Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
My mother was born in Melita, Manitoba near the end of the nineteenth century, the fifth daughter of Thomas and Jeanne Munro Hope. The sixth child and only boy was my uncle Munro. My grandmother died soon after he was born.
My father was born in Walkerville, Ontario but was orphaned after his mother's early death and his alcoholic father's abandonment. He was raised to his teens by his older brother Dan. He then became a high-steel worker and worked at that trade during the construction of the grain elevators at the Lakehead and in Detroit. Soon after the turn of the century he came west as a professional baseball player and met my mother, who was working as a secretary for 'The Massey-Harris' as it was called.
My oldest brother, Robert Thomas, was born in 1918 and my older brother, Lloyd, a year and a half before me in 1923.
Uncle Munro stayed on the Saskatchewan farm near Cabri he had settled on after he was married to a second generation Norwegian girl from North Dakota.
I can't remember exactly how old I was when we made our first summer trip to Saskatchewan but if I had to guess I'd say I was five. I was born with a right inguinal hernia and was required to weary a silly little truss with a snap-on red sponge pad theoretically to keep the hernia from protruding. Try to visualize nailing a raw egg to a barn door and you'll realize how much chance there was for the sponge to stay in place for an active child. I know there was one year when the other boys were jumpimg from the top of the barn to the top of the haystack and from the door of the loft to the ground and I was forbidden to do any of these exciting things because of 'my condition'. I wore the accursed device when I went to school one year so I'm guessing that I was patched up after my first year at school.
The hernia was surgically repaired at the old Calgary General Hospital during my seventh year. My mother took pleasure in relating the story of my emergence from the anaesthesia. She was sitting beside the bed when our family doctor entered the room to check on my progress. Before he had a chance to say anything I beat him to the punch, much to my mother's intense embarrassment.
'Goddam you, Dr. Maxwell, I'm never going to speak to you again!' I stated indignantly. He just stood at the bottom of the bed and laughed heartily.
'I came to see how you were feeling,' he said, 'but I assume from your comments that you're doing fine!' he said and walked out of the room, still chuckling.
'I don't know what he thinks is so funny!' I said, feeling miffed. My mother couldn't restrain a slight smile as she responded.
'He thinks it's funny because his name is Dr. Francis. Dr. Maxwell is our family dentist!'
'Oh!' I said,
'And I don't know what ever came over you to talk that way to the doctor!' she said. 'You should be ashamed of yourself!' I was ashamed of myself; I had thrown away what I considered to be a good line. So I was late getting to Saskatchewan that year and there was still no 'high-jumping'. I don't know what kind of arcane arrangement my folks made with Munro and Mabel each summer but they never stuck around for more than a day or two. In fairness I guess my Dad had his baseball team and his billiard parlour to manage but if we had been the sensitive type we would have had the feeling we had been 'dumped'.
It wasn't a bad deal, actually, because our cousins were virtually the same ages as Lloyd and me. Bobby, the younger, was my age and Munro (known to the family as 'Sonny') was Lloyd's age. Even after we had visited every year for several years there was still a short period of shy embarrassment when we would first arrive in Munro's farmyard and step out of the car. Naturally we would hug and kiss Aunt Mabel and kiss Uncle Munro but then we would stand around, awkward and speechless for a while until one of our cousins suggested a diversion. Joyce, younger than Bobby by a couple of years, would have been crying throughout our arrival. I assumed it was from joy and excitement.
I think Bobby was 'snake-bit' when it came to introductory demonstrations. His preferred victims seemed to be the setting hens from the henhouse. Setting hens tend to be extremely cross and defensive when approached,
'Just reach in there and grab it by the legs,' Bobby would say with a wide apprehensive smile, knowing full well what the result would be. As soon as our hand was within striking distance the targeted hen would peck viciously at it. More as a result of surprise than pain it would be hurriedly withdrawn.
'You've got to be assertive,' Bobby would say with a laugh. He would then thrust his hand in under a hen, ignoring the harassing hen pecks and drag the loudly complaining bird from its hutch.
'I'll bet you guys didn't know chickens could swim,' he would say importantly, heading for the 'dugout' The 'dugout' was exactly what its name implied, a huge pit dug out of the ground west of the windbreak to provide a storage reservoir for watering the animals and watering the garden during drought periods. This was a drought period.
Half way to the 'dugout' on our triumphal march to our destination Bob suddenly stopped. 'Aw, shit!' he exclaimed.
'What's wrong?' Lloyd asked. We all assumed the hen had crapped in his hand.
'The stupid thing laid an egg!' Bobby replied.
'I thought that was its job!' I said gratuitously. It drew an angry glance from the showman.
The hen's unexpected contribution seemed to have broken Bobby's concentration. 'Aw, the hell with it!' he said. 'It can find its own way home!' He fully expected, as we all did when he hurled the bird high in the air, that it would spread its wings and flutter back to the henhouse. But it didn't; It acted as though hypnotized, and with its wings tucked tightly to its sides, described a lovely parabolic flight through the air, landing with a heavy thud, breaking its neck in the process. Like mothers everywhere, Aunt Mabel seemed to have second sight and suddenly appeared in her kitchen apron at the edge of the barnyard.
'What in Heaven's name do you think you're doing?' she said angrily to Bobby.
Bobby, a blonde, had blushed deep red by this time. 'I was just going to show the boys how chickens could swim!' He was about to add that the stupid hen had laid an egg, but thought better of mentioning it.
'I don't suppose you had the wit to bleed it so we could at least eat it!' she cried.
'I forgot,' Bobby replied sheepishly.
'I'm not surprised,' she said, turning back toward the house. 'Stupid, stupid boy!' she muttered angrily. As she disappeared around the corner of the house Bobby turned and hurled the fresh egg as far into the plowed summer fallow as he could.
'What'd you do that for?' Lloyd asked. I was also amazed.
'Out of sight, out of mind!' Bobby said with a smile. I finally figured out that he had wisely decided that to present the egg to his mother would open up the unpleasant situation once again. The mishap put a damper on Bobby's plan for a 'gang-buster' opening reception but it was soon forgotten and we were directing our activities to other mischief.
I think I told you that Bob Hope seemed to be 'snake bit' when it came to trying to perform an impressive stunt the first day we visited the farm each year. Actually, it usually extended well beyond the first day. We had been fooling around near the hen house one day when Bobby found a large egg in the grass on the ground.
'That's a turkey egg,' Sonny said, 'it might still hatch!'
'No way,' Bobby said, 'it's been abandoned.'
'How can you tell that?' Sonny said.
'There's no turkey around, is there?' Bobby said scornfully.
Sonny was not to be dissuaded. 'There's probably a turkey hen around somewhere watching us. It's just wild.'
'I say it's dead,' Bobby said stubbornly. 'Watch!' He threw the egg onto the ground where it broke open, revealing an almost completely formed hatchling. It kicked futilely a couple of times then became still. Bobby had done it again! We stood around in complete silence as Bobby's face gradually reddened.
'Well, I thought it looked dead,' he said lamely, confronted by three accusatory faces. 'It was only a turkey!' he added, as though that would mitigate the stupidity of his action. Silence prevailed until we all turned away and left him standing above the pathetic remains of his foolishness.
The annual picnic was held that year at Bowlsby's who lived north along the road to the Cabri ferry. One of Bobby's chores was to feed the two market pigs before we left. Apparently he overlooked some essential part of his responsibility, such as closing the access to the 'chop' after feeding them. Being pigs, they simply went back into the feeding area and continued eating until they were unable to consume more.
It seems that certain grains or legumes generate a gummy gaseous foam that prevents what agriculturists call 'eructation' of the gases that are generated. If overfed, as these pigs were, the reults are bloating and possibly death. Bobby must have thought he had overlooked something when carrying out his chores, because he returned immediately to the pig pen when we got home several hours later. One of the pigs was lying on its back with its legs akinbo as though practicing prematurely to be a football. The other pig was lying on its side, looking distressed.
Uncle Munro was notified and appeared carrying a quart bottle of what we later found out was a mixture of turpentine and water. He forced as much as he was able down the mouth of each pig while muttering furious oaths which we assumed were directed at the obvious culprit, Bobby. The sicker of the two animals remained on its back, belly greatly distended, but the other emitted a thunderous prolonged belch and seemed to begin a rather amazing recovery.
'That's all we can do for now, Munro said, straightening up. I wish we could find someone around here who could do what they're supposed to!' he said, glaring at Bobby. 'Christ's Sake!' he growled, and headed back to the house. For once Bobby was speechless. He had screwed up and he knew it. He was also aware that everyone else knew it.
The following morning Uncle Munro had a further viewing of the pig pen. The one pig that had been least affected seemed quite fit, the other had not moved and was still lying on its back with its legs in the air.
'It ain't gonna get any deader, 'far as I can see,' he said grimly. 'Better get your wagon and cart it out to the refuse pile.' He was looking at and talking to Sonny; Bobby had been sent to Coventry and was being ignored by most of the family.
The wagon Munro had referred to was just a standard slightly rusted metal kid's wagon that was only large enough for one dead pig. It was loaded up and the trek to the dump began. Lloyd and Sonny were pulling on the handle. Bobby had picked up a pitchfork and was pushing on the wagon from behind. The garbage dump was about a hundred and fifty yards east of the barn in a summer fallowed field so the load was heavy pulling with the thin wagon wheels sinking into the loose dirt. About half way out to our destination the wagon wheels sank into a particularly soft spot and forward progress stopped. Lloyd and Sonny were pulling hard at the front and Bobby was pushing hard from behind.
'Heave!' Sonny grunted.
Suddenly the wagon pulled free and the pitchfork Bobby was shoving on so hard slipped off the backboard of the wagon and one tine punctured the pig's hind quarters about an inch to one side of its anus. There was a loud, high-pitched whistling sound as the trapped gases rushed out of the dead animal.
'We should have thought of that yesterday!' Bobby said, with a hysterical laugh.
'Very funny,' Sonny said, not laughing. 'Just shut up and push!' The procession set off again and soon arrived at the dump. Bobby was obviously still being punished. The pig was dumped and covered with straw and barn debris and we headed back to the farmyard.
The outhouse at Munro's farm was about a hundred yards northeast of the main house. It was larger than most of its kind; perhaps it had originally been a storehouse of some sort. Yet it was still a 'one-holer' and I don't think it would have been readily moved. I expect that some kind of 'honey wagon' made its regular rounds and cleaned it out every few months. The 'delicious' odour was minimized by the the use of a mixture of stove ashes and chloride of lime which was conveniently placed at one end of the seat and had a scoop resting in it for tidiness.
There was also a well-thumbed issue of 'Look' magazine for the convenience of literate users. Interesting enough, there was an article in the magazine featuring Marie Wilson, a movie star of the thirties. I believe she was starring in an early Lil' Abner movie, since she was attired in the skimpy Daisy Mae outfit: bare feet, extremely brief cut-off jeans and a print cotton blouse with the top three buttons undone, revealing at least half of each perfect, melon-shaped breast. Her legs were perfect and plump and her eyes were large and wide, her blonde hair framing her face angelically. Her image was more erotic than anything we had been privileged to view previously.
I assume I was at least thirteen years old because I felt an immediate uneasy stirring in my groin when I first saw the photo layout. Was it Portnoy's Complaint? It took very little coaxing for my loins to achieve an ecstatic climax. For some unreasonable feeling of mid-Victorian guilt I nervously expected to see Lloyd peering up through the privy hole saying 'What are you doing there, Ron?' Nevertheless I was able to overcome my apprehensions and became virtually obsessed by Marie. I know that I never threatened Creamy's record but I had more 'calls of nature' that summer than any well-adjusted, active young boy would have been expected to have. There was a reason. Every time I went into a backhouse for years to come I would begin to get an erection. Pavlov would have understood.
I think this was probably the same year that Lorraine had come up from North Dakota and organized our social life. Less than a week after her arrival she had established a game of 'Post Office' whch was immediately popular. I assume that most people know the way the game is played. Each time the postmaster announced that there was a letter for the next candidate he or she would proceed to the privacy of the post office (our aunt and uncle's bedroom ) to receive the mail which was, of course, a kiss! Wow! Lorraine received an unusually large number of letters and as a result was frequently postmistress. When she said there was a letter for me I was thrilled.
I had reached puberty by this time so I should have a clearer recollection of the experience, but it seems to have evaporated. Perhaps it was the regimental nature of the routine that cooled my enthusiasm. Had there been a knowledgeable tip of pink tongue involved? I think not. Did the soft sweetness of her lips and the clasp of her slender figure evoke the semblance of an erection? I think not. Either of these desirable occurrences would surely have created a solid fix in my memory, but it seeemed to be lacking. Perhaps it was just a matter of unfortunate timing. A couple of days later were all sitting in the shade of the house when Lorraine blandly stated that the girls in Watford City did it for the boys for 25в. Maybe I hadn't reached puberty! Otherwise why didn't I try to find out if she meant that she would do it for 25в?. Why didn't I try to arrange a clandestine meeting for a serious game of 'Double Registered Post Office' sealed with full tongue and possibly genital involvement? It was because I was a jerk, obviously! She was sending me signals but I was looking the other way.
My uncle suffered a complete crop failure in 1937. On July 5th the temperature hovered around 110 degrees Fahrenheit most of the day. We awoke to the steady hum of the grasshoppers. I noticed that the drinking water from the cistern in front of the house had tiny wiggling semi-transparent things in it.
'Go ahead and drink it,' Bobby said. 'They're quite harmless, we drink it all the time!'
'That's what worries me,' I said. He was not amused.
There was some advantage in the drought for city boys. It meant we got more opportunities to fish in the South Saskatchewan River. Our fishing gear was basic but effective. Ten or twelve feet of line was tied to the end of the willow stick that served as a rod. Three or four feet from the hook a common bottle cork was tied into a loop in the line. The bait was almost exclusively grasshoppers. The only argument revolved around the nature of the grasshopper. Should it be young and juicy or mature, large and kicking vigorously? Sitting on a sandy river bank watching a cork bobber sounds like the ultimate in boredom, but it was very much the opposite. There were discussions underway from time to time that would distract a fisherman.
I've never said much about the grasshoppers, have I? Well, there were plenty of them, all the way from tiny green wingless ones, presumably immature, to the large, fully mature ones that measured three and a half to four inches in length. These monsters would often hover about five or six feet from the ground, loud clacking sounds filling the air as their wings banged together or against their bodies. The wing covers were usually a dark green or gray color and quite tough, but beneath these were large pleated semi-transparent wings with broad red splashes of red or yellow colouring. They were not too difficult to capture so we concluded this was all involved in their mating ritual. Once we had caught one we naturally subjected it to our usual intensive examination, which included goading it to discharge quantities of what we referred to as 'tobacco juice', a dark brown liquid produced from the 'hopper's mouth and may have been some sort of defensive mechanism, although it didn't deter nasty little boys to any noticeable degree. Complete examination required the removal of the separate wing portions, then the legs, futilely tested for Galvanic twitches, and finally the head.
One day I spotted what seemed to be the upper half of a dissected grasshopper lying in the middle of a packed dirt track. I got down on my knees to examine it more closely and realized that it was a female in the act of depositing eggs. All but the upper part of her body was inserted into a pencil sized hole in the ground. Naturally, I grasped the 'hopper's head and pulled it out of the hole. Its lower body was extended beyond normal but it had already deposited most of its eggs. I didn't know whether the eggs were laid early enough to hatch that season or would be an early hatch the coming season. Some years the farmers would have an encouraging catch to their spring seeding with marvellous prospects for an excellent crop. Then high winds from North Dakota would carry black clouds of grasshoppers in and their crops would virtually vanish overnight. Legend claims that the ravenous hordes would eat the armpits out of sweaty shirts left lying about and even eat the handles of pitchforks and shovels; anything impregnated with salty human sweat. We saw lots of grasshoppers but never the hordes of legend, possibly because they had eaten everything in sight and moved on.
'Where's your bobber?' someone would say and all eyes would focus on the spot in the turbid river water where the cork was supposed to be.
'Yup, you've got a bite,' someone else would advise. 'Haul it in!'
By this time everyone else would have thrust the butt ends of their rods into the soft bank and gathered around the lucky individual to contribute free advice, which we all know was worth exactly what was paid for it.
'Wait a minute, maybe it was just nibbling.'
'Naw, give it a tug and you'll have it hooked.'
'Yeah, you better do it before it spits it out. Oops! It's bobbed up again; I think you've lost it!'
'No I haven't, there it goes under again. I'm going to count to count to five then set the hook.'
'Better count to ten, then you'll be sure!'
'Bugger off, all you guys, I'm trying to concentrate here!'
'On occasion a lucky angler would hit the jackpot--Goldeye! The Winnipeg Goldeye was rare and we would hook one only occasionally. A good catch in the river would weigh in at three or four pounds, worth keeping. But the excitement of having such a marvellous fish on the hook far outweighed the anticipation of having landed an edible fish.
There were gophers (Richardson's ground squirrels) in every direction, it was just a matter of finding a convenient burrow to set our snare around. Gophers are not particularly difficult to snare. Their natural curiosity seemed to require that they take a peek from just below ground level every few minutes. If they saw nothing moving they would venture further out, a few inches at a time until all of their upper body was exposed. A quick tug on the snare cord and the animal was trapped. The next problem was disposal. One uncle I had would simply step on their heads and crush them. I didn't like this method, partly because, even as pitiless as I was at that age, it seemed just too brutish, especially when I had to listen to the bones in the head of the little animal being crunched.
Swinging snared gophers in a high arc and slamming them against the ground was fatally effective. In some cases one of their eyes would pop out like a little blue button. This didn't bother us particularly but sometimes the snare had become so deeply embedded around the throat it would eventually have to be cut off. Using steel gopher traps was the most utilitarian method. Each trap had a steel chain about a foot and a half long attached to the handle. At the other end of the chain was a tapered steel pin about two inches long that could be driven into a piece of wood to prevent the trapped gopher from retreating into the burrow. In many cases the gopher was dead by the time we dragged it to the surface, otherwise, a wide swing to thump it against the ground and the job was nearly complete. There was a two cent bounty on each gopher tail so we pulled off a section at the end and stuck it in our pocket. We also skinned a gopher occasionally, salted and dried the skin, then attached it to our straw hat. Big, macho deal! My major triumph came one year when I trapped a weasel and replaced the inferior gopher skin with the weasel pelt. Fortunately, it was the summer that Joyce's sweet young cousin had come up from North Dakota and made it very difficult for me to appear modest with my exotic headgear. Her name was Lorraine and I think we were all completely swept off our feet by her. I think it was the year we were all thirteen or fourteen, including our beloved Lorraine, and we were experiencing a variety of unusual feelings toward her.
We had devised another form of sadistic torture to pursue for the demise of the unfortunate gophers when our other methods became uninteresting. This was called 'drownin' 'em out'! It was disapproved of by Uncle Munro, not for humane reasons particularly but because he considered it to be a frivolous waste of water which had to be replaced by water wagon. Most genetically correct gophers would have inherited the compulsion to continue their burrow on beyond the underground nest and back up to the surface to provide an emergency escape route from deadly intruders like snakes and weasels. They still hadn't devised a response for nasty little boys bent on getting them out for a whack on the head. The secondary entrance was usually difficult to find because the gophers had moved all the excavated dirt back through the nest to be piled at the front entrance. As a result none of the tell-tale excavated soil was visible, merely a small, inconspicuous hole several yards from the main entrance.
Once we had definitely established the location of the escape exit we posted a 'man' at each hole with an appropriate weapon while two others would carry buckets of water from the 'dugout' in relays. After two or three bucketsful of water we could usually hear gulping sounds from the gopher hole. Another bucket poured and there would be a sopping wet gopher start out of the hole only to duck back down once it saw what was awaiting. One more bucketful usually did it; a sodden gopher would exit one hole or the other and make a run for it. It usually didn't get far; the executioners were poised and the victim was quickly despatched. There was no feeling of sympathy or remorse.It was just a game! I was almost completely desensitized.
One year there was a plague of field mice. Aunt Mabel hated it because they were in the cellar running along the shelves amongst her jars of preserved meat and vegetables; some would scuttle across the floor while dinner was in progress. They were everywhere. In the farmyard we were able to turn over any loose board and see mice scuttle in every direction looking for another hiding place. Some even revealed tiny nests filled with little pink, sightless babies. Naturally, another diabolical game was soon devised. Each time a board was overturned we would clap our straw hats over the refugees and then slide our hats around slowly. As each mouse's tail appeared we would pick it up and carry it to an empty forty-five gallon steel drum where it was deposited for future use.
We had for some time been practising a form of archery. In those days all butcher stores and some other merchants wrapped and tied strings around any purchases made. The string they used came from a large cone-shaped roll sitting on the counter from which it had been threaded up through an eyelet in the ceiling and hung back down within easy reach of the merchant. When all of the string had been used there remained a small wooden cone-shaped core of wood on which the string had been wound. Normally these would have been thrown away but Sonny had somehow made a deal with the Chinese store owner in White Bear and had acquired a stockpile of half a dozen of the little hollow wooden cores. The hole through the middle was about an inch in diameter, just large enough to accommodate one of the sharp pointed arrows we had made from cedar shingles. The shingles would split true if we started at the narrow end with a sharp knife. Then, using the sharp knife again, we could pare down the central portion of the piece, leaving the full width for about three inches at the thin end of the arrow and gradually sharpening the thick end into a sharply pointed bullet-shaped head. We cut strips of old automobile rubber inner tubes about an inch wide and tacked the ends of an eight inch strip to either side of the hole at the thick end of the discarded wooden string cone. Some of the elitists among us actually flame-hardened the tips of the arrow heads; a gratuitous but macho practice. If an arrow was loaded and the rubber stretched out to extreme tension it was possible to drive the arrow an inch or more into the side of a granary. But that was not the use for which they were intended.
Wild mice bite when they can, so when we had fifteen or twenty stored in the holding barrel, someone with a glove on would reach into the scrambling mass and grab one of the mice by the tail and carry it out into the centre of the farmyard. The victim would usually crouch motionless for a moment or two, during which time it was not considered 'cricket' to shoot. Once oriented, however, the mouse would shoot off in an unpredictable direction. The chase would be on.
Although the survival rate for the mice was quite low, there was a chance, albeit a small chance, that occasionally a mouse would survive the rain of arrows shot at it as it raced across the farmyard toward the safety of the buildings. Sometimes a mouse would suddenly reverse direction and head back toward the open expanse of the farmyard. That was always fatal. The successful archer would pull the arrow from the ground, complete with its little gray ball of mouse 'shashlik'. Sometimes it could be shaken off with a flick of the wrist, other times it was necessary to push it off with a foot. Normally, one would expect that the killing grounds would be surrounded by a dozen or so watchful cats waiting to seize the fresh corpses, but either they refused to eat dead mice no matter how fresh, or they were glutted already with the existing bounty and were too gorged to show interest.
Environmentalists will be pleased to learn that there was one biological species able to escape our juvenile depredations. There were barn swallows living in one of the granaries and they would swoop and flutter endlessly during the day, presumably catching flying insects. We thought that they would present excellent slingshot targets. We were mistaken! Even when we shot a stone at a hovering swallow from only ten feet away they would adroitly dodge it and return to their station. It was incredible! They seemed to have a bat-like form of radar. The cherry-sized stones coming out of our slingshots must have been travelling at least eighty or ninety miles per hour. It was a challenge we never overcame in spite of standing in the door of the granary for hours on end shooting in vain at the fleet creatures.
'I can't figger out what's happened to that load of washed gravel I bought in the spring to build some foundations,' Uncle Munro said to Aunt Mabel one night at dinner. 'I could swear it's only half the size it used to be.'
'Pass the potatoes, please,' Bobby said innocently.
'I could use a little more gravy,' Sonny said. Lloyd and I had our eyes fixed on our plates. I was trying to calculate the volume of a hundred or more pocketsful of stones.
Mabel and Munro had driven to Swift Current one day, leaving Aunt Margaret 'in charge'. Unfortunately it was a day that Lloyd and I had a serious difference of opinion over some presumably minor matter. We also had a slingshot each and pockets full of stones. He was sufficiently angry to have shot and hit me in the leg from a back corner of the house.
'You rotten bastard!' I cried, and shot him in the left knee. Fortunately there was an unwritten law that no one ever shot above the belly button. Even as enraged as we were we continued to abide by the rules but being struck by a stone from a powerful slingshot can be an extremely painful experience. Margaret, alerted by our shouting and cussing came out to see what the problem was. By this time Lloyd and I were circling the house, waiting for a timely shot opportunity. Tempers were at a peak.
'You boys can stop that right now, before someone gets seriously hurt!'
'You'd better be the one that goes in, or you'll be the one getting hurt!' Lloyd shouted. We had both been painfully struck by this time and the shots were vicious.
'You'd better stop or your uncle is going to hear about this!' she yelled back as she disappeared into the house. We decided to call a truce. It was days before the welts disappeared.
Often, long after I had gone to bed, I could hear my aunt and uncle talking quietly in the kitchen while she washed the cream separator parts. In the years to come I would often think of Aunt Mabel and wonder if she ever questioned whether it were all worth it. She worked from daybreak until long after we were put to bed at night. Her days were a non-stop series of cooking meals, washing dishes, baking bread, making butter, preserving meat and vegetables, washing and repairing clothes. The root vegetables had to have the tops trimmed off, as did the carrots, then stored in dry sand in the root cellar. Potatoes were stored in gunny sacks in the house cellar. But she had a loving family most of whom appreciated her when they weren't driving her crazy.
One year I awoke in the morning to the rhythmic sound of water dripping into pots and pans. It had rained during the night for the first time in months and the roof had begun to leak. I never found out if all the rooms suffered but someone, probably Aunt Mabel, had risen during the night and gathered up all the available pots and pans and set them in the drip zones.
Whenever Uncle Munro was ploughing or harrowing I would wonder how he could stand the discomfort of wearing 'long johns'. I finally figured it out, all on my own! By wearing long underwear he eliminated the necessity of washing his entire body each night. His hands and face were black from the field dust but he could wash his hands and face much more easily and quickly than his entire body. Constant exposure to the sun had done its dirty work, however, and he eventually developed skin cancer and had radium needles inserted in his lips for a period. The radium treatment was successful but he was a classic 'redneck' for most of his farming life.
When the corn ripened in August Mabel used to cook huge quantities of the cobs to supply the many appetites that convened. I doubt if there was ever sweet corn that made a faster transit from field to kettle. As a result everyone gorged on the delicious corn and salted butter almost to the exclusion of the rest of the marvellous fresh peas and beets and potatoes. Naturally a friendly contest developed to see whom amongst the lads could pile up the most kernelless cobs. Sonny was usually the winner, having devoured all the corn from an incredible eight or ten fat cobs. Lloyd tried bravely to keep up but was usually second. Bobby and I were 'also rans'. The girls didn't count!
Sonny was often involved in chores that dirtied him quite effectively but his ablutions used to end just above his wrists. He used to eat his corn with his elbows propped on the table. I can still see the excess melted salt butter that he slathered all over his corn tracking its way down his forearms. When he was told to wash his hands, that's exactly what he did. The clean part rarely extended more than half an inch above his wrists.
At any rate, there never seemed to be a day in summer when the kitchen was not busily active. By 1938 Joyce had a little sister they named Marion. She was especially fond of Lloyd, whom she called 'Big Boy'. Well, he was a big boy, ending up at six feet four inches tall and 220 pounds when he went into the Navy. Some days all of the children would sit on the bed in the bedroom just off the kitchen shelling fresh peas. What we didn't eat during the shelling was still enough to keep Mabel busy in the kitchen with Mason jars and boiling water 'putting down' the peas for winter consumption. There were 'pickling days' and 'tiny carrot' days; plums were always available at a certain time and apples were made into sauce, all in Mason jars and stored in the cellar.
I remember that when my mother told me a few years later that Aunt Mabel had died I wasn't particularly surprised. I think she was still in her fifties and presumably a victim of some form of cancer that was popular in those days but not much talked about.
'Probably worked herself to death!' I said.
'Yes, poor dear,' my mother said. 'She had a hard life.'
I have no recollection of seeing a church of any kind in the vicinity and there were no special prayers on Sunday. There were travelling evengelists at large, however, and I remember two young men who visited for several days one year to spread the word. I never was sure what denomination they represented but they had us all singing lustily and enjoying religion for the first time. I don't think they got any money for their efforts but they were given a place to sleep, (presumably in the unoccupied hired man's shack), and had three of Mabel's damned good meals every day. The only line I remember from that educational spasm was: '...hide it under a bushel? No!'
If Lloyd and I, and Margaret, were the only visitors at Grampa's farm it was my boyhood dream of going to heaven on earth. No one called us to get up in the morning and even though we were normally awake by nine we could lie and daydream till we felt like moving. One morning I was awakened from a deep sleep by a loud shotgun blast. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my cut-off jeans (my entire raiment for the day), and ran barefoot out of the hired man's shack where we slept. Grampa was walking toward the fence beyond the barn, carrying a large chicken hawk by one wing. I ran to catch up with him.
'I only heard one shot , Grampa!' I said.
'Only takes one,' said Grampa laconically.
'Boy, that's some kinda shooting, Grampa! What'd he do?'
'This old bugger's just stolen three of my chickens since this spring, but he's stolen his last one now!'
'What're ya gonna do with him now?'
'I'm going to string him up on that there barbed wire fence. Maybe it'll serve as a warning to his friends.'
'Does that really work?'
'So they say. Anyway, run in now and get some breakfast from your Aunt Margaret, and don't ask so damn many questions.'
If anyone were looking today for a typical self-sufficient farm of the early part of the century, they would be heartbroken to think they had not made a deal before Grampa's farm was broken up. The farmyard itself was fenced in with three-strand barbed wire, presumably to keep pastured farm animals from wandering around near the house. They seemed to be effective in spite of the fact that the drifting soil caused by the drought had piled up on either side of the fences so that theoretically any animal so inclined could easily walk up one side and down the other. It was all caused by a nasty natural synergism; tumbleweeds would break off from their roots in the autumn and roll across the prairie driven by the wind until they were trapped by a wire fence, then would act as a perfect sand fence to allow the buildup.
Immediately next to the house was a conrete-lined cistern which held the drinking water for the house. A bucket on a rope was dropped down and flipped until it fell over and filled with water which was then hauled up, the cistern cover replaced and the water taken inside. I can still see Grampa frowning his disapproval when he was in Calgary and we would turn on the tap and let the water run while washing our hands. This was borderline intolerable to one who had pumped and hauled by horse-drawn tank every cupful of water for the house from a river eight miles away.
'Are you going for a swim, then?' he would ask sarcastically before walking away shaking his head.
The first building next to the fence that ran along the south side of the farmyard was a forge and harness repair shop. The harness for a full team of huge Belgian or Clydesdale plough horses was extremely complex and was subject to frequent breakage. Making it more stout would minimize breakage but make it so heavy it would put additional strain on the horses and also make it virtually impossibley for one man to harness a team. Running to a harness-maker in town was time consuming and impractical, even if one had existed. As a result the prairie farmer became virtually self-sufficient. The same situation prevailed for the repair or replacement of iron and steel strapping, struts or bracing and we were always excited when the forge was lighted up and we were allowed to turn the crank on the blower that forced air to the coke glowing in the forge.
The next three buildings leading along the fenced area were storage granaries. One year we arrived to discover there was a litter of kittens living beneath the farthest granary and made interminable hopeless efforts to lure one of them within reach. But they were completely feral, as wild as forest deer and impossible to tame. It was probably just as well, saving us from innumerable scratches and bites. Grampa encouraged their existence since they were presumably subsisting entirely on wheat-eating vermin like gophers (supplied by 'Mom-cat') and mice.
One summer day Lloyd and I were standing outside the main door to the barn when Grampa emerged sitting atop a heavily-loaded two-wheeled cart pulled by one of the plough horses.
'What're ya doin', Grampa?' Lloyd enquired.
'I'm just taking this load over to the manure dump in the south field,' he replied. He had obviously just spent a couple of hours swamping out the barn stalls.
'Can we go with ya?' Lloyd asked. 'We could ride up top!'
'It's a load of manure,' Grampa said. 'If you get up here you're just going to get all covered with shit!' We never let on that we were shocked; we had always assumed that Grampa would never say 'shit' if he had a mouth full of it!
'But we just love 'panoor' Lloyd said assertively. It was the first I'd ever heard about it.
'Why don't you just trail along behind? It's not very far, then maybe you can ride back with me after I've dumped this load.'
'Okay,' Lloyd said reluctantly. So we trotted along behind the aromatic load until we arrived at the dumping ground. After the load was dumped Grampa helped Lloyd climb up beside him for the ride back. I chose to walk. Frankly, I just didn't love 'panoor' as much as Lloyd claimed he did. Lloyd had to live for years with the family quoting his great line: "We just love 'panoor, Grampa!'
There was a gap of about fifteen feet between the back of the sheds on the south fence and the fence itself. Soil had drifted up on both sides of the fence to a maximum depth of about four feet. Wonder of wonders, we found two complete automotive steering column assemblies discarded behind the sheds. We immediately commandeered them and used them to rig up 'race cars' in the deep sandy soil along the fence. It was a simple matter of embedding the steering columns and steering wheels in the soft sandy soil, then digging appropriate cockpits behind them so we could sit like race car drivers and with a little imagination be immediately transported to Indianapolis.
'I 'boneys' to be Barney Oldfield!' I said proudly and sat in my vehicle ready to circle the track at high speed. 'Okay,' Lloyd said, 'then I'll be the Green Hornet!'
'You can't be the Green Hornet!' I said indignantly.
'Why not?'
'Because he's only 'make believe' I protested.
'This whole thing is 'make believe'!' he said. 'What the hell's the matter with you, anyway?' I thought about it for a moment. 'I guess you're right! You can be anybody you want as far as I'm concerned. Let's get going!' 'Vroom, vroom, vroom...! the juvenile roar of high speed racing cars filled the air behind the forgery for several hours a day for the rest of the week.
There was a community 'dugout' a mile north of Grampa's place which held water suitable for the animals and Grampa rigged up one day to take the water wagon to be filled. I begged him to take me along and he was easily convinced by an eight year old. Accordingly, he took off with a happy child seated on top of the wooden tank. He was able to fill the tank with water while I sat in privileged approval on top of the wagon. When he had filled the tank he climbed back to his seat and snapped the reins for the horses. The horses took off with an abrupt jerk and I did a back flip off the back of the tank. Unfortunately, not being a profesional gymnast, I managed to land with one of my arms twisted under my body. I think no one could have been more distressed than my Grampa without actually crying. He felt that the accident was his fault and the responsibility was all his. I enjoyed all of the attention until the sling came off.
Saskatchewan schools let out the following week and we rejoined our cousins back at Uncle Munro's farm. Margaret loaded us into the 1930 Chevy and we were taken back to where the real action took place. There was mischief waiting to be done.
My mother's father, whom we called 'Grampa Hope' lived in a nice old farmhouse a mile west and half a mile south of Uncle Munro's farmhouse. He never married again until all his girls and his only son were married, but raised them all himself. I stilll think of him as a modern-day hero. After they were all settled he married Mrs. Johnson, a childhhood friend who had been widowed years before. Whenever Mrs J. was asked to stay with us for a few days to 'babysit' we looked forward to it. Why? Because Mrs. J had a supply of genuine maple syrup candy, some of which we would get each night if we'd behaved ourselves. Regrettably facile!
A visit to Grampa's for a few days after our yearly arrival was mandatory; His house was on a rise of land allowing a view for miles around. Uncle Munro's place could be seen readily by looking to the northeast. Straight east across the road opposite the road that turned in to Grampa's place was a run-down two-story house occupied by an old bachelor called Steve Bates. A visit to Steve's house was a memorable experience. The doorway to one of the main floor bedrooms had been boarded off to a height of about five feet and served as a storage granary and was bulging with wheat.
Steve was of medium height, balding, and looked like he shaved once a week without fail. There was a wen half the size of a chicken's egg on the top of his head. One day Lloyd and I were sent down to Steve's on some sort of errand. He was out in the yard splitting wood for the stove, clad only in a worn pair of bib suspenders, no shirt and obviously no underwear. The inside seam on one leg of the overalls was split from bottom to crotch. Every time Steve set up a section of wood to split and took a full swing at it with the axe, the overall leg would fly to one side and expose Steve's hairy balls dangling down between his legs. Lloyd thought this was sensational and could hardly wait to get back to Uncle Munro's place to relate the story to his cousins.
I had a good look around when we went into the house with Steve to pick up the coal oil or whatever it was we had been sent for. There were chickens roosting atop what had presumably been bookshelves at one time. Now the shelves were stuffed with small canvas bags containing grain samples. Naturally, the sink was filled with dirty dishes and a greasy frying pan. There was a faint acrid stench pervading the room which I finally realized was the smell of chicken shit. I decided then and there that I would live at home with my mother until I was able to get married to some neat girl.
One summer we attended the Annual Picnic and Field Day at a lovely wooded park down by the South Saskatchewan River. They had potato sack races, egg and spoon races, three-legged races and so on. One contest they had was new to me; they put two empty forty-five gallon steel drums next to each other then picked out two boys who looked to be about the same size. They were then outfitted with boxing gloves and lifted into the steel drums. On the signal 'Go' the boys would start flailing away at each other at will. I was mismatched with a sturdy farmboy I guessed outweighed me by at least twenty pounds, at least that was my conclusion after he had pounded me nearly senseless and was declared the winner.
The gentleman busily in charge of all these events was clean-shaven, hair neatly greased and combed and he was wearing a shirt and tie, a vest and suit, and a fedora hat. 'Who in hell is that officious old buggger, anyway?' I asked Sonny.
'Didn't you recognize him?' Sonny said with a chuckle. 'That's old Steve Bates!' You could have knocked me down with a feather.
Years later, just before he retired and moved to Saskatoon, Uncle Munro visited us in Calgary. He claimed to have had an unusual experience the previous winter. It had been cold the previous December in Saskatchewan, which, in Saskatchewan is very cold. He said he had seen no sign of activity around Steve Bates's farmhouse for several days. He had not been notified that Steve was planning to be away so decided to drive in and check on him. When he entered the unlocked farmhouse there was no heat, in fact, he said, frost had begun to form on the stovepipe. There was no sign of Steve in the kitchen area other than a red hen strutting amongst and pecking at the few bits of dried food on the unwashed dinner plates on the table.
When he entered the bedroom he found Steve lying on the bed in his dirty long underwear, partially covered by a patchwork quilt and with one unwashed bare foot sticking out from under the covering.
'I swear I thought he was dead,' Munro said. 'I figgered he'd either had a heart atttack or just plain frozen to death! I felt around his wrist and finally found a pulse, though, so I covered him properly then went back into the kichen and got the fire going. After washing his face and getting a couple of cups of tea in him I had him sitting up looking like he might live. By the time I left he'd put his teeth back in and was looking right as rain.'
'So he's still alive, then,' my mother said.
'So far as I know,' he said with a chuckle.
'If it hadn't been for you he'd probably have frozen to death, silly old fool!' Mom said. 'Quite possible,' Munro said.
'If he had died he wouldn't have been neglected indefinitely, at least' Lloyd said.
'Why do you say that?' Mom said.
'Well, it just stands to reason, doesn't it. When he thawed out in the spring, eventually someone downwind would have smelt him and gone to investigate!' All he received for his attempt at levity was a couple of reproving looks from his elders.
'What a disgusting thought!' Auntie Margaret said. I, on the other hand, thought it was rather amusing.
Some years Aunt Margaret spent a month or two at the farm, living in the farmhouse on the hill with Grampa. I think on these occasions the school children in Saskatchewan had not started their summer holidays. This timing may have had something to do with the harvest routine in Saskatchewan. We could always tell when school was out for the day, however; walking home from the schoolhouse the kids would throw the lids of the lard pails they had carried their lunch in high in the air. The object, of course, was to see how far down the road they could sail them, but as they swooped to one side or the other the polished bottom sides of the lids would catch and reflect the sun, making them visible for miles. Sudden flashes like daytime shooting stars! Sometimes Lloyd and I would hop on the bikes and race to meet them at the road intersection.
We frequently hear about people 'playing hardball' these days. The term usually implies that people are playing to win, seriously intent on victory at any cost. It had an entirely different meaning for us. We played 'softball' at school all the way through public school and on into high school. The first few years we used an 'outseam' baseball. The seams on the ball were sewn on the outside and made the grapefruit-sized ball at least seem softer than the inseam ball. By grade nine we had switched to the inseam soft ball. This was a slight misnomer in my opinion; the brand-new inseam 'soft' ball was definitely quite hard. Only the catcher and the first baseman were allowed to wear gloves so all others had to learn to catch a hard-driven ball correctly, drawing it in to the body when making a catch. I considered myself to be a pretty good ball player and was either pitching or playing first base by the time I reached high school. But we were playing softball.
A 'drought years' farmer was quoted as saying: 'The best thing that could be said for those years was that they were great years for baseball...'
My Dad had come west as a professional baseball player in the early years of the century, and they played 'hard ball' in what was equivalent to Triple A baseball in those days. The farmers in every community gathered on Sundays for a 'friendly' game of baseball. One Sunday there was a game between Cabri and White Bear. I was fourteen or fifteen at the time and naturally considered to be a White Bear supporter but Cabri was short one man so it was decided (not by me) that I would be seconded to Cabri as a right fielder. Right field is thought of as a safe place to situate an unknown youth who probably won't get called on to field a ball anyway. This proved to be the case and I stood alone in the long grass of right field watching silently as my (White Bear) team batted. Although they had several hits even they did not favor me with a long fly ball that would have given me an opportunity to display my prowess.
The pitcher/catcher combination is known as a 'battery' and the battery for White Bear that day was a couple of brothers, the Primes. I'm guessing that the elder brother, Delbert, was about seventeen years old and the younger brother, Albert, about fifteen. The Prime brothers were both husky boys but Delbert, the older one, had a build like a weightlifter. They lived down the road about a mile east of Uncle and our cousins informed us that each night after they had finished the chores they practiced pitching and catching for close to an hour.
I had been chatting quietly with my cousin Joyce when one of the Cabri team members called to me. 'Look alive, Helmer, you're up to bat next!' When my name was called out I selected a bat (there were only two or three) and strode confidently to the plate. By this time I had bravely faced the long-armed Peewee Gill who, incredibly enough, could pitch an inseam soft ball underhand with a curve on it! No one could hit his pitches unless they just took a lucky guess and swung in advance. As a result I was totally unprepared for what the Prime boys had in store for me. Delbert's first pitch was high and inside and would undoubtedly have killed me if it had been aimed for my head.
'Steee-rike!' cried the umpire theatrically. I was embarrassed because I had stepped back from the vicious pitch. I determined to stand my ground for the next pitches. Prime obviously decided not to waste any fancy curve balls or sliders on me from that point on and concentrated solely on 'smoking' fastballs. At least I could take a fruitless swing before missing Peewee's pitches; such was not the case with Prime. I was called out before even getting the bat off my shoulder. Mercifully, the tardy member of the Cabri team turned up and I was dismissed with thanks before having to suffer the terror of facing the Prime battery a second time.
One Saturday night we were privileged to go into White Bear where the weekly dance was held. We were not quite to the age where we could participate in the dancing, but there were plenty of other exciting distractions; peering through the open windows of the dance hall at the participants, all dressed 'to the nines' whatever that meant. Certainly some of the normally drab farm ladies looked much comelier wearing make-up and slinky dresses and high heels. A lad by the name of Reuben Hamhouse left a lasting impression on my brother and me. He had a few of the 'show off' instincts of Bob Hope but seemed more suave and capable of comedy than Bob.
A group of us had gone across the street to the Chinaman's store and crowded into a booth. We each ordered a drink of pop and when Reuben's arrived he ostentatiously reached for a straw from the box at the end of the table.
'Well, cheers, chaps!' he said, putting his mouth on the upper end of the straw which projected at least six inches from the mouth of his bottle of Lem 'n Lime. He then proceeded to tip up the bottle. Soda pop cascaded from the mouth of the bottle over his face, down the front of his shirt, soaking it thoroughly en route and then into his lap. He waited until the bottle was completely drained then set it back on the table with a thump.
'Ahh, very refreshing!' he said, without cracking a smile.
The rest of us sat there in complete silence for a moment, then burst into hilarious laughter.
'You must be nuts!' Mike said at last.
'What's the matter? Did I do something wrong?' Reuben said, straight-faced, This staid mien merely provoked another outburst of hysterical laughter. He had obviously achieved his arcane objective. I remember little else about the night we went to the dance in White Bear. This was definitely the highlight.
One day Joyce and Lorraine were given a special treat being allowed to drive into White Bear with Uncle Munro. Lloyd had a special interest in the outcome of the visit because he had given Lorraine 10в to buy cigarettes at the Chinaman's store. The girls had to conceive a complicated lie so they could sneak back to the store and make the purchase. Unfortunately, Munro went back to the store himself for a last minute purchase and was gratuitously informed by the owner, Mr. Lee, of the girls' purchase. Munro made no comment on the return trip to the farm.
Meanwhile, Lloyd had co-opted Sonny into the conspiracy and was looking forward himself to his first satisfying drag in weeks. Lorraine was no stranger to the cancer stick herself and was glad to be involved. Bobby, Joyce and I all chose to abjure but were prepared to be witnesses and soon after the girls' return from town we all drifted out to the back of the machine shed about a hundred yards from the house in what we thought was a casual manner. Lloyd probably looked more like a dope addict craving a fix.
'Lorraine! Where are you, Lorraine?'
'Rats! It's my Aunt Alvina,' Lorraine said. Alvina was Mabel's sister and had come as a guardian for Lorraine when they travelled up from North Dakota. We never did meet Lorraine's parents. Lorraine had been about to inhale her first drag but stopped and carefully knocked off the glowing end of the cigarette and returned it to Lloyd.
'Great timing!' she said dryly. 'I wonder what the heck she wants.' Alvina was in a mood to maximize Lorraine's discomfort.
'What were you doing out there?' she asked.
'Just talking,' she said, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Her aunts and her uncle were seated comfortably at the kitchen table. What's with the third degree? she thought to herself. I wonder if they're going to torture me? She'll probably be smelling my breath next, she thought cynically. It's a good thing I didn't take that first drag.
'Let me smell your breath,' Alvina said.' I knew it! Lorraine thought.
'Smell my breath? Why would you want to do that, for goodness sake?'
Alvina felt she was holding all the cards. 'We just thought you might have been smoking,' she said casually.
'Smoking?' she said incredulously. 'I have not, definitely!' At least she didn't have to cross her fingers behind her back, she thought.
'Do you swear?'
'I swear! Cross my heart and hope to die!'
'Munro says you and Joyce bought a package of cigarettes at the store in White Bear.'
'How would he know that?'
'Because the Chinaman told him. A ten cent package of Sweet Caporals, apparently.' Alvina said triumphantly.
'And he believed him, I suppose?' Lorraine said indignantly.
'I'm afraid it's true, dear' Munro said. 'He would have no reason to lie.'
The dirty little tattle-tale! Lorraine thought, but she realized that further denial was pointless. 'Buying's one thing, smoking is another. I just bought them for a friend,' she said.
'So who was your friend?' Alvina asked.
'One of the boys!'
This is like pulling teeth, Munro thought. 'Maybe you should go out and ask the the boys to come on in,' he said. Lorraine walked back out to the machine shed looking like the recently bereaved.
'What was all that about?' Lloyd asked.
'The cigarettes, I'm afraid,' she replied.
'The cigarettes? But how could they possibly know, you said you and Joyce were alone when you bought them.'
'Apparently Lee told him when he went into the store again. I'm afraid they've got us dead to rights,' she said glumly.
'That rotten little bastard!' Lloyd said.
'He probably thought he was doing Dad a favour,' Joyce said. 'He knows which side his bread is buttered on!'
'See if we ever buy cigarettes from him again!' I said, and we all laughed sardonically. Then we marched in to the house where Lloyd owned up to his culpability. He had managed to smoke one cigarette while Lorraine was undergoing questioning but handed over the rest of the package to Munro for 'safekeeping'.
'I didn't know it was against the law,' Lloyd said in his own defense.
'Actually it isn't against the law,' Uncle Munro told him. 'It's against our rules, though. We think it creates too much of a fire hazard.'
'Yeah, right!' Lloyd said unhappily.
There was a variety of chicken breeds at Uncle Munro's farm including Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns and Barred Plymouth Rocks. I had no knowledge of how fast and for how long chickens could run after they had been separated from their heads. Aunt Mabel had announced that she wanted a plucked, headless chicken delivered to her kitchen in time for her to prepare a chicken dinner that evening. She didn't specify what kind of chicken. In this instance, a White Leghorn made the mistake of doing most of her dodging and evading after she was beheaded rather than before. I guess you could say it was a classic 'cut and run'. The plan was as follows: Bob or Sonny would catch the hen, I would hold it over the chopping block, Munro would wield the axe.
I was honoured to be chosen as the headsman's assistant and gripped the hen's legs firmly when it was finally handed over. It remained quite docile with its head held up, making it simple to hold it over the block with its neck resting conveniently on the chopping block. Whack! Munro severed its head with one quick blow. Then all hell broke loose! The 'dead' bird's wings began to flap furiously and its body turned and twisted uncontrollably. Its neck swung back and blood gushed over my right ankle, soaked my stocking and partially filled my Sisman's Scampers, newly purchased at the beginning of the summer holidays. I guess I choked, because I let go of the bird's legs. Incredibly, almost as though it had eyes in its neck, the hen flew directly over to the woodshed roof and perched on the peak. Finally, like a character in a 1930's movie, it toppled over and slid down and off the shingled roof.
'You okay?' my uncle asked.
'Yeah, I'm fine,' I said, 'I've just got this mess of blood all over my ankle.'
'Why don't you go in and tell your aunt I missed the hen with the axe?'
'Whatta you mean?'
'Pretend I hit your ankle instead of the hen's neck by mistake!'
'She'll really be mad when she finds out we're just joking!'
'Go ahead, she can take a joke!' Big mistake!
Bobby and Sonny were plucking the chicken when I limped into the kitchen. I admit I may have overplayed it. When Mabel heard me come whimpering into the kitchen she took one look at my ankle and turned pale.
'Oh, my God! What happened?'
'The axe slipped,' I moaned.
'Come over here and lie down. Raise your leg in the air!'
I remained standing by the door, a big smile on my face. 'It's only a joke, Aunt Mabel, it's only chicken blood. I bet we fooled you, eh?'
'You fooled me, all right.' she said. 'You also scared me half to death!' Her colour had returned, in fact, it seemed to to have gone a bit past normal. She did not appear to be amused. 'Go out and wash that mess off,' she said, 'and tell your uncle I'd like to have a little talk with him!'
I went outside and passed on the message to my uncle. He had a concerned look on his face when he went into the house. Actually, it may have been more of a guilty look. One assumes that he'd had time to ponder his actions and did not find them as amusing as he had originally. Conversation at the dinner table that night was minimal. I couldn't prove it but I speculated that my uncle slept well over on his own side of the bed that night. Maybe on the floor!
'If you're bored and looking for something to do with yourselves,' Aunt Margaret said, 'you can grab a tin can and join your cousins.' She had just driven us over from Grampa's house, where we had slept overnight.
'Where are they?' I asked.
'Over beyond the south wind break, picking potato bugs,' Aunt Mabel said.
'Oh, boy, my favourite recreation,' Lloyd said.
'Somebody's got to do it,' Margaret said.
'I vote for you,' Lloyd said.
'Don't be saucy,' Margaret said. 'The cans are in the hired man's shack.'
We picked up cans in the shed and trudged across the end of the vegetable garden and through the line of windbreak poplars into the two acres of potato patch. The two boys and a girl were squatting among the green forest of potato leaves.
'Yay, help at last! Bobby cried.
'How ya doin', Buggsy?' Lloyd said.
'C'mon in,' Sonny said, 'the potato bugs are delicious today! You can each have a whole row all to yourself!' Then he laughed insanely. When I looked at the huge expanse of potato plants I had no trouble identifying with his manic attitude. The bugs were at various stages of development; some had just hatched and were bright orange grubs clinging to the underside of the leaves. The mature beetles had developed shells and were more active but all were picked off and dropped into one of the tins. It seems ironic now that there are at least a half dozen different pesticides which would have eradicated all of the potato bugs in a matter of a few minutes if they had been available. Maybe Malathion was available then but it would have been expensive, maybe too expensive. We came much cheaper!
Two or three years after my surgery I was able once again to join in the rowdy games played on the farm when we were unsupervised. I think it was the last year my brother Bob came to the farm. I can't remember what rules we were adhering to or whether we had any; I just remember that my cousin Bobby and I were being hotly pursued by my brothers and Sonny around Uncle Munro's barn. We scrambled up the fixed plank ladder leading to the loft of the barn.
'They're right behind us,' Bobby said, as he pulled the entrance cover over the hole cut in the floor of the loft. The cover had been made from the boards that had been cut from the floor originally but had been nailed to a couple of sturdy planks that extended beyond the hole on either side. 'If you stand on the cover they won't be able to push it up and follow us!' he said confidently. I stood on the cover and felt it being pushed up from below but not sufficiently to allow it to be thrown aside. I was pleased with myself.
The shoving from below stopped suddenly and there was a period of ominous silence. What I didn't know was that Sonny was telling my brother Bob the secret of opening the trapdoor from below when someone was standing on it.
'It's simple.' he said, 'all you have to do is push up one side with a pitchfork. The other end of the cross bars will eventually just slip through the opening and the whole thing will come down.' He never mentioned what would happen to the unfortunate fool standing on top of the trap door. Lloyd had gone off to find a suitable pitchfork. When he returned he was carrying a long-handled fork which Sonny aligned carefully about an inch from one bottom edge of the trapdoor. I suddenly felt one side of my platform rising as the boys below heaved upwards. I dropped straight down approximately eight feet like a sack of wheat; the only thing missing was the hangman's noose around my neck. The worst scenarios had me breaking a leg or an ankle or being skewered by the upturned tines of the pitchfork, but I lay on the floor of the barn virtually unscathed. Fortunately the boys had jumped clear the moment they saw the floor above collapsing. It happened so quickly that I was probably as limber as a drunk and 'rolled with the punch' as it were.
'Are you okay?' Bobby enquired, peering over the edge of the hole above.
'Yeah, great,' I replied, looking up at him. 'Do you have any other brilliant ideas we can use?'
'Jeez, I'm really sorry; I never thought...'
'Obviously,' I said sarcastically. It was not until some time later that Lloyd noticed the razor-thin slit running up the back of my pants and my shirt. Apparently there was the sharp end of a nail protruding about an ich from one of the cross planks on the ladder leading up to the loft. As I shot down it was able to cut through anything it reached far enough to touch, about four inches along the back of one calf, six or eight inches along one buttock and four or five inches opposite one shoulder blade. We carried on with various important undertakings the rest of the day and gave it no further thought. It wasn't until I removed my clothes that night that Lloyd pointed out that I had tiny rows of blood clots on my back corresponding to the slits in my clothing. I carried the scars for years, even though I had never felt the accidental surgery.
I had a couple of other scars to remind me of the dangers of life on the farm. After the sheaves had been stooked and left to cure for a period of time a horse-drawn hayrack passed along between the rows of stooks and the men would follow along heaving the sheaves up onto the rack. I was eventually allowed to stand at the front of the rack and handle the reins for the horses. Finally I was permitted to walk along with a short broken-handled pitchfork and throw up sheaves before the pile became too high. After the immediate area had been cleaned up it was customary for the gatherers to throw their pitchforks in a high arc so the tines would land near the top of the pile and dig themselves in. Since they needed only to walk fifteen or twenty yards before having them handed back to them it seemed like a waste of energy. But it was stylish! One year I decided to be stylish. I threw my pitchfork but it seems the pile was a bit too high.
'Look out!' Sonny yelled. My little pitchfork had landed on top of the pile, executed a U-turn and headed back down in my direction. Luckily I didn't lose an eye; when Sonny shouted I made the stupid mistake of looking up instead of ducking. When I looked I saw the tines heading directly for me. Then I ducked! The fork landed square on my back and the tines dug in for about a quarter of an inch before the pitchfork slowly toppled off and lay on the ground. At least I couldn't blame this one on Bobby. I still have those scars!
In years like 1935 when there was a half decent crop, a group of local farmers would band together and hire a team of threshing contractors which had been moving gradually north from the United States, as far south as Texas. They would move from farm to farm and completely cut and thresh each farmer's crop in a couple of days. Half a dozen women and grown children from the farms involved would gather early each day to perform the cooking and baking at the farm being threshed. These were days of high interest and excitement for us. The threshing machine was stationed about a hundred yards from the farmhouse, preferably in a downwind location to keep the chaff from flying toward the house.
The steam engineer was presumably the first man in the field, although all were early risers. While the engineer was building steam some of the other hands were in the barn harnessing the horses that would be pulling the hayracks; others would be checking the complicated threshing machine for mechanical reliability, replacing broken or cracked slats in the carrying table and making liberal use of the grease gun. We were not allowed to approach closer than about thirty feet from the threshing machine when everything was in operation. As the hayracks came in from the field the stooks were offloaded onto a travelling endless table of canvas with crosswise slats to carry the grain into the threshing machinery. Chaff and straw were blown out the end of a long tube called 'the blower' suspended from the side of the machine and would blow out in a huge cloud that gradually settled into a cone-shaped pile. The grain was stored in a large compartment until a transfer wagon pulled by a pair of horses was driven up ready for loading and transfer to a granary. It seemed the man in charge of the steam engine always had one arm missing, presumably after having been dragged into the endless leather belt which transferred power from the steam engine to the threshing machine. Coal was usually used to fire the boiler but if it was unavailable wood or some other burnable material, usually straw, was used. But watching the threshing machine in operation was not the best part!
It seems that the women responsible for the victualling of the threshing crews took their work to be an opportunity to show off their talents, particularly in the pie and pastry department. But there was a practical reason for their efforts in addition to mere pride. Threshing crews considered themselves to be elitist in good years and were able to pick and choose the farms they would accommodate. Naturally the tendency was to gravitate each year to the farms where the best food was served. Threshing crews were similar to lumber camp crews where talking was prohibited at the table. In the case of threshing crews, talking was not prohibited but they were ravenously hungry and the food in front of them was irresistible. There was little time for conversation. The regular working day was from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., which meant that certain members of the crew were up earlier and although not doing heavy work, their hours were longer. The boiler man and steam engineer would rise as early as 4 a.m. to get steam up, the water wagon man and hayrack men were up no later than five a.m. to get their harnesses rigged and the horses fed and watered. There were anywhere from two to six hayracks depending on the amount of grain to be harvested. Sometimes the threshing machines were pulled up next to field granaries for convenience but in my experience, the machine was out in the field; there were three grain wagons, each drawn by two horses which drew up in turn to be loaded from the threshing machine storage compartment and taken off to the farmyard granaries. The other wives in the group would begin arriving with their husbands around five a.m. and the clatter of breakfast preparation would begin in the kitchen. Meat and potatoes for breakfast was not unheard of, but the standard requests for ham, bacon, sausages and eggs (three or four per man) were predominant. Stacks of toast, salted butter, various jams and jellies, and a variety of condiments were all ready to hand. That was just for starters!
The 'big' meal of the day was 'dinner'. (We call it 'lunch' these days). If there was 'people overflow' the kids ate at the kitchen table or off to one side at folding card tables. If we were fortunate enough to be sitting at the main dining room table with the men, the display of food arrayed before us was literally mind boggling! I wish I had a colour photo of that table! There was a plethora of the usual fresh garden vegetables, boiled and mashed potatoes, beets, carrots, corn, green peas, beans, and legs of ham and beef, both hot and cold sliced, corn and cucumber relish, dishes piled high with freshly cut home-made bread, both white and whole wheat, dishes of soft salted butter, and pitchers of cream and milk and gravy. But the dish I remember most was Aunt Mabel's canned beef. It had been cut in two-inch cubes before being canned in glass Mason jars. The fat had not been trimmed off and during the storage period some miraculous change had taken place to make it the sweetest, tenderest, most delicious meat I had ever tasted and probably ever will taste. And there it was, steaming in its own gravy, heaped into a huge serving dish in the centre of the table. Heaven!
The dining room table was frequently jammed with food to the point where the pies and cookies had to be kept to one side on a separate small table until the main meal was finished and the dishes cleared away. Then each of the women would come out of the kitchen and carry her own pies and cookies to the dining room table, carefully and lovingly describing to the expectant threshers the contents of the pies. Rhubarb and strawberry, apple, raisin, apple and raisin, blueberry, gooseberry, Saskatoon, all made from fresh berries were proudly laid out along with ginger snaps, rock cookies filled with dates. Plain old oatmeal cookies filled the empty spaces. Most of the women would have loved to present a plump lemon meringue or Boston Cream pie but were aware of the problems of transporting such delicate pastry in hot weather.
Normal diners would have groaned and eschewed any serving of pie, no matter how toothsome, but the appetites of men doing heavy work in the field were prodigious. No pie was left untouched but there was still an abundance of pie and cookies left for us to gorge on. Two days later the crew had moved on and there was nothing in the house to show they had been present beyond some sealers filled with a variety of leftover cookies.
It's obvious that there was no shortage of food on my Uncle's farm. I know it's a hackneyed expression to say that a man hasn't got two nickels to rub together but in my Uncle's case I suspect it came very near to the truth. As long as a farmer was smart enough or lucky enough to be involved in mixed farming there was no need to go short of food. Everything was at hand for a variety of meats, both fresh and smoked, poultry, eggs, vegetables, bread, cream, milk and butter. Cash was really not needed except for household appliances and machinery. Ironically, my father's situation was completely the opposite. His income from the billiard room was all in cash. I think he did well in spite of the amount of money 'borrowed' from the till while he was away in New York managing the New York Americans or out of town in Alberta with one of his baseball or hockey teams. Perhaps it was only a coincidence but one year, about a week or ten days after my parents had left us at the farm Uncle Munro was the proud possessor of a medium-sized Caterpillar tractor. He amused us kids and himself by chasing us around the farmyard with it, not a recommended practice these days, surely, by safety-minded parents. Did my Dad co-sign a note at the bank? Did he just write out a cheque and call it a loan? We'll never know. After all, his wife was Munro's sister!
The 'dugout' which every farmer had excavated as a means of saving what little rain fell from time to time was a unique site of activity. There was no large wooden water trough with a constant supply of water pouring into it as typified in Western movies popular at the time. Water was scarce and the dugout supplied water for farm animals of every kind. The plough horses would lose no time heading for the dugout as soon as the heavy harness was removed and they were set loose after a long day of work in stifling heat. After drinking their fill they would find a dry dusty spot where they could lie down with their huge bulk and kick all four legs in the air, squirming about so as to give their backs a satisfying scratch. 'Barnyard grooming', we called it.
At the slightest sprinkle of rain, no matter how brief, garter snakes would emerge from the cracks in the dry mud surrounding the dugout. One rainy day I went prepared with an old empty wine bottle and soon spotted a garter snake emerging from its resting place. It was about a foot and a half long and thin enough for me to grab it and stick its head into the bottle and let it slide down into the interior. I didn't have the wit to hold something over the opening at the top of the bottle. As I held it up to display my captive it decided to depart the premises; instead of lying passively coiled at the bottom of the bottle as I expected it to do, it began to behave as though trained by an East Indian Hindu fakir. Just as the cobras rise from the baskets of the fakirs, my captive emerged from the top of the wine bottle and continued to extend vertically, apparently with no intention to stop. Where was my mesmerizing snake-charming recorder when I needed it? When it had emerged all of eight or nine inches from the neck of the bottle I decided that this reverse hypnotism had gone on long enough and dropped the bottle. The snake slithered off in one direction and I moved briskly off in the other.
'Sissy!' Lloyd said.
'It's easy for you to talk,' I said. 'At least I picked it up! How was I to know it wasn't poisonous? It looked like it was about to strike!' I was rationalizing.
'Yeah, sure,' he said scornfully and walked away.
One day on the way to the gopher-killing grounds we spotted a mother mallard duck paddling down the middle of the dugout with her new brood of ducklings. If we gathered on one side of the dugout she paddled down the opposite side. When we ran around to the other side she paddled back to the opposite side. We had no destructive plans (for a change) but thought it would be fun to spook the ducklings out to where we could catch one and examine it at close range. We finally gave it up and went gopher snaring. On the way back to the house we passed the dugout again. 'Mama' mallard was still cruising back and forth in the middle of the pond. On an impulse I clapped my hands together loudly. The effect was virtually explosive. We could only assume that the mother had thought a shotgun had been fired and given a secret signal to her offspring to scatter, which they did.
There is a commercial passenger hydrofoil in service in England carrying people from Southampton to Cowes on the Isle of Wight. When it reaches a sufficient speed it lifts up onto the foils so that the main hull is completely free of the water. The effect is considered to be highly innovative by knowledgeable boat designers. I've got news for them! The baby ducklings didn't need any time to get up to speed; they took off immediately, little bodies completely out of the water, literally running on the surface at high speed, and they ran in all directions, no longer in the orderly line they had used to follow their mother. They headed for the edge of the dugout and ran right up the muddy sides and into the surrounding undergrowth to find hiding places until called out by their mother, who continued to paddle back and forth in the middle of the dugout.
We immediately ran around to the other side to see if we could find the hidden refugees. Unfortunately for one of the ducklings, luckily for me, there was a deep, slick-sided hole in the mud near the edge of the dugout where one of the plough horses had stood while drinking. The little duckling was vainly attempting to jump out of the pitfall into which it had fallen. When I reached in and closed my hand around it it quit struggling and lay quietly in my grasp.
'I've got one!' I yelled. The rest of the boys quit searching the grass and came over to examine my prize.
'It's just a tiny ball of fluff,' Sonny said.
'A bit small for dinner, all right.' Lloyd said. The tiny duckling was lying quite still but I could feel its heart beating rapidly.
'What're we gonna do with it?' Bobby asked.
'Where do you get that 'we' shit?' I replied sarcastically.
'What, then?' Bobby insisted.
'I'll tell you one thing, mister, we definitely aren't going to be throwing it against the target on the barn wall!' Bobby coloured and remained silent. 'What I'm going to do with it is to return it to its mother.' I turned and walked back to the edge of the dugout. The mother duck was still paddling nervously in circles near the centre of the pond. I knelt down and set my open hand in the water's edge and the little duckling took off toward its mother with an astonishing burst of speed. We retired to the windbreak and stood motionless in the trees to see what would happen next. The hen gave a couple of low-toned quacking sounds and to our amazement the other ducklings came scrambling, one by one, from different directions where they had been hidden in the grass. Before long the original group was reunited and paddling once again up and down the dugout.
'Ain't nature grand!' Sonny said.
'It can be,' I agreed.
We frequently hear of people who are suffering from 'homesickness'. When I was hunting deer in the New Zealand bush we occasionally had young men come in for a bit of adventure. Some of them lasted no more than one or two weeks. The life was rigorous without doubt and the living conditions primitive, but they were not the factors that prompted the young men to leave...it was homesickness! I had been away from home for long periods of time, if you call six or seven months a long time, and had experienced occasional bouts of the unpleasant displacement neurosis. I had always told the sufferers (and myself) that spells of homesickness were not unlike head colds and rarely lasted longer than a day or two, sometimes up to a week.
The case of my cousin Mike was substantially more serious. Plans had been made one day for Aunt Margaret to drive over with the Chevrolet and pick up our two cousins, Lloyd, and me and to sleep overnight at Grampa Hope's place. Mike was not very enthusiastic to begin with but his discomfort increased as soon as we had arrived at Grampa's.
'I think I'd like to go home!' he said. I was astonished to see that he was on the verge of tears.
'You gotta be kidding!' I said. 'We only jist got here!'
'He's not kidding,' Billy said. 'He gets really homesick and we don't seem to know why!'
'Come with me,' Lloyd said and led Mike around to the back of Grampa's house. 'Look!' he said, 'You can see your house from here! You're really just next door!'
'That's easy for you to say, but it's not the same,' Mike complained. The improvement we had hoped for failed to materialize. Mike was inconsolable and remained so until at last Aunt Margaret had to drive him back home, gloomy and distraught.
— The End —