The Farm
By T.R. Jensen
Copyright 2012 T.R. Jensen
THE FARM
by T.R. Jensen
Well, I s’pose I oughta start off by tellin’ you my name. It’s Billy. Billy Joe Hollister. An’ I ain’t real sure where I’m goin’ with all this, but I’m thinkin’ it’s ‘bout time to get my side of things on paper. I spent a long time listenin’ to other folks tell my story, but I ain’t really felt a need to tell it myself…till now.
Anyway, like I said, my name’s Billy Joe Hollister. I’m seventeen years old. I’m here at the Springville State Prison ‘cause there weren‘t no room to keep me at the Willow Glen Boy’s Home on account of my crime kinda turned the punishment up a notch or two, an’ them’ that run the place wouldn’t hear of takin’ me. They said I was a bad ‘un, an’ dangerous, an’…well, you know the rest if you read the papers.
I growed up on a tiny farm just this side of Lawrence, Kansas. There was me, my folks, my brother Sid an’ my sister Grace. The farm weren’t much to look at. It probably growed more rocks than it did anythin’ else, but pa just couldn’t let it go. He’d shove and heave those miserable stones from one side of the county to t’other if he thought it’d help with the croppin.’
He stood tall an’ straight, my pa. An’ he weren’t much for book learnin.’ But he was stubborn as all get-out when it come to the farm. An’ even when it took the best years from ma, poundin’ ‘em down in the dust like a batterin’ ram, pa wouldn’t hear of movin.’ He wouldn’t hear of quittin’ neither, or of givin’ up. It was God’s land, he said. An’ givin’ it up woulda been the same as givin’ up on the Holy Father hisself. So we stayed. Year after year we planted. Year after year we prayed an’ worked an’ fought an’ cried. We sweated an’ bled. An’ still God didn’t listen. It didn’t bother pa, tho.’ He kep’ right on stompin’ through those acres of dust, throwin’ those bitty seeds in the unforgivin’ ground, never noticin’ how bad it sometimes took to ma.
I s’pose at one time ma was a right fine gal. At least some of the stories I heard about her said as much. But the farm sucked the life out of her just as sure as the ground took all the water an’ sun an’ hoppers an’ ever’thin’ else that come along, an’ it just ate it up an’ swallowed it. No spittin’ back. I can still see her in my mind, kneelin’ down in them skinny rows, her back all crooked an’ outa joint. An’ I can still see her lookin’ up at me when I come to help, her smile like some broke thing in the middle of her sunburnt face, the lines an’ wrinkles deep an’ hard, cut like the slash of a knife.
But ma weren’t no quitter neither.
The days were hot an’ long. An’ ever’ mornin’ we was up afore the rooster. It seemed the sun’d purely fly over them hills in the wee hours of the morn, just couldn’t wait to share its killin’ heat with those of us scratchin’ away in the dirt. The bleached sun’d fry our eyes like liver in a iron skillet, an’ the soles of our shoes’d melt like rancid butter. Some days us kids was so tired we’d plop right down in the dust as the twilight come, sleepin’ in the rows till a body’d remember to come an’ pack us off to supper.
Like I said there was the five of us. An’ all of us worked. My brother Sid was the baby, no more’n ten years old when they sent me up here to Springville, but even li’l Sid did his part. Sometimes it weren’t nothin’ more’n chasin’ them stubborn bugs off’n the plants, but he usually helped by packin’ water back and forth from the house to the fields, keepin’ us wet an’ alive. Grace worked too, takin’ ma’s place by doin’ most of the cookin’ an’ cleanin,’ makin’ sure we was fed an’ our rags washed. She’s sixteen now, an’ I s’pose she’s doin’ all right, but I ain’t the one to judge. I know she’s considerable mixed up an’ prob‘ly will be for some time, but it’s all beyond me after tonight. Just like the crop she’ll either weather the storm or the rain’ll beat her down. It’s still too early to tell, I reckon, but Grace has a good heart, an’ a good heart has a way of bouncin’ back. It’s just too bad ever’thin’ had to happen like it did.
Our house was a good ‘un considerin’ we was dirt poor and busted flat. Ever’ night after supper pa’d read from the Good Book, his voice risin’ considerable as he told us how the righteous folk live, an’ how ever’body ought to be like that, an’ how one day we’d all come together under the name of God an’ the Christian faith an’ make the world a whole lot better place to live. To tell the truth tho,’ I had a hard time believin’ it sometimes, ‘specially when I turned my head an’ my eyes strolled out over that dry, puny rock garden we called a farm. I knowed pa believed ever’thin’ he was tellin’ us, but I think he was doin’ a lot more wishin’ than anythin.’ An’ if nothin’ else you had to give him credit for gettin’ up there ever’ night an’ readin’ the scriptures like they was the wrapper off’n a bag of sweets. ‘Cause even after all that happened he’s still that way. Still readin.’ Still heavin’ them rocks. An’ still believin.’
You know, lookin’ back on it I truly believe ma was the strongest of the bunch. Sure, she’s tall an’ raw-boned an’ all that, an’ her hands are rough like a man’s from all the years of diggin’ a livin’ outa the dirt, but there’s somethin’ inside her that cain’t be drug out an’ beat. A body’d think a woman’d suffer bad after years of livin’ with nothin,’ after years of watchin’ her man an’ children waste away with grimy nails an’ torn clothes. Of not havin’ enough to eat, not enough sleep, too much work, an’ on an’ on an’ on. But ma was always there, washin’ our hands when we was too sleepy to do it ourself, mendin’ the holes in our britches, an’ makin’ sure we ate ever’ mealtime, even if’n it meant them same ol’ beans and ‘pone. An’ she did it all with never no angry word.
Sometimes I’d catch a look in her eye, like on the times when she was stitchin’ one of us up, or settin’ a broken bone, an’ I’d see her look around at the crumblin’ house, the dry an’ empty fields, an’ I’d watch her turn her face to the sky an’ could tell there was a whole lotta tears back in there someplace, water she wanted to shed over the hurt an’ pain of one of her own, but somehow she knew if she ever did ever’thin’d come undone an’ that’d be the end of it, the end to all of us, an’ the whole family’d just dry up an’ blow away like a swirlin’ cloud of dust. Yep, ma’s the glue that kep’ us all together, the oil that kep’ us from freezin’ up an’ dyin.’ An’ even tho’ I’m here in Springville waitin’ for ‘em to fire Ol’ Blue up later this evenin,’ I know ma’s still down there, still stitchin’ an’ fixin’ an’ mendin,’ and takin’ care of her own like she always done. An’ I’m sure she’s thinkin’ of me, ‘specially on this partic’lar night. But I know too that if’n that water were ever to break it wouldn’t be on account of her eldest waitin’ to take that midnight train to glory, it’d be on account of that’s just the way a ma feels toward her boy, no matter what set of tracks he’s ridin’ on.
June 1st. Two years back.
The day started out just like ever’ other day. Me an’ pa was up firin’ the stove, Sid was out to the barn doin’ his chores, an’ ma an’ Grace was sharin’ the basin, splashin’ around in that spit-warm Kansas water that don’t never seem to get cold.
We already done the plantin.’ The seeds was in an’ it was up to the will of God. As soon as breakfast was put away we was all fixin’ to take that long walk to the field, tryin’ again to keep away the heat, the bugs, an’ whatever other killers were out there aimin’ to put the choke on our skimpy plants. But no sooner did I tie my last boot than Grace tells us she ain’t feelin’ none too good, an’ could she please stay back an’ make us somethin’ special for supper. Well, we all pretty much knowed it was comin,’ ‘cause Grace never did seem to feel none too good when all we was gonna do was w
eed an’ water, so nobody said much about it. I tried to once, but Grace, as pa put it, was made more from the mold of Eve than the mold of Adam, and it was our God-given duty to see it thataway. Besides, if our sis’s talents ran more to the bakin’ of pies than the plowin’ of fields, then it must be the way the good Lord ‘tended it.
I remember that day like yesterday. The heat was a buzzard. It leaned on a body like a lead weight, pushin’ you to the ground an’ makin’ your feet feel heavy as sacks of flour. Shade was scarce as a raindrop. But down that dusty road we marched, me, ma, pa an’ Sid, out to the thirsty crop, our heavy boots keepin’