4. The Fair ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

With her placid nature and good outlook, Vicky, the polled Hereford heifer, was easy to train for the 4-H show ring. Robert had merely to touch a hind hoof with the long pole made for the purpose, and she adjusted her leg to present her form in the best position. Diane, the name Charles had finally chosen for his heifer, was another story. She fought the halter, she held her head down as if she would prefer to butt anyone who came near her, and she kept spinning sideways while planning her getaway. Poor Charles! Diane stepped on his boots again and again.

When the Warren County 4-H Fair in Williamsport rolled around, Diane was no calmer. Joe had to take her in tow to lead her to her stall in the north end of the coliseum building. Once she found that she was tied next to Vicky, Diane felt a little better, but she continually watched over her shoulder and mistrusted the movements of the fairgoers who strolled behind the cattle. On the day when Charles led her into the ring for judging, she bucked and reared. The farmers who volunteered to help with the beef competition had to take charge of Diane—but not before she had stepped on Charles’ toes! She earned a red ribbon for her pains.

Vicky, though, peacefully joined in the fun of the contest. Each time that Robert brought her to a stop in the ring, she needed no prodding from him to place her hooves in exactly the right places. Robert could take the precious seconds when he might have been working with her feet to brush up the curried horizontal rows of fur along her thigh and across the back part of her barrel, making her appear just that much more rectangular. When the judge handed Robert not only a blue ribbon but also a reserve champion purple ribbon, he was proud as punch and happy for Vicky!

At the fair, each township took a turn running the cafeteria. Adams Township had Wednesday evening, one of the busiest suppers of the week. Joe and Don finished watering their pigs just in time to wash up and ready themselves for many hours of shucking sweet corn outside the back door of the cafeteria building. Ida joined Mary in doing dishes and keeping the food line supplied. Ida assigned Charles the task of assisting the men, usually by carrying trays of buns to the grillers or by bringing pans of cooked sweet corn to the line. Ida considered Robert old enough (and responsible enough) to help out; he was assigned a gray rubber tub to collect dishes, and, like Tom Sawyer’s friends, he found collecting dishes a wonderful activity! Long before, he had learned a lesson about which he would remind himself for the rest of his life. Work can be fun, but fun can never be work. Most of the farmers shared a great sense of humor. Some contributed to the general amusement by performing as comics, although not on a stage and not for a salary.

Among the happy farmers was Fred Sundqvist, Sr. Smiles emanated from his face like rays of sunlight while his eyes sparkled behind his glasses. In the 4-H cafeteria building, he was ubiquitous, bringing sunshine wherever he went. Here he was wearing his broad white apron and flipping hamburgers on the big grill. Yet here he was razzing Don and Joe about their shucking of the corn. But here he was bringing laughter to a long table full of friends, some of whom he had just met for the first time. Now here he was by the door, discussing swine culture with a foremost hog breeder. He was everywhere!

And Fred even stood before little Robert. “Need a hand with those dishes?” he asked, gesturing with a thumb toward the pile of plates in Robert’s gray tub.

“No, I think I can carry them,” Robert replied.

“They’re not too heavy?”

“No, sir.”

“Are they getting heavier while I stand here asking you questions?”

Robert didn’t know what to say. Fred laughed, and Robert laughed, too.

While Robert was unloading his tub, he saw Fred cutting pies. “How did he get over there that fast?” Robert silently wondered.

Earlier in the day, Fred had been similarly everywhere at once. During the hog judging, he could have been seen leaning on a panel beside the ring with one brown work shoe up on the bottom board. Then he had been back by the pens, persuading pigs to move peacefully down the aisle to be exhibited. Soon, he had been joking with Charlie Coffman about hamming it up at the keyboard of the organ that Charlie played on the platform of the coliseum.

There was no harder worker than Fred Sundqvist, who understood that work can be fun.

… but fun can never be work. Those who had to work at having fun or being funny seldom had fun and were definitely not funny. Confronting the exigencies of daily living began with a sense of humor originating in the heart. Well acquainted with the caprice of the weather—which could make or break farm profits—farmers had to love long hours and hard work that most often took place outdoors in all kinds of weather, and they were most successful when they learned to accept loss with wit, if not a smile.

While Robert picked up dishes in the 4-H cafeteria, he encountered men and women who had spent seven, eight, or nine decades on farms. No matter how self-reliant, they respected the importance of the collaboration that placed rural communities on firm foundations. They were genuinely grateful when Robert cleared a place for them at one of the tables that were arranged in long parallel lines down the length of the building. With keen glances from faces that revealed their years in sun and wind, they politely thanked him with a “much obliged, young man.” Robert felt that, in the simple act of lifting plates into a tub, he had helped make the evening more pleasant for others who had spent decades helping shape and form the good world that he was enjoying.

On Thursday evening, Ida and Charles made a quick trip from the fairgrounds to Pine Village to feed Spot and the ducks while Joe and Robert took care of the family’s livestock exhibited at the fair. Joe and Robert finished early, so Robert’s father suggested that they take a look at the new farm machinery on display.

They walked up and down rows of shiny tractors and various implements exuding the indefinable fragrance of new equipment. As dealers in farm machinery were enjoying a huge increase in sales over the year before, they brought plenty of exhibits to the fair. The newest tractors were more rugged in appearance with heavier gearing.

Joe glanced over to the Ferris wheel. “Want to go for a ride?” he asked Robert, who had to ponder the offer.

Robert was deathly afraid of heights. Once, on a trip to visit Andy and Emmajeanette, the family had scaled the limestone Observation Tower—seventy feet tall—at Washington Park in Michigan City, and Robert had just about passed out from fear when he reached the top. At the farm in Pine Village, a sugar maple in the hog lot had a tempting lateral branch about six feet off the ground, and, time and time again, Robert climbed the trunk so as to sit on the limb but lost all resolve to climb back down. Patiently, he waited for his father to appear in the chicken lot or the barnyard, and, when Robert saw him, he yelled for Joe to come rescue him. Joe had to bring a stepladder to retrieve his son; somehow, Joe never lost his temper at the repeated instances when Robert became stuck on the limb.

Reluctantly and meekly, Robert said, “Yes.” Joe paid the attendant the price of the tickets, and Joe and Robert strapped themselves into one of the Ferris wheel’s seats. Up and up they went. When they were exactly at the top, the wheel stopped.

After several seconds, the attendant shouted up that the ride was not getting electricity and that he would run up to the main electrical box to see if he could determine the cause.

Robert was ready to panic, but his father spoke reassuringly, “There’s nothing wrong where we are. We’re safe. He’ll get the motor going again, and we’ll be on our way.”

Hushed breezes passed by while the seat rocked lightly. Robert and Joe looked down on tractors that they had looked up to only a few minutes earlier. They could see the roof of the coliseum. The conversations of fairgoers seemed strangely nearby for as small as the people appeared from high atop the wheel. Robert and Joe gazed up at fluffy white clouds that were almost immobile, only now and then taking a step forward, and Robert and Joe gazed down on the life of the fairgrounds.

Robert marveled that his father was calm, but Joe understood and trusted the machinery. Taking a deep breath, Robert relaxed and waited for the wheel to roll on.

Shortly, the attendant returned. He shouted, “It was a breaker in one of those new circuit breaker boxes!” The motor hummed back to life. The wheel creaked and began to orbit again.

Before long, Robert and his father were back on terra firma, their Ferris wheel ride enshrined in their memories.