10. The Blacksmith and the Veterinarian ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Sometimes, wires get crossed, and a person carries a memory that is really two or three memories that don’t belong together.

So it was with Robert, who always conflated a poem and two verses. The first was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Village Blacksmith,” which begins

Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands …

The second was George Orwell’s twisted snippet of verse in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which Robert read in high school and which goes

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me:

There lie they, and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

In grade school, Mrs. Thrush had taught Robert’s class a song based on a nursery rhyme that called upon the students to use rhythmic gestures with the verses. The song was repeated but, during each repetition, a line was no longer sung and was replaced with the gestures only, until, on the final repetition, there was no singing whatsoever and only the gesturing in place of the melody. The song went

Under the spreading chestnut tree

Where we sit both you and me,

Oh how happy we will be,

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

By putting the three together, Robert always remembered that one of the two people under the chestnut tree was a happy blacksmith. Whenever Robert thought of the happy blacksmith, he pictured Tony Arrigo, the blacksmith in Pine Village when Robert was growing up.

If Joe needed welding, he turned to Tony, whose good nature never failed to impress Robert. In his grimy welder’s cap and his heavy apron, Tony would greet Joe, Charles, and Robert with a smile that looked all the brighter for the smudgy dust that often necessarily accumulated on Tony’s face. The blacksmith shop had belonged to Joe’s relative Thomas “Tommy” Eleazer Fenton, who had passed away in 1929. When he was in the early grades, Robert played with the lengths of filler rod lying in the dust in front of Tony’s shop. Robert poked them in the ground to make palisades around imaginary forts.

Years earlier, Glen J. Brutus had driven to Rockville, Indiana, to see a 23–90 Baker steam traction engine that had been built in 1923. It was parked beside a jailhouse to act as an emergency heating plant. Glen had returned to Pine Village and had told T. S. “Windy” Stingle about the engine, which Windy had bought. The original flywheel had been replaced with a Reeves flywheel. Windy had stored the engine alongside Tony’s shop, where Windy had planned to put new tubes in the boiler. The engine had rested there for years, until Alvin Kline of Millersburg, Ohio, acquired it.

Tony didn’t seem to mind having the Baker become a permanent exhibit. He was always a happy blacksmith!

On a cold morning in the dead of winter, Joe drove to Doc Cullop’s home, and Doctor Richard H. Cullop, the veterinarian, followed Joe back to Joe’s barn. A cow was having trouble delivering her first calf. She was standing in the barnyard to the south of the barn. Doc was hurrying. The Holstein had been trying to deliver the calf for over two hours.

Doc lifted the calf jack from his pickup and handed it to Joe. Then Doc removed his winter coat and hat, placing them in the front seat of his truck. Robert wondered why Doc had taken off his coat. Next, Doc took off his flannel shirt. He was wearing only a T-shirt. He hauled out of his truck a bucket of sudsy water and washed his hands and arms repeatedly in the steaming liquid. He dipped a new sponge in a second bucket and swabbed the area where the calf should have appeared.

Robert could hardly believe his eyes as Doc then thrust his arm deep within the cow—all the way up to Doc’s shoulder. The way he struggled made Robert believe that Doc wished his arm were longer.

“Its hind legs are trying to come out first,” Doc said to Joe.

Doc struggled for several minutes. He had to push the hind legs back from the canal, find the front legs alongside the hind legs, and pull the front legs forward before spinning the calf into an upright position.

“Let’s see what she’ll do now,” Doc said, standing back.

To his experienced eye, the cow appeared to be unable to deliver the calf.

“Alright,” Doc said. “We’ll have to pull it.”

The hoop was lifted into place and suspended across the back end of the cow. Doc reached the small chains within the cow and attached them to the calf’s front legs.

“Joe, you start,” Doc said, watching carefully.

Robert’s father ratcheted the first chain.

“Wait,” Doc said, reaching in. “Alright. Another!”

Joe ratcheted the second chain.

“Wait,” Doc said, again reaching in. “Alright. Another!”

Robert’s father ratcheted the first chain.

“Keep going!” Doc said.

Joe ratcheted the second chain.

In this way, first one leg of the calf came into view, followed by the other leg. Joe later explained to Robert that the calf’s shoulders are the widest part and can become wedged in the mother’s pelvis, unless one shoulder comes through ahead of the other shoulder.

The nose of the calf was showing.

“Alright, I’ll take over,” Doc said, trading places with Joe.

Doc ratcheted the jack a little faster, a little faster, and a little faster. Here came the calf!

“Joe, get ready to break its fall,” Doc said.

Just then, the cow groaned and sank onto her front knees.

“It’s alright, Joe. They sometimes do that. It’ll just be a little harder for me. That’s all,” Doc said.

The cow’s back legs buckled, and the cow dropped the rest of the way to the ground.

Doc touched the frozen earth with his end of the calf jack rod and ratcheted again.

“I wish I could get a little more angle,” Doc said. “Joe, tug lightly on the calf’s front shoulders. That’s good!”

Doc lifted the rod a little and ratcheted quickly. He lowered it again, still ratcheting.

He lifted and lowered, lifted and lowered, until, quite suddenly, the calf slithered all the way out. Joe was kneeling and caught the calf’s hind quarters, guiding them gently down.

“She’s a girl!” Doc said.

Robert marveled at how bright the white and black fur of the calf looked. The white was as pure as new snow.

Doc ensured that the calf and cow were in good condition all around before washing his hands and arms, drying off, and putting on his shirt and coat and hat. Joe, meanwhile, scattered a bale of straw around the calf as a temporary measure.

“I’ve seen calves in worse positions,” Doc said, when he had loaded his truck and was ready to return to his clinic. “If they’re going to be presenting wrong, I’d prefer they be like this one. Still, it’s a job to push those hind legs and that butt back over without losing hold of the front legs, which are crisscrossed with the back ones.” While he was talking, Doc was gesturing to demonstrate the effort that he had made deep within the cow. “Getting the calf to come on around isn’t as difficult. It looks like you have a good calf there.”

Robert asked, “Will that cow always have trouble having a calf?”

Doc smiled. “That’s a good question,” he said. “Most likely, she’ll have easy deliveries after this one. She’s just young and a little small. That’s a nice big calf!” Doc turned toward Joe. “If she does have trouble the next time, can we make it a warm day, Joe?”

Robert’s father laughed and shook his head. “I’m sorry she was due this early,” Joe said. “I usually get their dates worked out so the bitterly cold days are over before calving begins.”

“I’m only razzing you,” Doc said. “Let me know if you have any more trouble.”

After Doc’s truck pulled away, Joe said to Robert, “Help me encourage her to get up.” As the two of them walked toward the cow, she stood of her own accord, turned around, and began licking her calf. Within a few minutes, the calf stood on its own!

“Now that the calf’s standing, I’d like to get them in the barn,” Joe said. “You stand back and encourage the cow a little if necessary.”

Then Joe slowly approached the cow while talking gently to her. He bent over, putting his arms around the calf’s chest and hind quarters. In this way, he helped guide the calf ten feet to the barn door. The mother muttered but did not become belligerent. She followed along, her nose inches from her newborn. In no time, Joe had both within the stall. He and Robert put in extra straw bedding to help ward off the cold.

Watching Doc at work had deepened Robert’s appreciation for expertise gained through long study and broad experience.