Farnham's Freehold

  “Shut up, infant. Yes, Joe?”

  “Well, you know those Roman aqueducts. This stream runs uphill that way. I mean it’s higher up that way, so someplace it’s higher than the shelter. As I understand it, Roman aqueducts weren’t pipe, they were open.”

  “I see.” Farnham considered it. There was a waterfall a hundred yards upstream. Perhaps above it was high enough. “But that would mean a lot of masonry, whether dry-stone, or mud mortar. And each arch requires a frame while it’s being built.”

  “Couldn’t we just split logs and hollow them out? And support them on other logs?”

  “We could.” Hugh thought about it. “There’s an easier way, and one that would kill two birds. Barbara, what sort of country is this?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said that this area is at least semitropical. Can you tell what season it is? And what the rest of the year is likely to bring? What I’m driving at is this: Are you going to need irrigation?”

  “Good heavens, Hugh, I can’t answer that!”

  “You can try.”

  “Well—” She looked around. “I doubt if it ever freezes here. If we had water, we might have crops all year. This is not a tropical rain forest, or the undergrowth would be much more dense. It looks like a place with a rainy season and a dry season.”

  “Our creek doesn’t go dry; it has lots of fish. Where were you thinking of having your garden?”

  “How about this stretch downstream to the south? Several trees should come out, though, and a lot of bushes.”

  “Trees and bushes are no problem. Mmm—Joe, let’s take a walk. I’ll carry a rifle, you strap on your forty-five. Girls, don’t dig so much that it topples down on you. We would miss you.”

  “Daddy, I was thinking of taking a nap.”

  “Good. Think about it while you’re digging.”

  Hugh and Joe worked their way upstream. “What are you figuring on, Hugh?”

  “A contour-line ditch. We need to lead water to an air vent on the roof. If we can do that, we’ve got it made. A sanitary toilet. Running water for cooking and washing. And for gardening, coming in high enough to channel it wherever Barbara wants it. But the luxury that will mean most to our womenfolk is a bath and kitchen. We’ll clear the tank room and install both.”

  “Hugh, I see how you might get water with a ditch. But what about fixtures? You can’t just let water splash down through the roof.”

  “I don’t know yet, but we’ll build them. Not a flush toilet, it’s too complex. But a constant-flow toilet, a sort that used to be common aboard warships. It’s a trough with seats. Water runs in one end, out the other. We’ll lead it down the manhole, out the tunnel, and away from the house. Have you seen any clay?”

  “There is a clay bank at the stream below the house. Karen complained about how sticky it was. She went upstream to bathe, a sandy spot.”

  “I’ll look at it. If we can bake clay, we can make all sorts of things. A toilet. A sink. Dishes. Tile pipe. Build a kiln out of unbaked clay, use the kiln to bake anything. But clay just makes it easier. Water is the real gold; all civilizations were built on water. Joe, we are about high enough.”

  “Maybe a little higher? It would be embarrassing to dig a ditch a couple of hundred yards long—”

  “Longer.”

  “—or longer, and find that it’s too low and no way to get it up to the roof.”

  “Oh, we’ll survey it first.”

  “Survey it? Hugh, maybe you didn’t notice but we don’t even have a spirit level. That big smash broke its glasses. And there isn’t even a tripod, much less a transit and all those things.”

  “The Egyptians invented surveying with less, Joe. Losing the spirit level doesn’t matter. We’ll build an unspirit level.”

  “Are you making fun of me, Hugh?”

  “Not at all. Mechanics were building level and square centuries before you could buy instruments. We’ll build a plumb-bob level. That’s an upside-down T, and a string with a weight to mark the vertical. You can build it about six feet long and six high to give us a long sighting arm—minimize the errors. Have to take apart one of the bunks for boards. It’s light, fussy work you can do while your ribs heal. While the girls do the heavy, unfussy excavating.”

  “You draw it, I’ll build it.”

  “When we get the building leveled we’ll mount it on the roof and sight upstream. Have to cut a tree or two but we won’t have any trouble running a base line. Intercepts we run with a smaller level. Duck soup, Joe.”

  “No sweat, huh?”

  “Mostly sweat. But twenty feet a day of shallow ditch and we’ll have irrigation water when the dry season hits. The bathroom can wait—the gals will be cheered just by the fact that there will be one, someday. Joe, it would suit me if our base line cuts the stream about here. See anything?”

  “What should I see?”

  “We fell those two trees and they dam the creek. Then chuck in branches, mud, and some brush and still more mud and rocks and the stream backs up in a pond.” Hugh added, “Have to devise a gate, and that I do not see, with what we have to work with. Every problem leads straight to another. Damn.”

  “Hugh, you’re counting your chickens before the cows come home.”

  “I suppose so. Well, let’s go see how much the girls have dug while we loafed.”

  The girls had dug little; Duke had returned with a miniature four-point buck. Barbara and Karen had it strung up against a tree and were trying to butcher it. Karen seemed to have as much blood on her as there was on the ground.

  They stopped as the men approached. Barbara wiped her forehead, leaving a red trail. “I hadn’t realized they were so complicated inside.”

  “Or so messy!” sighed Karen.

  “With that size it’s easier on the ground.”

  “Now he tells us. Show us, Daddy. We’ll watch.”

  “Me? I’m a gentleman sportsman; the guide did the dirty work. But—Joe, can you lay hands on that little hatchet?”

  “Sure. It’s sharp; I touched it up yesterday.”

  Hugh split the breastbone and pelvic girdle and spread the carcass, then peeled out viscera and lungs and spilled them, while silently congratulating the girls on not having pierced the intestines. “All yours, girls. Barbara, if you can get that hide off, you might be wearing it soon. Have you noticed any oaks?”

  “There are scrub forms. And sumach, too. You’re thinking of tannin?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know how to extract it.”

  “Then you know more about tanning than I do. I’ll bow out. There are books.”

  “I know, I was looking it up. Doc! Don’t sniff at that, boy.”

  “He won’t eat it,” Joe assured her, “unless it’s good for him. Cats are fussy.”

  While butchering was going on, Duke and his mother crawled out and joined them. Mrs. Farnham seemed cheerful but did not greet anyone; she simply looked at Duke’s kill. “Oh, the poor little thing! Duke dear, how did you have the heart to kill it?”

  “It sassed me and I got mad.”

  “It’s a pretty piece of venison, Duke,” Hugh said. “Good eating.”

  His wife glanced at him. “Perhaps you’ll eat it; I couldn’t bear to.”

  Karen said, “Have you turned vegetarian, Mother?”

  “It’s not the same thing. I’m going in, I don’t want that on me. Karen, don’t you dare come inside until you’ve washed; I won’t have you tracking blood in after I’ve slaved away getting the place spotless.” She headed toward the shelter. “Come inside, Duke.”

  “In a moment, Mother.”

  Karen gave the carcass an unnecessarily vicious cut.

  “Where did you nail it?” Hugh asked.

  “Other side of the ridge. I should have been back sooner.”

  “Why?”

  “Missed an easy shot and splintered an arrow on a boulder. Buck fever. It has been years since I used a—‘bow season’ license.”
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  “One lost arrow, one carcass, is good hunting. You saved the arrowhead?”

  “Of course. Do I look foolish?”

  Karen answered, “No, but I do. Buddy, I cleaned house. If Mother did any cleaning, it was a mess she made herself.”

  “I realized that.”

  “And I’ll bet when she smells these steaks, she won’t want Spam!”

  “Forget it.”

  Hugh moved away, signaling Duke to follow.

  “I’m glad to see Grace looking cheerful. You must have soothed her.”

  Duke looked sheepish. “Well—As you pointed out, it’s rough, chopping it off completely.” He added, “But I rationed her. I gave her one drink and told her she could have one more before dinner.”

  “That’s doing quite well.”

  “I had better go inside. The bottle is there.”

  “Perhaps you had.”

  “Oh, it’s all right. I put her on her honor. You don’t know how to handle her, Dad.”

  “That’s true. I don’t.”

  6

  From the Journal of Barbara Wells:

  I am hobbled by a twisted ankle, so I am lying down and adding to this. I’ve taken notes every night—but in shorthand. I haven’t transcribed very much.

  The longhand version goes in the fly leaves of the Britannica. There are ten blank pages in each volume, twenty-four volumes, and I’ll squeeze a thousand words to a page—240,000 words—enough to record our doings until we reclaim the art of making paper—especially as the longhand version will be censored.

  Because I can’t let my hair down to anyone—and sometimes a gal needs to! This shorthand record is a diary which no one can read but me, as Karen is as poor at Gregg as she claimed.

  Or perhaps Joe knows Gregg. Isn’t it required in business colleges? But Joe is a gentleman and would not read this without invitation. I am fond of Joseph; his goodness is not a sham. I am sure he is keeping his lip buttoned on many unhappy thoughts; his position is as anomalous as mine and more difficult.

  Grace has quit ordering him around—save that she orders all of us. Hugh gives orders, but for the welfare of all. Nor does he give many; we are settled in a routine. I’m the farmer, and plan my own work; Duke keeps meat on the table and gives me a hand when he doesn’t hunt; Hugh hasn’t told either of us what to do for a long time, and Karen has a free hand with the house. Hugh has about two centuries of mechanical work planned out and Joe helps him.

  But Grace’s orders are for her own comfort. We usually carry them out; it’s easier. She gets her own way and more than her share, simply by being difficult.

  She got the lion’s share of liquor. Liquor doesn’t matter to me; I rarely “need” a drink. But I enjoy a glow in company and had to remind myself that it was not my liquor, it was Farnham liquor.

  Grace finished her share in three days. Duke’s was next to go. And so on. At last all was gone save one quart of bourbon earmarked “medicinal.” Grace spotted where Duke had it and dug it up. When Duke came home, she was passed out and the bottle was dead.

  The next three days were horrors. She screamed. She wept. She threatened suicide. Hugh and Duke teamed up and one of them was always with her. Hugh acquired a black eye, Duke got scratches down his handsome face. I understand they put a lot of B1 into her and force-fed her.

  On the fourth day she stayed in her bunk; the next day she got up and seemed almost normal.

  But during lunch she asserted, as something “everybody knows,” that the Russians had attacked because Hugh insisted on building a shelter.

  She didn’t seem angry—more forgiving. She went on to the happy thought that the war would soon be over and we could all go home.

  Nobody argued. What good? Her delusion seems harmless. She has assumed her job, at last, as chief cook—but if she is a better cook than Karen I have yet to see it. Mostly she talks about dishes she could prepare if only she had this, or that. Karen works as hard as ever and sometimes gets so mad that she comes out to cry on me and then hoes furiously.

  Duke tells Karen that she must be patient.

  I should not criticize Duke; he is probably going to be my husband. I mean, who else is there? I could stand Duke but I’m not sure I could stand Grace as a mother-in-law. Duke is handsome and is considerate of both me and his sister. He did quarrel with his father at first (foolishly it seemed to me) but they get along perfectly now.

  In this vicinity he is quite a catch.

  Myself? I’m not soured on marriage even though I struck out once. Hugh assumes that the human race will go on. I’m willing.

  (Polygamy? Of course I would! Even with Grace as senior wife. But I haven’t been asked. Nor, I feel sure, would Grace permit it. Hugh and I don’t discuss such things, we avoid touching the other, we avoid being alone together, and I do not make cow’s eyes at him. Finished.)

  The trouble is, while I like Duke, no spark jumps. So I am putting it off and avoiding circumstances where he might pat me on the fanny. It would be a hell of a note if I married him and there came a night when I was so irritated at his mother and so vexed with him for indulging her that I would tell him coldly that he is not half the man his father is.

  No, that must not happen. Duke does not deserve it.

  Joe? My admiration for him is unqualified—and he doesn’t have a mother problem.

  Joe is the first Negro I’ve had a chance to know well—and I think most well of him. He plays better contract than I do; I suppose he’s smarter than I am. He is fastidious and never comes indoors without bathing. Oh, get downwind after he has spent a day digging and he’s pretty whiff. But so is Duke, and Hugh is worse. I don’t believe this story about a distinctive “nigger musk.”

  Have you ever been in a dirty powder room? Women stink worse than men.

  The trouble with Joe is the same as with Duke: No spark jumps. Since he is so shy that he is most unlikely to court me—Well, it won’t happen.

  But I am fond of him—as a younger brother. He is never too busy to be accommodating. He is usually bear guard for Karen and me when we bathe and it’s a comfort to know that Joe is alert—Duke has killed five bears and Joe killed one while he was actually guarding us. It took three shots and dropped dead almost in Joe’s lap. He stood his ground.

  We adjourned without worrying about modesty, which upset Joe more than bears do.

  Or wolves, or coyotes, or mountain lions, or a cat which Duke says is a mutated leopard and especially dangerous because it attacks by dropping out of a tree. We don’t bathe under trees and don’t venture out of our clearing without an armed man. It is as dangerous as crossing Wilshire against the lights.

  There are snakes, too. At least one sort is poisonous.

  Joe and Hugh were starting one morning on the house leveling and Joe jumped down into the excavation. Dr.-Livingstone-I-Presume jumped down with him—and here was this snake.

  Doc spotted it and hissed; Joe saw it just as it struck, getting him in the calf. Joe killed it with his shovel and dropped to the ground, grabbing at his leg.

  Hugh had the wound slashed and was sucking it in split seconds. He had a tourniquet on quickly and permanganate crystals on the wound soon after as I heard the hooraw and came a-runnin’. He followed that with rattlesnake anti-venom.

  Moving Joe was a problem; he collapsed in the tunnel. Hugh crawled over him and pulled, I pushed, and it took three of us—Karen, too—to lift him up the ladder. We undressed him and put him to bed.

  Around midnight, when his respiration was low and his pulse uncertain, Hugh moved the remaining bottle of oxygen into the room, put over Joe’s head a plastic sack in which shirts had been stored and gave him oxygen.

  By morning he was better.

  In three days he was up and well. Duke says it was a pit viper, perhaps a bushmaster, and that a rattlesnake is a pit viper, too, so rattlesnake anti-venom probably saved Joe’s life.

  I am not trusting any snakes.

  It took three weeks to excavate under
the house. Boulders! This area is a wide, flat, saucer-shaped valley, with boulders most anywhere. Whenever we hit a big one, we dug around it and the men would worry it out with crowbar and block and tackle.

  Mostly the men could get boulders out. But Karen found one that seemed to go down to China. Hugh looked it over and said, “Fine. Now dig a hole just north of it and deeper.”

  Karen just looked at him.

  So we dug. And hit another big boulder. “Good,” said Hugh. “Dig another hole north of that one.”

  We hit a third oversize boulder. But in three days the last one had been tumbled into a hole next to it, the middle one had been worried into a hole where the last one had been, and the one that started the trouble was buried where the middle one had been.

  As fast as any spot had been cut deeply enough Hugh propped it up with pieces of log; he was worried lest the shelter shift and crush someone. So when we finished the shelter had a forest of posts under it.

  Hugh then set two very heavy posts under the uphill corners and started removing the inner ones, using block and tackle. Sometimes they had to be dug under. Hugh was nervous during this and did all the rigging and digging himself.

  At last the uphill half was supported on these two big chunks.

  They would not budge.

  There was so much weight on those timbers that they sneered at our efforts. I said, “What do we do now, Hugh?”

  “Try the next-to-last resort.”

  “What’s the last resort?”

  “Burn them. But it would take roaring fires and we would have to clear grass and bushes and trees for quite a distance. Karen, you know where the ammonia is. And the iodine. I want both.”

  I had wondered why Hugh had stocked so much ammonia. But he had, in used plastic Chlorox bottles; the stuff had ridden through the shocks. I hadn’t known that iodine was stocked in quantity, too; I don’t handle the drugs.

  Soon he had sort of a chemistry lab. “What are you making, Hugh?” I asked.

  “Ersatz ‘dynamite.’ And I don’t need company,” he said. “The stuff is so touchy it explodes at a harsh look.”

  “Sorry,” I said, backing away.