When I was a little boy, Mother used to sing snatches of an old song that I always liked. She only sang it when she was spinning, and never more than three verses. But she sang them over and over to the rhythm of the wheel. And always, with the first word of every alternate line, she’d take one step forward and let the newly spun length of yarn wind up on the spindle. As I lay there watching Annie, the words and music of the old song came into my head and kept going over and over:
“Nut brown maiden, Thou hast a ruby lip to kiss,
Nut brown maiden, Thou hast a ruby lip;
A ruby lip is thine, love! The kissing of it’s mine, love!
Nut brown maiden, Thou hast a ruby lip.”
I didn’t realize that my head was bobbing in rhythm to the song till Annie turned my way quickly. Her face looked startled for half a second, then she said, “You’re Ralph, aren’t you?”
Maybe it was from thinking of the song about her lips. Anyway, my heart began pounding again, and I had to swallow before I could say, “Yes. And you’re Annie Littlehale. I saw you driving the cows.” As soon as I’d said it, I felt foolish. Of course, she knew I’d seen her driving the cows; she waved to Millie and me when we were haying.
Annie might have been startled when she first saw me there on the ledge, but it didn’t bother her long. She began picking her way toward me over the hummocky floor of the hemlock woods, and talking all the way. “I heard the squirrel barking from way down by the tree where Mr. Gould’s swarm of bees nested,” she said, “and was afraid our cat might be after him. We’ve got one that loves to catch squirrels. Some day I’m going to catch him in the act and teach him a good lesson.”
The nearer she came, the prettier she was. Her wavy black hair seemed to spring as she stepped, and her eyes were a bright coppery brown. I couldn’t just lie there dumb, and all I could think to say, was, “I thought you were a fox.”
“Because my hair is so red?” she asked, and laughed.
“I wouldn’t want it red; it’s prettier black,” I told her as I rolled over and sat up. “I’ve always liked black hair.”
When I turned over, a couple of apples had fallen out of my pockets and were rolling on the ledge. Annie saw them as she began climbing the big steps of the outcropping. She held one hand up for me to help her, as she said, “And I like red apples. Astrachans, aren’t they? Ours aren’t ripe yet. Oh, you’re writing letters! I’ll only stop long enough to eat an apple.”
We ate all the apples while Annie and I sat there on the ledge, and we didn’t even notice when the squirrel came down and took my first apple core. Then we went for a walk through the pines, around the hidden field, and along the brook that ran beyond it. Annie knew so much more about the woods, the flowers, the birds, and the wild animals than I did that it made me feel sort of stupid. She could name every bird we saw or heard, could imitate the song or call of most of them, and knew the signs of all the animals.
Once, where the bank was soft and bare beside the brook, she pointed to a track that looked as if a tiny baby had laid its hand there. “Raccoon,” she told me. “A good big one. He was fishing last night. See where the grass is matted by that gravelly bend? He must come here often. That’s where he wets his food before he eats it. Raccoons don’t have saliva, as we and other animals do, so he has to wet his food before he can swallow it. A raccoon always has one place that he likes better than any other in all the world. He may go away and leave it for a long time, but he’ll always come back. If anyone was mean enough, he could trap this one here where the grass is matted. You won’t ever trap him, will you, Ralph?”
I told her I’d never trap him, and then, to keep from seeming too ignorant, I told Annie a few stories about Colorado; the ranches I’d worked on, and the roundups I’d ridden in. It was nearly ten o’clock when I left her at Littlehale’s pasture bars, and she went running up the lane so she’d be in time to go to Sunday school with her brother.
When I went back to the outcropping, I started right in on my letters. The one to Mother came out a little too much birds and raccoons, but I kept them out of Uncle Levi’s, and I didn’t write either of them that I was coming home. I took another walk after I’d finished, but along toward noon I began to worry that Grandfather might forget to feed the horses, so I went to the barn. He was feeding them when I got there, and was still as cross as he had been at breakfast. “Where you been, and what have you been up to?” he asked me when I came in.
“Well, I went for a walk in the woods, and I wrote some letters,” I told him.
“See anybody?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“Annie Littlehale.”
“What was you doing?”
“Oh, just talking and going for a walk.”
“In the woods?”
“Well, part of the time.”
Grandfather glared at me, and shouted, “Don’t you never durst let me catch you gallivanting off into the woods with no girls! When you ain’t busy working, you stay where I can keep an eye on you! What was you up to?”
“Well, Annie was telling me about the different kinds of bark on different kinds of trees, and about birds, and we saw a place where a raccoon had been fishing. Did you know that . . . ”
“By thunder, I know that Mary didn’t send you down here to go gallivanting about the woods with no girls on the Sabbath. I’ll learn you all you need to know ’bout birds and bark. Now fetch some tools and go to taking that fool contraption of your’n off the dumpcart. That’ll keep you out of mischief whilst I’m busy.”
“I haven’t been into any mischief,” I told him, “and that spreader attachment on the dumpcart would save us a lot of . . . ”
“Don’t you tell me! Get it off of there! Get it off, I tell you! Won’t have no tarnal contraptions about this farm! Work saving! Good-for-nothing! Work never hurt nobody!” Grandfather was still grumbling when he jabbed the pitchfork into a corner and stamped off toward the house.
19
The Stone Rake
I FINISHED plowing Monday night, and expected to haul dressing Tuesday morning, but I didn’t. After breakfast, I was harnessing the yella colt when, from the stall doorway, Grandfather snapped, “Let be! Let be! You go to picking rocks off the high field. There’s an auction I got to attend over to Sabattus. Cal’late on keeping my eye peeled for a milk cow or two. Butter’s twenty-eight cents, dressing is tarnal short, and there’s plenty hay. Hitch Old Nell to the spring wagon!”
Grandfather went down to the hives, and was still there when I’d finished harnessing and had Nell hitched to the wagon. “She’s all ready,” I called as I led her toward the house.
Without looking up from the hive he was watching, Grandfather said crossly, “Let be! Let be! Get after them rocks!”
“How small sized ones do you want me to pick up?” I asked.
“Get ’em all! Get ’em all above the size of a hen’s egg!” he half shouted. “Cal’late that’ll keep you out of mischief whilst my back is turned.”
“I haven’t been in any mischief,” I told him, “and I get a lot more work done when your back is turned.”
Grandfather sprang up as if a bee had stung him. He scowled up at me, and shouted, “Mind your manners! And don’t go just a-picking rocks off the top neither. Fetch along a potato fork and a bushel basket, and turn up them that’s under the ground. Pick ’em clean and pile ’em close agin the nigh side the orchard wall.”
While I’d been plowing the high field, I’d told myself there must be ten thousand rocks on it. When I began picking them up, it seemed more like a million. A few were as big as a watermelon, but most of them were from four to seven inches through, and nearly every one was almost round. After an hour, my back felt as if it were breaking, and I’d only cleared a patch ten feet square. At that rate, it would take me six months to clear the field. Besides that, I couldn’t see any sense in digging a million rocks out of that old hayfield just to plant more hay on it.
I’d never cared how hard the work was if I could see it needed to be done. But to be given an endless, useless job so it would keep me out of mischief—particularly when I hadn’t been into any mischief—made me sore! The wall at the top of the orchard lay right along the brow of the hill, a quarter mile south of the buildings. Every time I’d straighten up to get the kinks out of my back, I’d look over it, and see Grandfather still fussing around the beehives. And every time I saw him, it made me a little sorer. I made up my mind that I’d be careful to stay out of mischief, but I wouldn’t break my back or hurry while I was doing it.
It wasn’t until about eleven o’clock that Grandfather left the beehives. I watched him go out to meet the mail carrier, go into the house for a couple of minutes, then drive away. As I dragged the potato fork through the loose dirt, I began thinking that if I were a giant, and had a big rake, I could clean off that field as easy as raking pebbles on a beach. Next I began wondering how I could make a big rake that a horse could pull. I started monkeying around with the potato-fork handle; sticking it under half-buried round stones at different angles, and pushing it along to see how they’d move. If I slanted it just right, the stones would turn and slide up the fork handle to the top of the ground.
After finding how the rocks moved, it didn’t take any inventing at all to know how to make a stone rake. All I’d need would be a sort of harrow, with long teeth set at just the right angle, and close enough together that they’d rake up every stone bigger than a hen’s egg. The teeth would have to be set in the shape of a V, with the point open, so it would roll the raked stones into a narrow row.
It was a little after twelve o’clock when I went to the house for dinner, and Millie was furious. My being late didn’t help any, but it was Grandfather she was really mad at. The morning had been hot and muggy, the kitchen was swarming with flies, and Millie was shooing them away from the table with her apron. Every time she flapped it, she’d blurt out a few words. “Where you been? What sort of devilment you been hatching up now? Devilish wonder the flies ain’t et the victuals afore you come to get ’em! Thomas tell you where he was going?”
“To an auction,” I told her. “He said butter was twenty-eight cents a pound and he wanted to get another cow or two.”
“He needn’t think I’m going to make him no butter in this fly trap! Hmff! Come out looking like blueberry muffins! Levi promised he’d make me screens afore he went back to Boston. The wire’s around here some place, and he’d have made ’em, too, if Thomas hadn’t run him off. What does Thomas think I be; a sneak thief? Locking his bedroom door afore he steps foot off the place! Good Lord! I got two minds to one to go off and leave him right now!”
Millie sounded mad enough to have gone, and I didn’t want her to, so I said, “I’ve had two minds to one to go all morning, but I’m not going, and I’ll make a deal with you. I know where the screen wire is, and I’ll make screens for you, the first chance I get, if you’ll help me make a stone rake now.”
Millie looked sort of frightened. She’d been shouting, but her voice dropped almost to a whisper, “Did Thomas tell you to make it?” she asked.
“No, he didn’t,” I said. “But I’m going to make it anyway. It would take me from now till next haying time to pick all the rocks off that field by hand, and I’m not going to do it. If what he wants is to get rid of the rocks, I’ll do it for him, but I’m not going to do a useless job the hardest way just so I won’t have time to do anything else.”
“I won’t help you!” Millie snapped. “Ain’t Thomas mad enough at you a’ready for what you done to the dumpcart?”
“He can get just as mad as he wants to,” I said. “I’ll go back to Boston before I’ll dig another stone out of that field.”
Millie’s under lip trembled, and she said, “I’ll help you, Ralphie. I won’t stay here alone with him another blessed day. He’s so cussed contrary since he come home from his reunion that the Almighty Hisself couldn’t live alone with him.”
That was the first time anybody ever called me “Ralphie,” when I liked it.
It took Millie and me most of the afternoon to make the stone rake. To get the right-sized spikes, I had to knock half the teeth out of a homemade harrow I found behind the sheep barn, and for the framework we used an oak four-by-six from the carriage-house attic. I didn’t know just how wide we could make the rake without its being too heavy for one horse to pull, but there was just enough lumber to make it four feet, so that was the width we built it.
Grandfather had a drag for hauling heavy stones. It was just three wide oak planks bolted together, and had the front end rounded up a little, like a sleigh. I hitched the yella colt to the drag, loaded the new stone rake on it, and drove to the high field. As I drove, I had to think a little about which end of the field I’d better start on. Grandfather often came up the roadway that led through the high field. If I started there, he’d probably catch me within a day or two and make me stop using the rake. If I started on the back end of the field, he might not catch me so soon, but he’d think I wasn’t getting anything done, and I’d have to show him the rake. After a few minutes, I decided I’d start right at the roadway. I wasn’t going to try to hide anything, and if he got mad about it I could always go back to Boston.
I unloaded the rake at the near corner of the field, hitched the yella colt to it, and clucked to him. With the long teeth slanted well forward, the rake dug itself deep into the ground. After two or three steps, the old horse stopped and looked back, as though he were trying to tell me he couldn’t pull it. When I swung the line ends up, he lunged forward a few more steps. The plowed soil inside the rake wings seemed to boil, rocks came to the surface, and rolled out through the tail of the V.
There was no question but what the rake was heavy for one horse to pull, or that it did a better job if it was pulled fast. After the first few tries, the yella colt learned to hit the collar hard, tear into it for fifteen or twenty yards, then stop and rest till he caught his wind. I never raked more than one round across the field at a time. Then I’d hitch him to the drag, load the rocks with a dungfork, and haul them to the wall. Of course, all the rocks didn’t work the same way. When we’d run onto a big one that wouldn’t go through the back of the V, I’d have to lift it out. And all the larger ones had to be lifted on and off the drag, too, but it was an awful lot faster and easier than doing all the work by hand—and I nearly forgot that it was a useless job.
Grandfather didn’t come home till it was pitch dark and I had the chores nearly finished. I was coming up from the sheep barn with the lantern when he sang out from the dooryard, “Ralphie! Millie! Come see what I fetched you home! Come a-running!”
His voice was as pleasant as it had been cross that morning. “By gorry, I sure made me a powerful good trade over to the auction! You’ll like her, Ralphie! Brindle! Clever as a kitten! Got a bag on her bigger’n a washtub! So, Bossie, so! Cal’late she’ll freshen in ’bout three, four days. Powerful big in the girth. So, Boss! Ralphie ain’t going to hurt you.”
I held the lantern up as I went past the spring wagon. The cow tied to the back of it was in good flesh, had a nice brindle color, and looked to be awfully heavy with calf. I wouldn’t have guessed her to be over five years old, and she was gentle when I led her to the spring for water and then to the tie-up.
All through supper, Grandfather talked about the auction, the new cow, what a good trade he’d made on her, and how many more cows he was going to buy. He was never cross once, and he didn’t ask me how many rocks I’d picked off the high field. It was nearly ten o’clock before we went to bed.
The next morning, Grandfather came to the tie-up while I was milking. I didn’t hear him till he sang out, “Gorry sakes alive, Ralphie! Ain’t she a beauty?” He ran his hand along the new cow’s back, pressed it against first one side of her and then the other. “Gorry sakes! Gorry sakes!” he said over and over, as he laid a palm against her, pressed it with the other hand, and seemed to be listening
. “Great thunderation! Wouldn’t be a mite s’prised if she was to have twin calves. Gorry sakes! Might happen they’d be steers! Ralphie, did ever you drive a yoke of steers? Powerful good critters in the woods. Steady. Ain’t high-strung and flibbertigibbet like hosses. I and you might need a yoke of steers whenst we go to clearing the wilderness field.”
I didn’t know what Grandfather meant by the wilderness field, but it made me remember about the rocks in the high field, so I asked, “Is it all right if I use the stone drag to haul rocks off the high field? Some of them are pretty heavy to carry.”
“Hosses! Hosses! Hosses!” Grandfather snapped. “Can’t you do nothing without hosses? I got to use Old Nell. Got to attend every auction roundabouts. Got to keep my eye peeled for milk cows. Afore snow flies, I cal’late on having one in every stanchion in the tie-up. How many stanchions is there, Ralphie?”
Before he’d finished, the edge was all gone from his voice, so I said, “There are ten good ones and two broken. If I fix the broken ones, can I use the yella colt for hauling rocks?”
“Have to be all-fired careful of him. High-strung! Ain’t fit for a boy to handle! Twelve, you say? Gorry! Afore the fire, there was twenty. Come winter, I and you’ll get out the timber for building on the rest of the barn. By fire, I do believe this old heifer’s going to have twin calves. ’Twould tickle me if they was steers.” When I looked up from stripping Clara Belle, Grandfather was gone.
I thought there was going to be a bad wrangle at the breakfast table the next morning. The night had turned a little chilly for the end of July, and flies were thick on the kitchen ceiling. Millie was peevish about them. When Grandfather began talking about all the cows he was going to buy, she snapped, “Better get dry ones, or fetch calves along with ’em! If you’re cal’lating on me making butter in this beehive of flies, you’ve got another cal’late a-coming.”
Instead of blowing up, Grandfather chuckled, “Feisty, ain’t you, Millie girl? Come fall, I’m cal’lating on fetching a hundred pounds of butter a week off to Lewiston. Ought to be thirty cents, come fall.”