by Bud Kenny
I said, “Then, we’ll turn around, go back down and get help.”
While we stood on the slope resting, the Middlebury River roared through the gorge below us. At that spot the river fell in turbulent white water down through huge boulders. It was such a dramatic falls that I can’t imagine anyone trying to kayak it. The sound was so intense I had to yell to Patricia so she could hear. “Get ready!”
My voice echoed off the rocks. “Come up, Big Sis! That’s my girl! That’s my girl! You can do it, Della! I know you can!”
She lunged up the hill. The cart’s front wheels came off the road and it lurched forward about a dozen feet. Then Della began to slip. She struggled for traction as sparks flew out from under her shoes. The cart began to pull her back down the hill. Then the left rear tire rolled into one of the wooden blocks. That made the cart jackknife out into the middle of the road.
Patricia screamed, “No!”
Both of the right tires were off the pavement and the cart looked like it was about to tip over. While Della continued to skid backwards, the cart teetered further toward disaster.
I yanked Della’s head to the right. “This way, girl!”
When she hopped that direction, the momentum brought the wheels back down onto the highway. Now both she and the cart were perpendicular to the slope. That stopped the cart from rolling over, but it had us across both lanes of traffic. We already had two cars stopped–one in each direction. Something had to give.
I yelled, “Patricia, get in the cart and run the brake! We’re going back down.”
At the bottom, in the parking lot at East Middlebury Library, Patricia climbed out of the cab and asked, “Now what?”
One of the people we met in our camp last night was Jack the toy maker. His company made wooden toys in a small factory just a few blocks from the library. We unloaded the cart and put all of our stuff in his pickup and he drove it up to Ripton. Jack’s friend, Dick, owned the Ripton Store, and he let me put our stuff in his garage. Then we hooked up Della and she pulled the empty cart to the top with no problem.
Dick arranged for us to camp on some mountain property owned by Middlebury College. It was a wide grassy area down a dirt road across from the South Branch of the Middlebury River. Robert Frost Wayside and his cabin were about three miles up the highway. We were welcome to stay a few days and explore.
Before we loaded our things back on the cart at the Ripton Store, Dick drove me to the campsite. Then he took me up to Middleberry Gap where the highway crested the Green Mountains. Dick said, “That way you know what it’s like. If you think you’ll need help getting over it, we can load your stuff in my truck and take it to the top.”
The Gap crossed at 2,144 feet. That’s about a 2,000 foot climb from the town of Middlebury. Without a doubt, the worst part of it was Sand Hill. The rest of it would be a long steady climb, but Della had pulled much worse.
On our way back to his place, Dick told me a few horror stories about brakes going out and other catastrophes on Sand Hill. “I’ve owned the place twenty seven years. And every year there’s some major event on that piece of road.”
A few days later, I met a bicyclist on a cross-country tour of the northern states. His trip had been planned by a bicycle club. Sand Hill was rated the worse incline on that route.
I have never been a big Robert Frost fan. That’s not to say I don’t like his poetry. A couple of his are among my favorites–particularly “The Pasture.” But I can’t say he has inspired me as much as Lewis Carroll, Dylan Thomas or Robert W. Service. Still, I admire his work. After all he won the Pulitzer Prize four times. When he recited his poem “A Gift Outright” at President Kennedy’s inaugural, it was the first time a poet ever read at a US inauguration. Among poets, Frost is a hero. Of course I wanted to explore his old stomping grounds.
Thursday we packed a lunch, Patricia saddled Della, I rode my bike and we headed for Robert Frost’s cabin. It was farther up into the mountains. On the way, we came to the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail. A network of boardwalks across wet lands and foot trails that led back into the woods. Posted along the way were signs with some of his poems on them. The first was “The Pasture.” The end lines were appropriate for the beginning of the trail. “I shan’t be gone long.–You come too.”
Horseback riding wasn’t allowed on the trail. So Patricia got off and walked Della, who graciously helped to trim it. All through the walk, we’d turn to find her with a vine or tree limb in her mouth. I think Frost would have loved it.
Alongside the highway there is no sign with, “Robert Frost Cabin This Way” on it. A person would have to put some effort into finding it. Not far from the trail of poems was Robert Frost Wayside. It’s a roadside park that was dedicated to him by the National Forest Service the year after he died. In it was a sign with a map of highlights of the area. It made reference to his cabin with no specifics as how to get there. Fortunately, some of the local folks had already told us how to find it.
Three quarters of a mile from the highway, at the end of an unmarked dirt road with pine, oak and maples beside it, we came to a large white farm house. It was mid-afternoon, and in the front yard were half a dozen young men standing around a bonfire drinking beer.
I asked, “You guys live here?”
With a green beer bottle in his hand, one of them walked toward me. “Naw, we’re with the men’s choir from Middlebury College. We’re just spending the night. We’re going to sing for the alumni at Bread Loaf tonight.”
I asked, “Do you know where Robert Frost’s cabin is?”
“Robert Frost’s cabin?” He was a preppie looking boy, with perfect teeth and every black hair in place. After a swig of beer he said, “Is that around here?”
“Supposed to be.”
He turned around and called to the other men in the yard. “Anybody know where Robert Frost’s cabin is?”
One of them yelled back, “Robert Frost has a cabin around here?”
A man walking down the porch steps with a green beer case in his hands, nodded up the hill as he yelled, “Dude, there’s a log cabin up at the top of the field behind the house. Maybe that’s it.”
It was tucked into the edge of the forest, with a steep sloping meadow in front of it. A small log cabin, on a stone foundation with a screened-in porch on the front. The place was locked, but through the windows we could see where the bard wrote every summer from 1939 to 1962. It had a stone fireplace with a brick hearth and generous windows that flooded the main room with sunlight. The inside walls were made of wide, unpainted, vertical planks. On the floor was a plain blue/gray carpet, with a large straw tatami mat in the middle. Furniture was minimal. A beige lounge chair with matching ottoman–the style would have been popular in the late 1950’s. Frost also had a wood and rattan rocker, two straight back chairs and a couple of small tables. The one next to the fireplace was probably his writing table.
But, the most impressive thing about the place was the view. It faced southwest, toward a not too distant mountain. In the front yard was a large flat rock that had obviously been brought in from somewhere else and propped up on a small stack of stones so it was level. It was granite and must have been placed there so Frost could sit on it and gaze at the panorama. Over the years, the grass in front of it had been worn down into a dusty depression by the feet of those who had sat on the rock before me. Frost must have been a boney-ass poet, too. The indentations on top of the rock fit mine perfectly.
The next morning when we got up, the sky was clear. But while we broke camp, clouds began to drift in. By the time we got to the Bread Loaf Campus it was completely overcast. Rain was on the way.
Every year Bread Loaf was the site of the oldest and most prestigious writer’s conference in America. Frost was one of the founders. We got there a week after it was over. Even so, the place was busy. Every summer, alumni flock there for a few days of play in the mountains. Classes were offered on topics that weren’t in pursuit of a degree. A group of people
we met on campus had just come from a course on terrorism.
The campus was in a huge meadow surrounded by the Green Mountain National Forest. Most of the twenty or so wooden buildings looked like they’d been built in the 1920’s and 30’s. They were all tan and green with lots of porches and wicker furniture. The place fit in well with the environment.
A couple of miles from Bread Loaf we came to a wide paved area on the left side of the road. From there it would be a steady climb up to Middlebury Gap. So I tied Della to a small tree and we had lunch.
The whole time we were there, she kept trying to get to some nearby saplings. It didn’t take her long to munch all the tender limbs near her. Now Della wanted the rest of it. She stretched her lead rope tight and began to paw the ground.
I yelled, “Della, quit! You’ve done nothing but graze for the past two days. You don’t need those stinking little trees.”
It didn’t make any difference, she kept it up. I decided to ignore her and she eventually quit pawing the ground. But when I untied her to hit the road, she tried to go toward the saplings, and we got into a tug of war. She was determined to get to those little trees, and I was determined not to let her have her way. She kept trying to pull away, so I slapped her on the side of the neck.
Della recoiled, grunted and then lunged at me with her mouth open. I reared my hand back. “You’d better not!”
She recoiled again as I said, “Now settle down. Let’s go.”
Reluctantly she followed me out onto the highway and we started up the hill. We had scarcely gone a third of a mile when Della stopped.
I tugged on her lead rope. “Come on, Sis, let’s go.”
It was steep but nothing like Sand Hill. She had pulled many slopes much steeper back down the road. But she wouldn’t move, and we had cars stopped behind us. I motioned for them to go around as Patricia asked, “What’s with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“This isn’t that steep.”
“I think this is an attitude thing.”
My wife said, “What?”
“I think Della learned a bad lesson back on Sand Hill.”
“Now Bud, I really do think that was too steep for her to pull.”
“I agree. But I think she figured out that if she just quits we’ll lighten the load.”
Patricia leaned against the cart. “What are we going to do?”
“Teach her it doesn’t work that way. Get the riding crop.”
Della was a great mule to ride. She had the most comfortable trot I’ve ever experienced. But sometimes she’d get it in her head that she wanted to go a different direction than the rider. So we always took a riding crop with us. It’s a length of fiberglass rod with a handle on one end and a doubled over piece of leather on the other. A couple of whacks with that on her butt usually inspired Della to cooperate.
I told Patricia, “When I tell her to get up, let her have it.”
And she did. Patricia hit her twice on the left haunch. Della lunged forward a few feet and stopped. I yelled, “Hit her again. Come up Sis!”
This time she didn’t even move. I motioned for the cars coming up behind us to go on by, as my wife said, “It’s like I’m not even back here. I can’t stand here and beat her. We’ve got to get out of the road.”
I had heard many times that if a mule learns how to get its way, she’s ruined. You will never be able to depend on her again. Della had always been so big of heart. She always gave it her best. Had she learned that if she balks, I will give in to her?
If we turned around and walked back down the hill, we would be doing just that–giving into her. But my wife was right. We couldn’t stay where we were. So Della won. Patricia got in the cart, ran the brake and we went down to the spot where we had lunch.
My heart was heavy–not because I lost–because if she was not going to pull for us anymore, what would we do? We couldn’t stop at every steep hill and find someone to pull the cart up.
“Are you having a problem?”
We had met Carol on the Bread Loaf Campus an hour and a half ago. While we were telling her about our dilemma, a man who passed us earlier on a bicycle, stopped. Bruce was also staying at Bread Loaf and wondered if we needed help. We told them we had to unload the cart and get the contents up to the top of the gap. Bruce said, “I have a Subaru station wagon back at the campus. We can haul some of your stuff up in it.”
We still needed another car. Carol’s was too small to hold much, but she knew someone with another station wagon. Within an hour we had both Bill and Bruce’s cars full. Off they went to the top of the mountain.
I grabbed Della’s lead rope, and turned toward the highway. She yanked back on it, then stepped toward the saplings she had tried to get to earlier.
“Della!”
I jerked hard on her rope. She grunted and reared her head back which pulled the rope out of my hand. Immediately she started shuffling toward the saplings.
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
I sprinted for her, grabbed the side of her bridle and yanked her face toward me as I hollered, “Whoa!”
With her ears laid back, she tried to shake loose from my grip, but I held on. “Della, I said Whoa!”
She stopped and stood still.
“What is with her?” Patricia said.
“All she can think about is eating those little trees.”
“Well, hell!” My wife threw her hands up. “Let her have them.”
“No. Because that’s giving in to her. If we give into her this time, she’ll do this from now on. Let’s go!”
Out onto the highway and up the hill we went. Then, at nearly the same spot, Della stopped. Even with the cart empty, she refused to go any further. We tried the riding crop again. She would not move.
A green pickup with blue flashing lights on top pulled up beside us with two game wardens inside. The one in the passenger’s seat said through the open window, “You folks are causing a traffic hazard here.”
I nodded at Della, “She won’t go any farther. I guess we’ll have to go back down.”
The warden said, “We’ll drive up a bit and stop traffic so you can turn around.”
At the bottom of the hill, they pulled into the parking area behind us with their lights still flashing. The wardens were opening their doors, when a state trooper drove up and said, “What’s up?”
“They had traffic stopped on the mountain. Their mule doesn’t want to go up.”
The trooper was in his mid-twenties, and wore a Smokey The Bear style hat. He turned to me and asked, “Where you from?”
“We walked here from Arkansas. We’re headed for the coast of Maine.”
The trooper pointed west. “So you already came up Sand Hill?”
“A couple of days ago.”
One of the wardens said, “If she pulled Sand Hill, this should be no problem.”
“We had to unload the cart and have everything hauled up to Ripton before she could do it,” Patricia said.
The two station wagons with our stuff pulled in as the trooper said, “So should we do that here?”
“We already did,” Patricia said. “That’s what’s in those cars.”
One of the wardens asked, “Now what?”
Bruce got his cell phone out of the glove compartment of his station wagon, and called Howard Kelton in East Middlebury. He had a one ton pickup, and would be happy to pull the cart up to the top. With his wife Linda, he arrived half an hour later and hooked the cart to their truck with a chain. Patricia rode with them as they pulled the cart followed by Bill’s station wagon with our stuff and the trooper with his lights flashing. Bruce was going to follow Della and me up the mountain with his four-way flashers on.
While I was untying Della from a metal sign post, I felt like I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t believe she was quitting on us. After I undid the knot, I turned to lead her out of parking area. Suddenly, she reared back and yanked her rope out of my hands. Then she spun around and st
arted for the saplings.
Immediately my hurt feelings flared into anger. I leaped for her rope, grabbed it, yanked her head toward me and roared, “You Bitch! Who the hell do you think you are? You want one of those little trees?”
I stomped toward the saplings with her in tow. “Okay, by God, I’ll give you one!”
Pumped up with adrenaline, I jerked a small one out by the roots. Whirling around, I shook the little tree in Della’s face. “Here’s one to go! Now go!” Then I yanked her head to the left and tried to hit her on the ass with it. But I couldn’t do that and lead her too. We went round and round in circles.
Bruce was leaned against the car with his arms crossed watching us. I stopped, turned to him and held out the sapling. “I hate to ask this, but–”
He held his hand out. “Give me that thing.”
When he popped her on the butt it sounded like a firecracker. She literally leaped out of the parking area and onto the highway. From behind us, Bruce yelled, “You’d better keep going, Della! I’m back here with this stick!” With that he smacked the pavement three times with it.
Bruce made a believer out of Della. That was the fastest mile and a half she and I had ever walked. It was also the saddest. How I hated that we had to hit her like that.
“Well, she is a mule,” Bruce said at the top. We were unloading our stuff from his station wagon. “I don’t know a whole lot about them. But I always heard that the one with the strongest will is the one who wins.”
Della never again balked like that.
Up on Middlebury Gap, we almost had all of our stuff loaded back onto the cart when it began to rain. It had sprinkled off and on all day. But this was a downpour. We crammed in stuff wherever we could. Then with our rain gear on, we started down the other side of the mountain.
About half a mile down, we came to a maintenance access for one of the slopes at Snow Bowl Ski Area. The ditches were gushing and dark wasn’t far off. So we pulled in for the night.