clock in the morning our entire house seemed to be surrounded by wandering lights that danced on the hill, leapt in the trees, and crept through the meadow.

  This ghostly drama was in
terrupted from time to time by shots, but there was something so uncanny about it that Winnetou and I had the feeling that this time we were not dealing with natural and normal things, but perhaps also not with bad and wicked ones.

  So we shut the deep sleeper in her room, barred the door of my bedroom, put the weapon between us in the bed, and went back to sleep. When we called someone in the village the next day, we learned that there had been a raccoon hunt in our vicinity. These animals are hunted with many flashlights, searched for in the trees, and shot down.

  That was hunting season, which we had to watch without ammunition or weapons, since as foreigners we were not permitted to have firearms.

  By the beginning of hunting season the house and barn were ready for winter. Outside, as protection from the snow, they were wrapped in strong brown paper to the height of the windows and looked like half-wrapped packages being prepared for shipment.

  Then in front of every window was hung a double window, appropriately called a storm window.

  The barn walls and a few exposed parts of the wall of the house were first wrapped with a batt-like material and then covered with slabs, while all water pipes were put into white coverings, a porous mass that looked like a plaster cast so that the rooms through which the pipes ran looked like Red Cross stations for first aid.

  These labors against the frost we had to do every year ourselves. I hated the insulation, which was made of a demonic material that stuck through the work gloves and liked to sift down inside our clothes around our backs and chests, so that we would think we were wearing hair shirts. But when the house had been readied in this fashion, we could look ahead to winter patiently and in good spirits. We watched the snow fall and pile up, felt the arctic cold of January and February, and heard with amazement on the radio that Moscow was only thirty degrees below zero at a time when we had fallen to forty-five degrees below zero.

  Then came the first news item like this: