Breeding Like Rabbits

by Ardyce C. Whalen

  When the priest came to the part in the wedding ceremony where he says to those assembled, “If anyone objects to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace,” Britt felt Andy tense. He might actually stand up and object! She grabbed Andy’s arm and held him down. The moment passed, and Britt glanced around. Her parents, Ingrid and Carl Anderson, were there. Sara must have invited them, and they actually came to a Catholic wedding. She then saw Andy’s mother, Josette, but no sign of Andy’s father, Phillip. He must have been away on a construction job. A reception was held after the wedding at the Rillstead Country Club. The club catered a simple meal of assorted pastries, lasagna (their specialty), assorted raw vegetables with dip, and for dessert the three-tiered frosted white wedding cake with the traditional bride and groom perched on the top.

  No honeymoon. The farm was calling. They’d considered buying a cow but went for goats instead—Nubian milking goats. Goat milk was easier to digest, said Zack, and Sara wanted to make feta cheese. They’d have chickens, of course, but that would have to wait until spring when they could buy some baby chicks for the hen house Zack was building. They also stocked the basement shelves with canned goods and put hay in the barn. They had it all figured out.

  CHAPTER

  26

  In 1970, Carl Anderson had made a fateful decision. He bought a home in Great Prairie, a beautiful place close to the river. Proud of the deal he’d made with the owner and knowing that Ingrid wanted to live in town, he was eager to tell her all about it.

  Carl opened the door to the back entrance of the house and let it slam—he didn’t care; he was in a hurry, and he seldom hurried. Not bothering to take off his jacket or cap, he stepped into the kitchen. “Ingrid, sit down. I have something important to tell you.”

  Ingrid was up to her elbows in the kitchen sink, washing dishes. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and sat down. “Yes, Carl. What is it? Did something happen?”

  “I bought us a house in town.”

  “You what? I didn’t know you were house hunting. Where in town?”

  “On the south side of town, the good side, by the river. It’s beautiful.”

  Ingrid rose to her feet, eyes wide and brows raised in alarm; she swallowed before she could speak. “By the river? Carl, you know I am afraid of water. I always have been. You know that.” She blinked to hold back the tears that were beginning to fill her eyes.

  Carl narrowed his eyes and looked at her, eyebrows lowered, and his lips pressed together, forming a thin line. “I know it’s a childish fear of yours—something you have to conquer. It was a good deal—a very good deal. The guy who built that house is one of the best.”

  “I wanted to move into town when that artesian well was dug right outside this kitchen window.” Ingrid went to the window and looked out. “Running, running, running, all the time the water was running—I couldn’t stand it. I’ve had nightmares about drowning ever since we got that well—like the kind of nightmares I used to have when I was little.” Ingrid wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. “How could you, Carl?”

  “I knew you wanted to live in town. I forgot about your water thing.”

  “My water thing? It’s a fear, Carl, a real fear—one I’ve always had. I wanted a house in town to get away from that well but never a house by a river.” Ingrid took another look out the kitchen window and shuddered. “Can’t we buy another house in town—one not close to the river?”

  “No. I’ve signed all the papers.” Carl turned and stormed out of the house and made a beeline for his machine shop—his sanctuary.

  Ingrid had had her eye on the big white house at the intersection of Maple and Main Street ever since the Simms family had moved out. It was close to uptown and to the grade school but not too close to either. When their sons married and had children, the grandchildren going to school would have a storm home if they needed one. (The old country school had closed, and rural children were now bussed into town for school.) Carl, stubborn Swede that he was, would have none of it. He wasn’t ready, he’d said. Ingrid sat down, put her arms on the kitchen table to cradle her head, and she cried.

  Britt’s parents moved to Great Prairie and into the house by the river. The twins, William and Owen, now eighteen, moved in with them. They would be leaving for college in the fall. Carl had always had a hired man on the farm to help him, hiring more men during busy seasons, and now he let him move into the farm house with his family so he could not only work the farm with Carl, as usual, but he’d be able to keep an eye on things. In the spring, summer, and fall, Carl would drive out to the farm to work and to see to it that things were being done right. At night he’d drive the ten miles back to town. In winter, he and his men would work down in the big potato warehouse in town, sorting and shipping out carloads of potatoes. It worked out well for him. He even found time during the cold, gloomy days of winter to slip over to Pop’s Tavern and play a couple hands of Smear and shoot the breeze with the other men, most of them farmers like him.

  Carl liked the town place, especially after he’d planted a couple of plum trees and a line of evergreen trees by the river. He aimed to block out the view of the river from Ingrid’s eyes, but she knew it was there, and she could see it in her nightmares.

  As part of the fall cleanup in 1977, Carl went out to mow the grass with his power mower. It was an expensive new one, and he was proud of it—it had real power. He didn’t want the snow to pile up under his evergreen trees, creating places for rodents to hide and chew on his trees’ bark, injuring, maybe even killing them. Those trees meant a lot to him. Carl was now seventy-one years old. He and the mower got too close to the riverbank. Carl lost his balance but not his grip on the mower. They fell together into the river. A man who had lost all his savings in the big Depression would not let go of a mower he’d just bought. He’d hang on for dear life, and with the brute force he thought he still had, he’d wrestle it to the surface. It was hopeless. Ingrid’s drowning nightmare had come true.

  Britt went with her mother to pick out a casket. How could this be? My dad was supposed to live so much longer—his uncle Amos died at ninety-nine, still selling life insurance, for goodness sake!

  What will my mother do now? She has trouble balancing a checkbook. Mother was so angry when Dad actually took the joint checkbook away from her. He found out she was sending checks to Oral Roberts to “save his life.” It’s a blessing that those boys were born. They will help her—they’re twenty-five years old now. She can lean on them.

  They walked down the rows of lined-up caskets—and stopped. They were in front of a casket. Its lid was open, displaying a forest of evergreen trees.

  “This one,” Ingrid told the man in charge. Britt nodded. He can sleep under the trees he loved. She turned and hugged her mother, who was sobbing now. Britt felt the tears running down her own cheeks and brushed them away.

  The old country church, started by Carl’s father, Oskar, was packed with people coming to pay their respects at Carl’s funeral. Britt was glad that Pastor Thomas was no longer there; she didn’t want to hear again that she was hell-bound for marrying a Catholic. Britt didn’t know the new pastor, but she thought that he gave a beautiful, heartfelt eulogy, followed by the choir singing Carl’s favorite song, “How Great Thou Art.” Britt couldn’t hold back the tears. That song always moved her, and now more than ever. Hannah, who had flown in from California where she sold commercial real estate, sat in back of Britt. She loved that grand, old hymn too, and she learned forward and put a comforting hand on Britt’s shoulder.

  The pastor then said that if anyone had anything they wanted to say about Carl, they should now come forth. Britt’s tears stopped, and she sat up straighter, eyes opening wide in surprise as Daniel Hughes walked to the front of the church. Britt turned to look at Andy, sitting to her right. He was looking at her, his expression of surprise mirroring hers. This was not at all like their oldest son.


  Daniel and Tony had often stayed out on the Anderson farm in the summer, starting when each one reached the age of twelve, which meant that Daniel was first. He’d help his grandpa by mowing the large yard, and he’d weed the garden for his grandma. When he got a little older, his grandpa would let him drive the tractor out to a new field they were about to start work on—things like that. He also listened to his grandfather talk, and he liked to watch the slow, careful way he worked. Daniel had a lot of love and respect for his grandfather. Still, Britt could hardly believe her eyes when she saw him walk to the front and begin to speak.

  “I loved my grandpa. He taught me a lot. When I was twelve years old, he let me come out to the farm and work. My first job for him was mowing the grass. When I got older, he let me do harder jobs. I made mistakes, but he never got angry. He just smiled and helped me fix it. I learned that more can be accomplished by patience than by getting mad—a valuable lesson. He expected me to do well, and that made me try my hardest to please him. Grandpa, I will miss you very much, but I know that you are now in a better place.”

  I can hardly believe what I just saw and heard. Daniel doesn’t like to be the center of attention, and he doesn’t often share his feelings, yet he just did both. I never knew the depth of his love for my dad, and I’ve never been prouder of Daniel than I am right now.

  The Ladies Aid later served a lunch in the church’s dining room. After lunch, family members and anyone else who wished walked over to the cemetery to the south of the church and witnessed the laying to rest of Carl Anderson amongst the graves of his parents and three of his siblings. As people began to leave the cemetery, Owen took his mother’s arm and led her to where his wife, Nora, was waiting for them by the car. Owen had married a Great Prairie girl, and they lived in town. They’d recently purchased a home in a nice part of town but far from the river. To this house they would now bring Ingrid. They didn’t want her to be alone in the house by the river—the river that had taken her husband. She would stay with them until she figured out what to do next.

  Hannah joined Britt and Andy as they left the gravesite. They would drive her to the house in town, the one by the river. William was staying there, and Hannah wanted to talk to him about what he thought their mother would want to do about the house.

  Britt turned to Hannah and grabbed her hand. “I can’t believe he’s really gone.”

  “I know. He wasn’t old. I always felt that I could count on him to be on my side. I won’t have that anymore.” Hannah reached into her purse and found a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “Hannah, do you have to go back right away? You could visit with us for a while. It’s been a long time.” She looked over at Andy, who was nodding.

  “I really wish I could, Britt. I have to get back. I’m mentoring this young guy, teaching him how to figure the value of commercial property. They’d better not give him my job after I’ve made a good salesman out of him. Sometimes I wish I had your job security.”

  They’d reached the car. Andy, gentleman that he was, opened the doors for them, and they drove to the house by the river and got out. Britt and Hannah hugged goodbye.

  Lying in bed that night, Britt realized that she felt empty. She felt that a piece of her had just been removed and buried. Hannah had it right; he’d not be on their side anymore—he was gone. Andy reached out and held her hand and said, “He was a good man and a good father, Britt. It’s your mother I’m thinking of. How awful for her that he would die by drowning—the kind of death she always feared.”

  “Oh, Andy, I know.” She turned toward him. “One good thing is that he never became old and helpless. He was always so independent; he wouldn’t want people taking care of him. But to not have him around at all!” Tears began to fall. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Britt didn’t know it, but her father was not finished with her yet.

  CHAPTER

  27

  A cold, snowy Christmas, but it would be warm inside Sara and Zack’s house. They had spent their first Christmas together, just the two of them. They’d been too busy getting their place ready for winter—hauling wood, working up the soil for a spring garden, and caulking their windows—to have guests their first Christmas. Now with the second Christmas in their country home fast approaching, they wanted to share it with family—to have a family reunion. It would only be Sara’s family, because the sole member of Zack’s family, his mother, lived in Florida and decided that coming to Minnesota in any winter, for any reason, would be insane. Grandma Anderson had sold the house by the river and had moved into an apartment complex, the complex in which William rented an apartment. He and his mother were going over to Owen and Nora’s house for a small, quiet Christmas. Andy’s parents, Phillip and Josette, weren’t even in Minnesota. They were visiting relatives on the West Coast.

  Andy and Britt were escorted into the living room by Zack, wearing an apron. Andy, a former navy cook and baker, approved of that garb over the khaki shirt and love beads of their first meeting. Britt’s eyes surveyed the Christmas tree. It was trimmed with popcorn and cranberry ropes and lots of tinsel. At the top of the tree perched a lovely angel, looking down on them all. Britt smiled her pleasure. “Sara, that’s just the way I trimmed the tree for your first Christmas! It’s beautiful.”

  “I know, Mom. Of course I can’t remember that Christmas, but you told me about it more than once, and I’ve seen pictures. I knew you’d be pleased.” Sara put her arms around her mother in a big hug.

  Daniel, no longer in the National Guard, attended the University in Rillstead, working for a degree in computer science. “Yeah, Mom. Sara saw pictures! Why didn’t you take any pictures of me at my first Christmas?”

  “Well, we were a little busy. We rushed you to the emergency room with a high fever on Christmas Eve. The doctor thought you might have spinal meningitis, but it was pneumonia. They put you in an oxygen tent and kept you in the tent for a couple of days. You hated that. You don’t remember it, of course, but I think something in you remembered it because when we used to go camping, you slept with a knife under your pillow. Do you remember that?”

  Daniel nodded. “I wanted to be able to cut my way out of the tent if I had to.” He patted his mother on the shoulder. “Thanks for letting me keep that knife there.”

  Tony stepped up. He’d come up from southern Minnesota where he was involved with Junior League Hockey. “Yeah, Mom, now explain to me why I have such a small baby book.”

  Britt grabbed them both and hugged her two grown sons—both taller and much stronger than she was now. “Come on, you two. You’re just trying to get to me. What was that song you’d play to really bug me? Oh yes, ‘The Ten Commandments of Man Given to Woman’ by a Prince somebody? It didn’t really bother me much, but you guys had fun thinking it did, so I always acted as if it bothered me. I had fun doing that.”

  Amy came into the room. Sweet sixteen and popular, she enjoyed everything about school—the friends she made, most of the teachers, and cheerleading. But school couldn’t last forever. What should she do next? Her parents wanted her to go to college, but she didn’t know what to study. Maybe she should take a year off and try to find out what was right for her. She could go to Florida, stay with her uncle Luke and his wife, and get a job—see what life was like in the real world. Amy cleared her throat a couple of times to get everyone’s attention. “Dinner’s ready, and it smells really good.”

  They all trooped into the kitchen, picked up a plate, and served themselves before sitting down on the benches flanking the long, trestle dining table. Andy led them in the saying of grace, and then all began to enjoy the feast, and a feast it was: Zack had bagged a goose in the fall, and he had roasted it—their Christmas goose. Sara’s mashed potatoes were smooth as could be, and her gravy was to die for. Amy had baked a couple of pies, one being her dad’s favorite, a blueberry pie, and the other was apple. Laura’s offering was an a
fter-dinner one; they would sing Christmas carols, and she would play the accompaniment on her flute. She was the musician in the family.

  They ended the night by reminiscing in front of the fireplace. Fire in a fireplace, especially on a cold night, has a hypnotic, magical effect. Watching those flickering dancing flames of red, yellow, and with sometimes a touch of blue above the wood seems to encourage either dreams or conversation. The mind relaxes its guard and imagines or remembers. In the case of the Hughes family, it was remembering.

  Sara, tossing back her head of black curls (no ironing it straight anymore) started it out. “Remember the night Dad opened the door to find Zack standing there? What do you think now, Dad?”

  “Uh. I might have been too quick to judge.” He looked at Zack with raised eyebrows and a sheepish grin.

  Then someone brought up Amy and her friends streaking to the streetlight half a block away during her sleepover birthday party, and everyone wanted to see Laura’s fish bowl scar. And there was Tony’s best catch ever, better than any he’d made when he played baseball. It was the day he caught Laura as she tumbled down the stairs in her baby walker. He just happened to be on his way up.

  “Thanks, big brother,” Laura said as she hopped up from her seat and went over and hugged him. “You may have saved my life. Now does that mean that you are forever responsible for me?” (No one ever owned up to leaving the basement gate unlatched.)