34. The Figurine and the Feed ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

That spring, Joe and Ida brought home the last boxes of items from the house of Grandma Rhode, who had passed away in her sleep on the final day of March. The only remaining thing that had to be moved before the property could be sold was the cultivator that Joe stored in the garage when it was not in use. Ida drove the Chevrolet into town while Joe ran the Minneapolis–Moline tractor into position to receive the cultivator. Charles and Robert were with their mother. They tumbled out of the car and stood waiting to help their father.

In years past, the boys nearly always had been on hand when Joe had attached the implement to his tractor. Grandma Kosie Rhode would serve everyone orange juice in tiny glasses with oranges painted on the sides. It seemed odd for Grandma Rhode to be missing the fun. Joe carried the heavy front sections of iron with their V-shaped hoes to either side of the tractor. He balanced each on a concrete block while he slid heavy bolts through the holes he had patiently aligned. When it came time to lift the doubly heavy back section, he enlisted the help of Ida and both boys: Ida to assist in lifting and the boys to steady and guide the ironwork into place. While Joe was fastening the nuts, Ida and the boys took one more look around the empty house.

Their footsteps echoed in the small rooms. Robert peeped into the tiny bathroom.

“Mom, you missed something,” he said.

Ida came to look. On the shelf above the sink was an inexpensive porcelain container in the shape of a lady at a costume ball in the 1700s. The upper portion—including her head with a funny hat—was a lid that covered the bottom portion—her light blue gown. The container had nothing in it and had been kept spotlessly clean. (Grandma Rhode had been meticulous in dusting and sweeping.)

“I guess we missed that,” Ida said.

Robert looked up with eyes that asked, “Could I have it?”

Reading his expression, Ida questioned, “Do you really want it?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Then you may have it.”

On the way home, Robert held the upper half of the container in one hand and the lower half in the other hand, to keep them from harm. He put the fragile piece out of the way on the bookshelf above his bed so that he would not accidentally break the figurine.

Joe, meanwhile, took Robert and Charles to the feed store in town to order ground feed for the shoats.

He switched off the GMC in the alley beside the store, and he and his sons walked into the office, where “Fireball” greeted them.

Lester Crane had two nicknames: “Let” (the more obvious of the two) and “Fireball.” Let’s father had known not only Joe but also Joe’s mother, her brother, and her parents. The roots of camaraderie between the Cranes and the Cobb family (Kosie’s maiden name) ran deep.

“Hi, Let,” Joe said.

“What can I do for you today?” Fireball asked.

“I need to load the bed of my pickup with ground feed for my feeder pigs.”

“Let me fix you up,” Fireball said good-naturedly, as he pulled an order form backed by carbon paper into place on top of the metal box that held the blank forms. He felt around the pocket on the bib of his overalls until he found the pen that he knew he had stuck there.

While Let was preparing the form, Joe peered through the window at the street to watch the traffic. His back was turned when Russell Mitchell entered the office.

“What d’ya say, Fireball?” Russell began, then, noticing Joe, he said, “Hi, Joe!”

Surprised to hear his name, Joe spun around. “Hi, Russell,” Joe said.

“Are you keeping those boys of yours in line?” Russell inquired, nodding in the direction of Charles and Robert.

Joe smiled. “I reckon so,” he replied. “How are your boys?”

“Oh, I have them working in the barn today. I thought I’d sneak off to order some feed. They probably haven’t missed me yet.”

Robert listened to the conversation, while he looked forward to seeing the ground feed falling from the chute into his father’s truck. He always enjoyed the sight of the rushing feed making a mountain in the bed of the GMC and the dusty fragrance of the crushed grain.

“When I drove past your place the other day,” Russell said, his eyes becoming narrow, “I saw your boy there—”

“Charles.” Joe provided the name.

“Charles—leading a heifer around the yard.”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “He’s training her for the 4-H fair.”

Russell smiled. “So he’ll have her entered in the heifer class, then.”

“Yes. It’s his first year for the dairy project.”

“I was gonna say you’ve had pigs at the fair before this.”

“Yes, and we’ll have our Chester Whites there again this year.”

Fireball interrupted, “Joe, I need your signature right there.”

After Joe had signed his name with his customary elegant cursive, he handed the pen back to Let and said, “I reckon your boys will have cows at the fair.”

“Roger and Richard,” Russell said with a twinkle in his eye. “Yeah, we always have our Holsteins in the various classes.”

Joe hesitated, then he asked, “The heifer class, too?”

Russell peered intently at Joe. “We have a nice looking heifer that we think is gonna bring home a champion ribbon for us.”

“Is that right?” Joe commented, smiling.

“’bout so,” Russell said.

“You’ve generally had the champion in that class, haven’t you?”

“Fairly consistently,” Russell agreed, nodding.

Accidentally dropping the carbon copy of the form that Fireball handed him, Joe fumbled to pick it up from the dusty floor but managed to grab it on the third try. He carefully folded it and slid it in the pocket of his overalls.

“Pull around there, and I’ll get you loaded right now,” Fireball said to Joe.

“We’ll be seeing you, then,” Joe said to Russell.

“Take ‘er easy,” Russell responded.

Robert was not disappointed. The ground feed cascaded into the truck with a satisfying rumble.

His father’s conversation had given Robert an idea for the use of his figurine: he would keep his 4-H pins in it.   

21. The Ice ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

That winter, there had come a spell of light snow that would melt a little before the temperature dipped below zero, producing a sheet of ice over the ground. Joe walked into the kitchen and spoke in a low voice to Ida, who promptly told the boys to put on their parkas, stocking caps, and gloves. She had to take Joe to see Dr. Scheurich.

Robert felt a wave of apprehension as he quickly followed his mother’s instructions. He had thought that only he and his brother ever had to visit the doctor, not one of his parents. When he saw his father sitting in a strange posture on one of the kitchen chairs, his face pale and gray, Robert felt his apprehension deepening into anxiety.

Ida ushered the boys toward the car. Joe came slowly from the house. She held open the passenger door for him. He ever-so-slowly sank into the seat. Ida slammed the door, ran around the car, and, with considerable agitation, put the key in the ignition. When the Chevy started, she did not wait for it to warm up. She backed fast down the driveway and out onto the state highway. In a heartbeat, she was driving to Oxford.

Joe had been checking on the Chester White sows that were soon to have litters. One young sow had been pushing against the wooden panels that held her captive in a small exercise area beyond the door of an individual hog house on skids that Joe had pulled into place with his Minneapolis–Moline Z tractor. Painted red, the house had a V-shaped roof, half of which consisted of hinged doors that could swing over, permitting a view of the interior. Joe bought his hog houses from the grain elevator, where they were built at the lumberyard. On this day, Joe had decided that he needed to sink one more metal post to support the panel that the sow had been abusing. He had brought a tall fence post and a sledge hammer. After looking over the situation, he had decided to put the post on the inside of the small lot, so he had climbed over the panel.

Hammering the fence post into the frozen ground was a time-consuming job. Ping–ping–ping! His hammer had sounded a short bell-like tone each time that he had struck the post. Finally, he had driven the post into the ice deep enough to prevent the sow from working on the panel.

He had brought several strands of baling wire, with which he had secured the panel to the post, being careful to push the ends of the wires to the outside so that the sow would not be scratched. With a snap of his wrist, he had used a heavy pair of pliers to give each twist of wire two additional twists, tightening the wires. Finally, he had taken his sledge hammer and had climbed back outside the panel.

That is when it had happened. His feet had become cold, even though he had been wearing boots, high-top laced shoes, and brown woolen socks. He could barely feel where he put his toes in between the boards of the panel. As the gap between the bottom two boards was narrow, he had not pushed the toe of his boot through far enough. His foot slipped and dropped down on the ice. His balance thrown off, Joe had lost his grip on the panel but not on the hammer. Meanwhile, the foot that had suddenly reached the ice skidded out from under him, pivoting him. He had fallen on his side. As bundled up as he was with long johns, a flannel undershirt, a work shirt, a lined denim coat, and a regular denim coat over the lined one, he might have withstood the fall, but he had landed on the handle of the sledge hammer. He had writhed in pain for a few minutes before he had realized that, pain or no pain, he would have to get back on his feet and go to the house.

For the first few steps, standing had felt somewhat better, but then the pain had intensified. He felt certain that he had broken a bone.

Before he was married, he had been helping the members of the threshing ring to separate his wheat, and he had fallen from the grain wagon. His left upper arm had gone between the wooden hound that supported the wagon tongue behind the doubletree, and he had broken the bone with a spiral break. On this day, he remembered that pain.

While Dr. Scheurich examined Joe, Robert and Charles sat quiet as church mice in the waiting room. Before they had entered the doctor’s office, their mother had told them to behave themselves by sitting still and not causing trouble. She had accompanied their father into the examination room. Robert’s fears were mounting. Tears were gathering in the corners of his eyes. He had never seen his father look so pale, so gray, and so unsmiling. Robert still did not know what had happened, although Charles had whispered to him something about ice.

Eventually, Joe emerged. Ida was at his side. The nurse was close behind. Ida and the nurse walked with him down the front stairs to the car. Robert and Charles followed. On this occasion, Robert had ridden in the back seat of the two-door car so his father could sit in front. Robert had managed not to have motion sickness, but, on the way home, he felt the dizziness starting. Still, he listened carefully to his parents’ conversation. Little by little, he felt his worries subside as he began to understand that his father had fallen on the ice, that he had cracked some ribs, and that there was nothing that could be done except take aspirin and wait for the bruising to heal. Dr. Scheurich had wrapped a stretchy bandage around Joe’s side and over one shoulder to keep Joe steady, as much as anything; otherwise, the bandage had no effect, as the doctor had readily admitted.

“You’ll have to milk the cows and feed and water the sows,” Joe was saying to Ida. The doctor had advised him not to move about much for the first two days and for Ida to handle the chores. “I’m sorry for you to have to do my work,” Joe said.

“It’s only for a few days,” Ida reassured him. “The boys can help me.”

After school, Robert and Charles helped their mother all they could. They threw down hay from the mow. They scooped ground feed into buckets to be carried to the sows, each sow in her own paneled lot. They mixed feed and water for the ducks. They scattered feed for the chickens and the turkeys. Robert thought it was funny to watch Ida at work. She wore four-buckle boots that made her feet seem too big for her body. She did everything differently than the boys’ father did. She positioned the stool differently when she sat beside the cows to milk them. She spoke more jokingly to the cows—as if they were people! “You like that clover, don’t you, Flossy!” Ida would say. At the end of each day, Ida had completed all the same jobs that Joe would have accomplished, even though she had done them in her own way.

Eventually, Joe had begun to move about in a gingerly fashion and had resumed doing the chores himself.

“Don’t let your dad try to use his sore side,” Ida had warned the boys. “Think ahead, and help him lift things that he shouldn’t be lifting!” she ordered. Robert and Charles were good about providing as much assistance as they could to their father.

Then, one cold night, Ida set a bushel basket in front of the Norge heating stove in the kitchen. She arranged an old blanket in the bottom. Joe came through the door to the porch. The gloved hand on his good side was holding something that squirmed. He put it in the basket.

“She may have another one before I get back out there,” Joe said, as he went through the porch and out into the night, a flashlight in the hand on his sore side.

Robert peered into the basket. A pink piglet was standing on the blanket. It looked up at him with its inquisitive eyes beneath white eyelashes. Soon, Joe brought another pink piglet and deposited it in the basket.

The boys’ mother prepared a second basket. Later that night, there were nine piglets all in all.

“I think they could go back to their mother now,” Joe said.

Robert put on his coat, hat, and gloves and walked with his mother as she carried the first basket out to the hog house containing the sow that had just had her litter. It was the sow that had given so much trouble. Robert stood on a straw bale to look down through the doors that Joe opened in the roof of the house. A heat lamp cast a reddish light around the inside, which felt warm on Robert’s face. Ida was handing each piglet to Joe, who was setting them down in the fresh straw inside. When the first basket had been emptied, Ida brought out the second basket of piglets. Before long, the newborns were lined up along the belly of the sow and were having their dinner.

“We’d better close the doors now,” Joe said to Robert, who stepped down from the bale. The piglets were so cute that Robert silently questioned why his parents never kept one for a pet. Then he thought about how big the sow was and how it was not nearly as cute as a piglet, and he answered his own question.