15. The New House ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Robert had thought that, when it came time to move, the family would simply transfer everything to the old Williams farm and that would be that! He soon learned that his parents had other plans.

Throughout Robert’s year in the eighth grade, Joe and Ida undertook seemingly countless projects at the farm east of Pine Village. One rickety barn was demolished and hauled away. Then Robert and Charles accompanied Joe on a mission to eliminate another barn so deteriorated as to be hazardous to anyone who entered it. Joe had received permission from the volunteer fire department to be rid of the barn on that day.

Joe and the boys made a pile of straw and small pieces of wood by an interior wall of the barn. “Go outside and wait to the north of the barn,” Joe said to Charles and Robert.

While Robert and Charles obeyed their father, Joe poured kerosene on the heap of tinder and lit a match. As soon as Joe saw the flames leap up, he scurried from the barn.

“Go on back!” he ordered, shooing the boys farther out into the field. “You’re too close!”

The three of them stood far away from the barn and watched.

… and watched, and watched, and waited. Nothing happened.

After about ten minutes, Robert sat down on the ground, which had been fall plowed, having large lumps of earth and vegetation turned up at ragged angles. Charles agreed that sitting was preferable to standing, and he, too, chose a slab of soil for a seat. Eventually, Joe followed suit.

The three sat.

The barn gave no sign that anything was occurring inside.

A half hour elapsed.

“I guess the fire went out,” Joe said, rising to his feet. He took a step toward the barn.

At that very moment, there was an explosion with tongues of fire flashing heavenward from the shingled roof, and a hot wind from the blast rushed past Joe and the boys.

Joe’s mouth hung open, while Charles and Robert laughed nervously.

In only a little time, the structure had collapsed into itself and was a smoking mound of ashes.

A few weeks later, a new Morton building of nearly the same size was under construction. It would serve as a barn to house Joe’s Herefords. Simultaneously, another new Morton structure was being completed near the house. It had three bays for vehicles and a shop along the east end. Many loads of white crushed stone were dumped and spread to make a circular driveway around a maple tree in front of the shop and garage.

Workers were busy putting new shingles on the roof of the house.

More workers excavated a deep hole by the new garage and shop. A large cistern was lowered into the ground, and a new well, pump, and water system appeared where none had been before.

As the pages of the calendar were turned, crews connected a hot water baseboard heating system throughout the house. As the cellar was too damp for a new furnace, it was installed in the large space that would serve as both a kitchen and a family room.

Meanwhile, as a member of the Tab Club, Robert ordered two books for a total of seventy cents: Lost Horizon and Flying Saucers—Serious Business. When they arrived, he read both avidly during spare minutes between houses and school.

The Emerson brothers put in a wall to divide the old kitchen into a bathroom and an office hallway leading to a bedroom, and workers came to run new plumbing through the bathroom and the new kitchen. As sinks, tub, and other fixtures went in, the Emersons removed the front wrap-around porch and built a smaller porch in its place. They installed shelving in one of the closets, a long row of kitchen cabinets, and an equally long countertop. They shored up the enclosed porch across the west side of the house; it had been sagging. Then they put in new combination storm windows and screens in all the windows.

During these improvements to the home, Joe was busy giving the house two coats of white paint. When they were home from school and not doing chores at the old farm, Charles and Robert were helping Joe with their paint brushes.

Eventually, the time arrived when Milt Dowden could begin working. The house had been ordered from the Sears catalog in 1903, and it had pretty woodwork typical of the time period. Ever so patiently, Milt stripped the old shellac from the interior trim and doors and gave every inch of the woodwork new coats of glossy varnish. Ida had chosen various wallpapers for the rooms, and Milt, who was an expert at hanging paper, went to work as soon as crews had finished replacing all the electrical wiring, switches, and outlets.

The house began to smell new.

Joe tied numerous chains around a small unpainted building that was leaning directly behind the house. He connected the chains to the drawbar of his biggest tractor and slowly pulled forward. The building straightened. Joe parked the tractor, and he and Robert demolished the north end of the building and covered the back of the two-story structure with sheets of exterior plywood that they cut to fit and nailed so there were no gaps. Then the building received several coats of white paint.

More months were devoted to hauling belongings to the new home. For the purpose, the good and faithful GMC pickup was sold and a new 1967 Chevrolet pickup purchased. Robert hated to see the GMC go, but the bright red and white Chevrolet would prove to be a dependable vehicle with many sensible features. Joe carefully planned the order in which to transfer things to “the Williams place,” as he still referred to his new farm.

One day, a shiny white telephone appeared in the office hallway. It was the family’s first phone. The party line was shared with the Turner family that lived on the opposite side of the gravel road a mile to the west of the Williams place.

Finally, an evening arrived when Joe, Ida, Charles, Robert, and Spot went to bed in the new house. Ida established a new rule: Spot was to sleep on a dog bed in the parents’ bedroom and never to occupy the bed in Robert’s room. Robert was too tired to raise any objections. That night, Robert was awakened when Spot jumped up on Robert’s bed and lay down at Robert’s feet as Spot had always done. Ever after that night, the terrier would start out on the dog bed that he pretended to accept. As soon as he heard snoring, he would quietly leave, go to Robert’s room, and jump up where he belonged. When Joe would awaken before dawn and would make a cup of instant coffee, Spot would jump down again and join Joe in the kitchen. Joe never told Ida that Spot was spending most of each night at the foot of Robert’s bed!

On the first morning in their new home, Robert awakened to find the sun just peeping above the horizon, its beams lighting the new wallpaper in Robert’s room. He swung out of bed, put on his slippers, and went to the kitchen and family room. He sat cross-legged on the sofa with Spot next to him and chatted with his father. Charles was still in bed.

The rays of sunlight pouring through the windows gave Robert a hope similar to that which he would feel again on Easter morning that year, as the family drove to town to attend services at the Methodist Church. His hope felt precarious, though, as if it were built upon a shaky foundation. The televised news covered assassination after assassination. The times were becoming an age of assassination. It felt to Robert as if murder were undermining law and order.

On this first day in the new home, Robert remembered his Great Aunt Margaret, who had passed away in March of the preceding year; he regretted that she had not lived to see the new home. She had lingered only a few days in the hospital. As she loved Boston terriers, Robert had made a sketch of one on a card that his mother had taken to Aunt Margaret, who was allowed few visitors. Ida later reported that Aunt Margaret smiled when she saw it. Several years earlier, Aunt Margaret had leaned over Robert while he was working on a pastel picture, and she had laughed, “I don’t know how you do that! I can’t even draw a straight line.” Now, in intensive care at the hospital, Aunt Margaret was unable to speak, but she could still smile. Ida had brought home the card in her pocketbook. She returned the drawing to Robert, and he kept it in his nightstand.

When Ida arose and began frying eggs on her new range, Robert felt surrounded by love and sunshine. His father and mother had provided such a pleasant new home for the family! When Charles came to the breakfast table and Joe said grace, the morning was complete.        

5. The Old Barn ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

On a warm summer’s evening, Joe brought Robert along in the 1951 GMC pickup through the barnyard and through the pasture to the edge of the cornfield. Robert opened and closed the gates for his father. Joe then began using a machete to cut cornstalks, which were still green but had well-formed ears. Robert lifted the piles of cornstalks in the back of the pickup, which had the tailgate down. The Holsteins in the pasture could foresee the treat that was coming, and they gathered near the gate that the truck would pass through when it exited the cornfield. With the stalks about three feet deep, Joe climbed back behind the steering wheel, and Robert stood by the gate. Joe drove into the pasture, and the cows strode over to mill about the back of the truck. Robert jumped onto the running board, balanced his knee on the hot metal of the rear fender, steadied himself, and climbed over the short side panel into the truck bed.

“Ready?” Joe asked through the open window.

“Yep,” Robert replied.

The GMC crept forward, and Robert slid three cornstalks over the edge of the tailgate. No sooner had the corn fallen to the ground than the lead Holsteins were standing over it, finding the sweet green ears. Meanwhile, Robert shoved a few more cornstalks onto the ground in front, and cows of lesser status in the pecking order came around to take their turn to feast on the corn. The GMC kept inching along until all the corn had been shoved out. The herd would keep working on the corn until only traces of it remained.

Next, Joe and Robert drove through town to feed the Hereford herd at the Old Barn. Joe’s farm on the east side of Pine Village was really two farms joined catty-corner. The smaller farm bordered State Route 55 and could be accessed from the farm that bordered State Route 26 by driving along dusty farm lanes, through many gates, and across the corner that joined the two farms, but driving through the town meant having to pass through only two gates.

Before Joe was born, the Gady brothers ran a butcher shop just north of the intersection of the two main highways in Pine Village. Elmer Gady bought the stock and Bill Gady prepared the meat, which the Ogborns sold in their grocery. The Gadys had a large barn on their farm just south of town. Elmer always thought “big.” He shipped in western lambs that were fed in the barn, which boasted nearly 6,500 square feet under roof on the first floor alone. To accommodate more and more sheep, Elmer added wing after wing to the barn, making a large barn a huge barn. He and Bill were earning handsome profits.

Elmer decided he could afford to mortgage his farm and speculate on the Board of Trade. Elmer lost his farm and the butcher shop. He became a day laborer. Bill, meanwhile, moved to Chicago to work for a big farm, but Bill fell from a streetcar and broke his back. He returned to Pine Village. He walked stooped over. Frank Ogborn’s department store and grocery hired Bill to take orders and make deliveries.

The Old Barn, as Joe referred to it, was still standing, although it had not seen paint in so long that the boards were silvery gray, the roof rusty red.

Just outside the barn on the east side was a stock tank that once featured a windmill to pump the water. Now the pump was electric. Joe kept a long stick, which he used to push up the curled rod on the side of the switch box that started the motor. The box was affixed high on a pole, so that cattle could not accidentally start the motor by rubbing the box. The pipe that delivered the water to the tank was rusted through in several places. By covering the end of the pipe with his left hand, Robert made a water fountain through a quarter-sized hole in the top of the pipe. He drank the clear water that came from so deep down that it was icy cold.

South of Pine Village stood a large building that housed a rest home for elderly patients. Despite its size, the building was only the small remnant of what earlier generations had known as a vast spa named Mudlavia: nearly all of it long gone by the time that Robert’s family visited. Joe and Robert often stopped by Pig Gady’s room. Ernest Alvin Gady, a 1910 graduate of Pine Village High School, had acquired the nickname “Pig,” and it was just too good not to stick. Everyone knew him as Pig, and many had forgotten that his real name was Ernest. Pig was Elmer Gady’s son and had played in the Old Barn when he was a lad. For a brief time, Pig had taught lower grades, but his father’s downfall prompted him to seek independence. In 1913, when he celebrated his twentieth birthday, he decided upon the life of a transient laborer and lit out for the West.

When Robert and Joe visited him, the 74-year-old Pig wore brown plaid flannel shirts and jeans. Whenever he saw Robert, his eyes lit up.

“Say, what do you know?” Pig asked, grinning and slapping his knee. Then came the best part. Pig would lean forward and begin telling stories of his train-hopping days as an itinerant thresherman. The walls of Pig’s room in Mudlavia faded away, replaced in Robert’s imagination by the broad expanse of Kansas wheat fields and Kansas skies.

Pig was running for his life down an alley in Burlington, Kansas. He clutched a broad-brimmed straw hat in one hand and seemed to be swatting at hornets, he was sprinting so fast! He kept glancing over his shoulder, until he was sure he had lost the Industrial Workers of the World members who were chasing him. Pig slowed to a walk, his sides aching, his heart pounding. The nest that Pig had accidentally run into was not a nest of hornets but a nest of I.W.W. men, otherwise known as Wobblies. They had made vague threats to try to force Pig to join their socialist order. Pig wanted nothing to do with the I.W.W. because he would not hide shrapnel inside wheat bundles to wreck threshing machines and bring work to a halt. “Why would anybody want to bust up a separator?” Pig wondered, shaking his head in consternation. Higher wages for workers was one thing, but sabotage was another—and sabotage was criminal!

“What am I gonna do?” Pig mumbled, sauntering along. A colorful poster for the Barnum & Bailey Circus caught his eye. It was plastered to a tall fence made of rough-cut boards. With his pocketknife, Pig cut a small red rectangle from the poster. He slipped the card into the pocket of his shirt. He smiled and strode confidently along. Heading north on Third Street to find work as a thresherman, he encountered two men he thought might be Wobblies. He flashed the corner of the red rectangle and winked. One of the men produced an I.W.W. red membership card from his pocket and nodded. The Wobblies paid Pig no further notice. He strode past them and began whistling a merry tune.

Pig was fortunate enough to find employment as a spike pitcher for threshing rings in eastern Kansas. “Much of the wheat out in Kansas was winter wheat,” he told Robert. “It was spiky and tough, but it sure did grow well there.” He fondly recalled the steam engines belted to the threshing machines in the barnyards, but, in western Kansas and in states farther north, he came to know threshing on a vast scale with fields of wheat shocks stretching toward the horizon and with half a dozen columns of smoke indicating the locations of various steam engines and crews under the command of custom threshermen. Pig slept beneath the stars. He slept the sleep of a young man who has done hard work, honest work.

Pig’s stories often led back to 1913, and, in his mind, Robert was there, too, jumping down from the boxcar and looking for work. A custom thresherman, scrutinizing the hopeful unemployed men who had gathered near the train station in some Kansas town, chose Pig (and Robert) to pitch bundles. Pig (and Robert) climbed into a wagon and was hauled to where the work was to be done. Pig (and Robert) was doing what he loved best: lifting sheaves high above his head and expertly dropping them for the bundle loader perched atop the wagon.

When Joe and Robert would leave Mudlavia after visiting with Pig, Robert left with his vision expanded. Walking past the goldfish ponds of the once lavish resort, Robert peered at the flashing orange fish beneath the rippling surface that reflected the clouds. He thought of Pig flashing the red card and grinning. To Robert, the past appeared to be separated from the present only by a rippling film.

Robert thought of Pig while helping Joe load the pickup with freshly cut corn stalks for the herd of Herefords that had gathered in the pasture beside the Old Barn. Then Robert repeated the process of scattering the stalks while Joe drove the GMC slowly forward.

2. The Cows and the Clarinet ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

“Let’s visit the Nesbitt Farm,” Robert’s father, Joe, suggested on a bright winter morning. Robert and his brother, Charles, got bundled up for the drive north into Benton County, Indiana. Joe had been talking about buying two purebred Polled Herefords, so that each boy would have one to show at the county fair and so that each could start his own line of pedigreed Herefords to help pay for college tuition years later.

Mr. Nesbitt stood tall beside the door to his kitchen. He wore a pleasant smile. Stretching as far as the eye could see, Mr. Nesbitt’s flat land resembled a tan tablecloth set with blue willow ware plates, which were islands of snow with sapphire shadows. A herd of white-faced, cinnamon-colored calves that had been weaned stood facing the same direction in a fenced enclosure just beyond a clean, well-appointed barn. A child’s coloring book featuring life on the farm would have done well to depict Mr. Nesbitt as the ideal farmer.

“We might be in the market for a couple of heifers,” Joe began, as he shook hands with Mr. Nesbitt.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Mr. Nesbitt replied agreeably. “I have plenty of heifers for you to choose from.”

Mr. Nesbitt guided Joe, Charles, and Robert toward the pasture.

“Are the heifers for your boys here?” Mr. Nesbitt asked.

“Yes, sir,” Joe answered. “They’re in 4-H Club.”

“I would have guessed that,” Mr. Nesbitt said, chuckling. “Well, these are young heifers that would make good 4-H entries.” Wearing a yellow glove, Mr. Nesbitt waved his large hand in a sweeping gesture to indicate the calves, all of which were peering at the newcomers and blinking their long-lashed eyes. 

In his mind, Robert had already selected one, and he hoped his choice would be one of his father’s top picks. The heifer had a happy expression, almost as if she shared Mr. Nesbitt’s jovial smile.

“Could we buy her?” Robert asked his father while pointing toward the merry calf.

Mr. Nesbitt said, “You have a good eye, son. She’s a blue-ribbon heifer if I ever saw one.”

“With your recommendation, we can’t go wrong,” Joe said. Turning to Robert, Joe asked, “Do you have a name for her?”

“I think she looks like Vicky!” Robert replied enthusiastically.

“Vicky?” Mr. Nesbitt chuckled. “Well now, that’s a good name for a cow!”

“We’ll be back to get her on a warm day. Do you need to mark her?” Joe wondered.

“No,” Mr. Nesbitt responded. “I’ll remember which one she is. She has buttons where horns want to form. That sometimes happens with polled Herefords. I’ll take care of the buttons so she looks true to breed. Which calf does your other boy want?”

Charles could not decide. Finally, he pointed at one.

“Now, that’s a good heifer,” Mr. Nesbitt said.

Robert felt uncertain about the choice, but he kept his opinion to himself. Skittishly hurrying to hide behind other calves and nervously changing direction, the heifer had a wary look in its eye.

“Do you have a name for her?” Joe asked Charles.

“No. I’ll think of one later,” Charles said.

Mr. Nesbitt invited Joe, Charles, and Robert into his kitchen, so that Joe could sign the paperwork.

On a table was a clarinet in a tan case. Robert stared at it as if mesmerized. For some time, he had wanted to learn to play the clarinet. When the members of the Pine Village High School Band performed in their blue uniforms with white braids, white stripes, and silver buttons, the clarinetists sat toward the front to the director’s left. Robert enjoyed watching them work the silver keys of their instruments. His cousin Connie was the first chair, and he wished he could grow up to take her place one day.

“Say,” Mr. Nesbitt said, reading Robert’s mind, “you wouldn’t know of anybody in the market for a clarinet, would you? My daughter wants to sell hers.”

Robert thought it was too much of a good thing to be gaining a lovely heifer, already a pet in his mind, and a clarinet—all in the same day! Robert said nothing, but Joe understood how powerfully he wanted a clarinet. One look at Robert’s not-daring-to-hope face told Joe all he needed to know.

“I guess we could consider the clarinet, too,” said Robert’s father. “How much do you want for it?”

“Fifty dollars,” replied Mr. Nesbitt.

All the way home, Robert carried the precious clarinet in his lap. His heart was racing. He could hardly believe his good fortune. He needed no further proof that he had the greatest dad in the world!

Back at home, Robert figured out how to slide the sections of the clarinet together. As he had no way of knowing how to arrange a reed on the mouthpiece, he could not play a note, but he considered the clarinet to be a glorious instrument. 

Learning to play the clarinet, though, was a struggle. Robert’s parents enrolled him in lessons at Mahara’s Music Center in Lafayette’s Market Square. For the first several weeks, Robert’s teacher, a young man named Mr. Baker, kept trying to help him make a note on the instrument. Robert’s breath escaped around the mouthpiece. The only sound was puff-puff-puff. Robert had that tingling in the cheeks that one gets from blowing up too many balloons. Finally, on a glorious afternoon, the clarinet emitted an enormous squawk! What a thrill! Mr. Baker breathed a sigh of relief, and Robert smiled from ear to ear.

From that day forward, Robert’s abilities rapidly progressed. That summer, Mr. Lee Davis, nicknamed “Weird Beard” because of his goatee that was similar to that of Skitch Henderson or Mitch Miller, began adding younger musicians to the high school band he directed so as to make it as large as possible for the competition at the Indiana State Fair. He accepted Robert into the ranks. Robert was going to get to wear the blue uniform with the silver buttons and white braids long before he was old enough to attend high school!

All summer, the augmented band rehearsed on a parade ground that had been marked off with lime stripes on the west edge of the school playground. The competition consisted of parade shows, not football field shows. The parade strip had been measured to conform precisely to the judging area the band would encounter at the grandstand in Indianapolis during the fair. From the moment when the front rank of the band crossed the starting line until the back rank stepped over the finish line, a stop watch counted the seconds. Going overtime would cost precious points. Mr. Davis had built an observation platform accessible by a ladder. From the platform, he looked down on the band to see if the lines were straight and to make sure that everyone was in step. Mr. Davis combined the best attributes of a disciplinarian, a musician, and a friend. He knew exactly when to crack the proverbial whip and when to sit back and laugh good-naturedly. Eager to please Mr. Davis, the band, over the weeks of practice, pounded the grass into powder. The white stripes that were formed with lime disappeared into the dust and more had to be laid down.

At one point in the music, the band members had to stand in place and slowly revolve until they were crouching; then they had to spring back up and begin marching again. The 360-degree spin was practiced over and over, until everyone’s hamstrings were sore.

The day for the bus trip to Indianapolis arrived. In the pre-dawn hours, band members arrived in the school parking lot. Clusters of students talked excitedly while parents milled about their cars.

Robert felt that the trip to Indianapolis was a dream come true—except when he gagged on the girls’ hairspray as they tried to force their big hair under their blue band caps with the white bills. Robert disembarked as quickly as he could and stood breathing the fresh air until his lungs cleared. He made sure that the decorative braided cords around the shoulder of his uniform were in the right place.

The long wait began. The line of bands wove like an anaconda among the buses parked all the way to the horizon. In those years, over a hundred bands of smaller schools competed on the day that the Pine Village band took part. Ranks and files of uniforms of every hue filled the vision.

The bands crept forward and waited, crept forward and waited. Ultimately, there were no more bands in front of the Pine Village High School Band. The track passed before a towering grandstand filled with spectators. Robert took a deep breath. Mr. Davis smiled encouragement to his musicians. Suddenly, the parade show started. Robert performed the notes and steps like a machine with no need to think about what he was doing. The instant the show was finished, Mr. Davis came running. “We didn’t go over!” he shouted, tapping his stop watch.

Later that day, the band learned that Pine Village was ranked in the top third, coming in ahead of far larger bands at far larger schools.