36. The Checkup and the Catalog ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

“Mr. Coffman’s here!” Charles announced, loudly enough for Joe, Ida, and Robert to understand every word, no matter where they were in the house.

By the time Charles reached the front gate of the white-board fence surrounding the yard, Mr. Coffman was already standing there with his friendly smile and a clipboard under his arm. His neatly ironed shirt was worn outside—not tucked in—as if he were at a picnic.

“Are you ready for me?” he asked, while Charles unlatched the gate.

“I think so,” Charles replied. “What do you want to see first?”

Mr. Coffman checked his 4-H clipboard. “I have Robert down for a gardening project. Let’s see the garden!” Mr. Coffman’s smile widened.

By this time, Joe and Ida had joined their sons. Everyone walked along the edge of the garden, Ida’s pride and joy.

The garden lay between the Rhode family house to the east and Cecil Gray’s house to the west. At one time, Cecil’s house had belonged to Joe’s mother’s family, and Joe had been born there. The rows of Ida’s overly large garden were arranged from south to north. As people drove past on State Route 26 or walked beside the school playground, they could look up and the down the rows of lettuce, beets, carrots, turnips, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, beans of all sorts, pumpkins, and sweet corn. Throughout the spring and early summer, Ida worked tirelessly to plow and hoe the weeds, leaving clean, straight rows of vegetables. Now that Robert was in the 4-H Club and enrolled in gardening, she had a constant helper.

“Are you keeping good records?” Mr. Coffman asked Robert.

“Yes, I am,” Robert said proudly.

“That’s good!” Mr. Coffman smiled. “We like good records!” He turned to Ida. “Everything is coming along nicely.”

“The rows are starting to fill in,” Ida agreed.

“Will you can again this year?” Mr. Coffman asked.

“Yes,” Ida said with a smile as big as Mr. Coffman’s. “I always have more jars in the cellar than we can get to. I’m planning to make sauerkraut again this year. I didn’t make any last year because the cabbage looked wilted. I guess it wasn’t, but I didn’t trust it.”

“Do you make it in crocks?” Mr. Coffman wanted to know.

“Blue crown crocks,” Ida answered, “without lids. I keep them in the cellar under the smokehouse. I put plates on top and weight them down with bricks. Then I drape cotton towels over them.”

“The kraut you make yourself is so much better than the kind sold in the grocery stores,” Mr. Coffman said.

“The taste is different,” Ida agreed. “It’s not so biting. The flavor of homemade kraut is richer.”

“It’s more complex,” Mr. Coffman offered, “but subtle, too.”

“If my sauerkraut turns out well, I’ll make sure you get some,” Ida volunteered.

“That would be very nice of you,” Mr. Coffman returned.

Throughout this conversation, the group had been ambling up and down the garden and admiring the plants bathed in sunshine.

“You have a beautiful garden,” Mr. Coffman concluded.

“Thank you,” Ida said. “Robert has been a big help.”

Mr. Coffman turned to Robert and said, “You can take pride in a job well done.” Glancing at his clipboard, Mr. Coffman asked, “Dairy?”

“I have Charles’ heifer in the barn,” Joe said.

While Ida returned to the house, the rest walked the dusty path between the chicken houses, through the gate beside the raised gasoline tank from which Joe fueled his tractors, and into the center aisle of the barn. The air was redolent with the fragrance of new hay.

As soon as Buttercup saw Mr. Coffman, she walked right up to the front of the stall and held her nose over for Mr. Coffman to pet.

“She’s a friendly heifer!” Mr. Coffman said, as he patted her velvety nose.

“I think she looks good, too,” Joe hinted.

“Have you been taking good care of her?” Mr. Coffman asked Charles.

“I’ve been teaching her to lead,” Charles said.

“I wouldn’t think you’d have any trouble with her,” Mr. Coffman smiled. “She’s too friendly to be a nuisance.” He turned to Joe. “If there were a sweepstakes ribbon for congeniality, I’d give it to her.”

Mr. Coffman looked toward Buttercup. “The Mitchell boys have some good-looking heifers,” Mr. Coffman commented.

Joe’s smile flickered for a moment, as if a small cloud had passed before the sun.

“The Mitchells always have good stock,” Joe said.

“I think Buttercup will do very well at the fair,” Mr. Coffman said, rocking back on his heels and putting a big check mark on the page in his clipboard.

After Mr. Coffman had driven away, Joe entered the kitchen to have a cup of coffee. Ida looked up from where she sat at the table with the Spiegel catalog open to a page depicting a dress and hat combination similar to the style that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy wore.

“I’m thinking about ordering a dress like that,” Ida said. “I would have to get some new gloves to go with it on Sundays.”

With coffee cup in hand, Joe stood peering over Ida’s shoulder.

“Does the hat come with it?” Joe asked.

“Of course not!” Ida exclaimed, laughing. “If I order the dress in blue, I can wear my blue hat, which will be close enough, once I take off the beaded thingamajig and the veil. I am going to have to order gloves, though. Mine aren’t like these new white ones. It won’t be long before Della will be visiting the Cheesmans, and, when she comes here and all of us go to church, I’ll have a new dress that’s more in style.”

Della was Ida’s sister that had lived in Fort Lauderdale and had moved to Atlanta a year earlier. Della, Harold, and their daughters, Sally and Becky, were coming to see the Cheesman family in West Point, Indiana. Della had developed close ties to the Cheesmans long ago. Della’s family would be coming along to Pine Village afterward. In her letter, Della had said she was looking forward to seeing the Rev. Lowell Morris and Mrs. Morris.

Ida and her family always looked forward to visits with Della, Harold, Sally, and Becky. … and, on this occasion, Ida also looked forward to a new “Sunday best” blue dress and white gloves! 

32. The Paddle and the 4-H Club ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

Robert so admired Mrs. Arvin that he was sad to leave her second-grade classroom. He moved on to Mrs. Moyers’ third-grade room. Mrs. Moyers was a dignified teacher with a heart of gold. Attired in slender skirts of pleated brown plaid with matching fox-brown blouses and jackets, Mrs. Moyers appeared to be as sophisticated as she indeed was. She collected birds’ nests, several of which adorned her shelves. She was happy to be asked about them, and she delighted in describing how she baked them to eliminate insects, mold, or mildew.

Every elementary teacher could wield a paddle, but Robert could tell that several of them greatly preferred not to resort to paddling a student. Mrs. Moyers was one who truly disliked her paddle, but, with Robert’s class, she encountered a difficulty.

Who knows why? For some reason, Robert’s class had a tough time memorizing multiplication tables. Mrs. Moyers tried every strategy she could apply toward helping the students remember such products as 9 times 7, 9 times 8, and 9 times 9. Finally, in desperation, she said, “I will paddle anyone who answers incorrectly when I ask for a product resulting from the multiplication of two factors.” She arranged each day so that, in the final period, she could go up and down the row, asking students, “What is the product of seven and eight?” or “What is the product of six and nine?” When a student gave the wrong answer, she walked toward her desk, slowly removed the paddle from its drawer, and turned toward the student. Then she would say, “The period is nearly over, and I’ve yet to give the homework assignment; for that reason, I’ll postpone paddling you for giving the wrong answer.” … and, the next day, she seemed to have forgotten that she was to have paddled someone!

One afternoon, she came to Robert’s desk. “What is the product of nine and six?” she asked. Suddenly, Robert felt confused. He remembered the product of nine and five: forty-five. He recalled the product of nine and seven: sixty-three. He could not—for the life of him—remember the product of nine and six. He blushed. Ultimately, he said, “I forget.”

He felt his classmates’ eyes staring at him—burning into him—from all sides. He pictured how it would feel to be marched to the front of the room, to be commanded to bend over, and to receive the humiliating blows of the paddle across his backside.

Mrs. Moyers glanced up at the large clock on the wall of her room. “Well, Robert, the period is almost over. I still need to give the homework assignment for tomorrow. You’ll have to wait to be paddled another day, but I want you to be sure to tell your mother that you do not know your nines.”

All the elementary teachers respected Robert’s mother because she, too, had taught elementary school for some fourteen years before Charles was born, when she quit teaching. When Robert returned home from school, he walked up to his mother and said, “Mrs. Moyers told me to tell you that I do not know my nines.”

Ida was rolling pie dough. Flour was clinging in dusty patches on her forearms and her apron. She stopped in mid-roll and stared at Robert.

“What do you mean? You don’t know your nines?”

“I forgot the product of nine and six today.”

“Mrs. Moyers called on you, then? Is that it? And you couldn’t answer her question?”

“Yes,” Robert said meekly.

“Sit down here at the table while I finish the dough.”

Robert took a seat on one of the bentwood chairs.

“Let’s go through the nines,” she began. “What is” she pushed the roller forward “nine times two?” she drew the roller back.

“Eighteen,” Robert answered.

“What is” she pushed the roller forward “nine times three?” she drew the roller back.

“Twenty-seven,” Robert answered.

Ida went all the way through the nines and made three circles of dough for pies while Robert responded to the drill.

While she prepared the pie fillings, she took him through the sevens and the eights. Then she went back to the nines to see if he would forget any of them. Luckily for him, he remembered all.

Then Ida sat down across from him. She looked him straight in the eye and said, “Are you embarrassed that you didn’t know the answer when Mrs. Moyers asked you?”

“Yes, very much so,” Robert replied.

“See that it never happens again,” she said, and, after a stern moment, she smiled her trademark smile. “You know the answers now, and you need to know them for the rest of your life.”

After that day, Robert never again came close to a paddling in school.

One of the greatest experiences of that school year was joining the 4-H Club, of which Charles was already a member. The sponsor was Mr. Coffman, a jolly elf of a man with a huge smile for everyone and every occasion. He was not terribly tall and a tad roly-poly. He wore black rimmed glasses through which his honest eyes sparkled, and his black hair was always cut somewhat short. He taught agriculture and shop classes, and he was the Future Farmers of America advisor, to boot. The 4-H meetings were held in Mr. Coffman’s classroom in the basement of the gymnasium that opened out to the track and field to the north. A carved wooden owl for FFA meetings stood at the front of his desk. Thanks to the owl, he had gained the nickname “Bird.” Everyone liked Mr. Coffman, and, before 4-H meetings were called to order, someone would say, “What’s the word?” To this question, the universal reply was “Bird!”

Robert quickly memorized the 4-H motto: to make the best better. He soon mastered the promise: I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living for my club, my community, and my country.

Robert and Charles’ father, who had been in 4-H when he was a boy, decided to enter Charles in several projects that year, one of them the raising of a dairy cow. Robert, meanwhile, was enrolled in swine and gardening (plenty for a boy his age). Joe had a promising Holstein calf that he thought might do well in the judging. Charles was given the responsibility of training her to be exhibited in the coliseum that coming summer. Robert helped Charles because both boys thought the world of the calf.

Her name was Buttercup. She was as gentle as a lamb, but her personality was as powerful as a lion. She loved to be around people, and, at times, she seemed human, herself! Her coat of velvety black and purest white was always shiny (from the frequent brushings she received), and she fluttered her long lashes in a way that was most becoming.

Joe hoped Buttercup’s conformity to the expectations for her breed would earn her a strong showing at the 4-H fair. She was duly registered as a purebred Holstein.

With thanks (in part) to Robert’s 4-H project, Ida would have an extra helper in the garden that spring. His parents would teach him to keep exact records as he went along. Robert could hardly wait to see the vegetables grow!