24. The Exhibits ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Every year, the freshman class made a bus trip to Chicago. When Robert’s class went, the group first toured the Chicago Natural History Museum, or Field Museum. Each new diorama in the Hall of Prehistoric Man captivated Robert all the more—especially the Neanderthals. He tried to imagine what it could have been like to have lived in the time of the cavemen.

The exhibits of stuffed animals were so extensive as to stretch seemingly forever down halls and around corners. The white-tailed deer appeared to be living. From the tiny antelope to the zebra of southern and eastern Africa, the animal displays kept Robert in a state of amazement. The elephants and the jungle cats were favorites. There were many animals he had never heard of and that he could scarcely imagine, even though the displays were so lifelike! There were wild donkeys, hippopotami, gorillas, and hyenas: all examples of the taxidermists’ finest hour and art.   

Yet his eyes really opened all the way when he encountered the Egyptian artifacts. The ushabti figures, the canopic jars, the sarcophagi, and the statues intrigued him. As a freshman, he could hardly fail to be mesmerized by the mummies! He felt a deep sense of astonishment that such rich cultures had thrived in the Nile River Valley for thousands of years. He vowed he would check out books on Egyptian history when he returned home, and he kept his promise.

The class also visited the Museum of Science and Industry. Built in 1893 as part of the World’s Columbian Exposition (which failed to be finished in time for 1892, the four hundredth anniversary of 1492, the year made famous by Christopher Columbus), the vast edifice, which had been refaced in limestone, housed more displays than could be seen in weeks, let alone in a few hours! Many of the exhibits were to be operated by pushing buttons or working levers. It was great fun to discover scientific facts and mechanical principles by observation of displays that moved in response to the viewer’s hand. There were airplanes, boats, cars, a stage coach, steam engines including locomotives, and streetcars. There were a gigantic Foucault pendulum and electromagnets and lightning from a surge generator. There were all manner of machines from newspaper presses to milking machines. A spectacular monument to the periodic table of the elements boasted a massive globe of the Planet Earth. Amid the museum’s modernity was a nod to the Middle Ages in a medieval scriptorium, where European monks copied and illuminated holy manuscripts in brilliantly colored inks.  

But the trip into the coal mine was even more exciting! It began with a safety demonstration that simulated an explosion of methane gas from a lighted Davy lamp. The drop down the mine shaft in a black cage gave the illusion of a descent of hundreds of feet. The tram ride through the cool gloom of the mine was worthy of Disney! 

Robert’s favorite activity was walking through the U-505 submarine, which was docked outside the museum. The narrow passages within the German ship made Robert feel almost claustrophobic, but he was so fascinated with everything that he successfully fought against the dread of enclosure in a tight space. Even though the halls were barely wide enough for one person, the submarine was huge. “How could it have remained hidden?” Robert wondered. Of course, as a person from a landlocked farming community, he had almost no concept of the size of the ocean. After the tour, Robert knew that he could never have lived on board a submarine without going stark raving mad! It was quite a learning experience, to say the least! 

The trip to the Windy City was one of the best that Robert would ever take, and he was grateful to his school for having given his class the opportunity to see such a splendid panoply at both institutions and to the museums for making available to the public such an incredible array of the best that the world has to offer.  

Ever since the threat of a tornado had interrupted the performance at Columbian Park when Robert was a youngster, he had wanted to spot a funnel cloud. With the help of her father, his classmate Susan had once built a large glass box that demonstrated a tornado by using dry ice and a fan to form a vortex that was well lighted from above. Robert never grew tired of watching the ghostly rope undulating from the bottom to the top of the tall box.   

On a sunny April Saturday in between his freshman and sophomore years, Robert had been disking for his father. The International 560 tractor had needed gasoline, so Robert had driven from the fields back to the house.

He pulled alongside the elevated gas barrel, switched off the engine, spun off the gas cap, and began filling the tank from the heavy nozzle. The day was hot and still. The day seemed to be waiting for something to happen. It was as if it alone knew what was approaching. The birds had abandoned their hectic springtime schedule as if in anticipation. Only the occasional shrieks of the guineas disturbed the silence. With the tank full, Robert hung the hose on the horseshoe that served as a cradle nailed to one of the barrel’s support posts. Robert thought about returning to his disking right away, but the idea of a quick nap intervened.

Joe and Charles were working with tractors in adjacent fields about as far from the house as they could be. Would they miss Robert for fifteen minutes? Robert decided they would not, so he strode to the house and stretched out on the sofa to catch a few winks. Such an action was extremely rare for Robert—so rare, in fact, that he could almost be described as never having taken a sleepy moment away from work. For years thereafter, he would wonder why he chose that time to sneak a brief nap.

Naturally, Robert lost track of the time. Suddenly, Joe and Charles burst into the room! They were talking excitedly. In Robert’s half-asleep state, he worried that they might be angry with him for briefly shirking his responsibility. Robert’s sense of guilt helped him awaken fully. Then he realized they were not conversing about his indolence; rather, they were discussing the funnel cloud that had just crossed near the north end of the farm.

“That’s as close as I ever want to get to a tornado,” Joe said.

“That was impressive!” Charles agreed.

Robert sat up and listened to their description of the funnel, which had begun to touch down but had lifted immediately. Robert glanced at the clock. He had slept for less than an hour. In just that length of time, an oddly greenish wall cloud had formed in the southwest. On its path from southwest to northeast, the cloud mass had passed on an angle a little over a mile north of the house. Acknowledging the dangers of lightning, Joe had signaled Charles to bring his tractor and plow up to the house while Joe drove his tractor and corn planter up to the barn. When they had entered the barnyard, they had witnessed the funnel’s descent.

Robert had slept through the excitement and was disappointed. He would never have a better opportunity to watch a tornado. Years later, a tornado that would prove quite destructive in Rainsville would pass along much the same diagonal line over the north end of the Williams place. Winds to the side of the twister would blow Joe and Ida’s pink and blue 1950s metal armchairs off the front porch and deliver them to Agnes Moore a quarter of a mile down the gravel road. Worse, the tornado would level all but one wall and the bathroom of Robert’s cousin Pam’s house. Pam’s mother would ride out the storm in that bathroom and live to tell the tale. Pam, her father, and her siblings would not be at home, although her father and her sister would be in a car approaching the house down the mile-long driveway to the north and would witness the calamity. Viewing the wreckage afterward, Robert would change his mind about wanting to see a twister. He would decide that he never wanted to observe—with scientific detachment—a tornado in progress. He would rather learn about such violent storms in the context of a museum or laboratory.

12. The Fly ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Robert was The Fly.

Not the unfortunate fly in the 1958 movie with Vincent Price.

Robert was a hero such as Batman and Robin, who appeared in a series that had recently aired on television. Joe’s cousin Jay had given Joe his Navy Peacoat from World War II, which Jay had outgrown, and Joe passed it along to Robert. At the auction of Flora Farden’s belongings, Robert had acquired a pair of amber dark glasses that were big and round with ivory-colored Bakelite frames. Wearing the black coat and the round glasses with the deep amber lenses, Robert was The Fly.

When Robert helped his father with the evening chores, he flew over gates. Well, he had to scale the gates’ horizontal panels and hop down on the other side, but he did it really fast, as if he were flying! On the other side of the gates, Robert fought crime. Often, he did so by cracking ears of corn in two or by spreading hay in the mangers of the barn.

Even though he missed games on the playground, Robert was enjoying his time in the seventh grade. He enjoyed jumping up when the bell rang and scurrying to his next class in another room. He enjoyed the lessons and the teachers and his classmates. He enjoyed having a locker instead of a desk.

And he enjoyed becoming The Fly after school.

For many generations, students from Rainsville had transferred to Pine Village for their final years of schooling. When Robert entered the seventh grade, a reorganizing brought Rainsville students into his class. A few of the teachers who had devoted their careers to Rainsville’s classes permanently transferred to Pine Village. One of them was the beloved Mr. Charles Lloyd Cavanaugh.

He stepped from a story by Washington Irving. A thin gentleman, he parted his gray hair in the middle. His reading glasses slid down his long nose. To see him on a windy day striding between the school building and the gymnasium was to see a scholar of skin and bones barely able to keep his footing while his trousers and coat flapped as if they might lift him into the sky.

Mr. Cavanaugh was named the sponsor of Robert’s class, and Mr. Cavanaugh remained the class sponsor all the way through the class’ senior year.

He taught English and mathematics. While Mr. Cavanaugh was of the old school that memorized everything and seldom (if ever) erred about a fact, he occasionally lapsed into an extraordinary pronunciation.

Once, Robert’s class was learning a mathematical principle when Mr. Cavanaugh thought an example might prove helpful.

“Let us say you have four cassaws,” Mr. Cavanaugh said. He went on to describe a mathematical equation involving the four “cassaws.” Then he called on one of the sharpest students—probably because he wanted the class to hear the correct answer—but the student blushed and apologized, saying, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.” Mr. Cavanaugh said, “That’s quite alright,” and he called on another student good at math. Fidgeting, the student said, “I don’t know, either.” Now Mr. Cavanaugh wondered what to do. He had hoped to demonstrate the mathematical principle so clearly that the class would see how very simple it was, but he had called on two students who should have known the answer and they had been unable to respond.

Meanwhile, Alan, with knitted brows, had been staring at his desktop. Suddenly, a smile flashed across his face, and he raised his hand.

“Yes, Alan,” Mr. Cavanaugh acknowledged.

“Mr. Cavanaugh,” Alan began, clearing his throat, “by your word ‘cassaws,’ might you mean cashews?”

“I mean those delightful nuts that can be found along with peanuts in a can of mixed nuts,” Mr. Cavanaugh replied innocently, not taking any offense at Alan’s question. The idea of taking offense at anything never could cross Mr. Cavanaugh’s wonderful mind.

At that moment, the student on whom Mr. Cavanaugh had first called, raised a hand, was acknowledged, and said, “Now that I know we are dealing with cashews, I can give the answer.” And the answer was correct! Mr. Cavanaugh beamed, and he went on to say how simple the principle was, after all.

From that day forward, Robert always thought of cashews as “cassaws.”

Robert liked every one of his classmates—and had since first grade. He was delighted that he liked all the new classmates that came from the Rainsville School, too. Among them was his cousin Pam. They were complementary in many ways. Pam’s hair was as dark as Robert’s was blond. Her complexion was olive, but Robert’s was pale. When Robert was serious, Pam would laugh, and, when Pam was serious, Robert would laugh. They initiated a mutually pleasant academic rivalry that, six years later, would bring Robert to be the Valedictorian and Pam to be the Salutatorian—with the two separated by hardly a difference.

In seventh grade, Robert relied upon Pam’s customary response to any of his ideas that she considered outrageous; “Now, Robert!” she would admonish him with her genuine smile. He continuously amused her, and, as she was so intellectual herself, she always kept him on his intellectual toes.

For Mr. Cavanaugh’s English class, Robert drafted a letter to Aunt Della in Georgia: "Several events have been happening on the farm. Pigs have been coming, chickens hatched, young calves have been born, and a zillion other creatures have entered into our life. I enjoy it all except for one thing—work! It takes energy to feed a mess of squealing pigs and squawking chickens. It’s work to get clean again; although I suppose it’s worth it."

To Robert, the year felt as if a long-awaited future had arrived to pay homage to the past. The fall was distinguished by a futuristic television series named Star Trek that acknowledged its roots in Old World myth and fable. The hallmark of the spring was the CBS telecast of Hal Holbrook’s stunning performance as Mark Twain. (In the distant future, Robert would meet Hal Holbrook and would tour the eastern half of the United States as Edgar A. Poe for over two hundred performances, and Robert would spend two days with—and sketch—Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek.)

Meanwhile, Joe called out, “Robert, it’s time to do the chores.”

“Robert?” Robert called back. “Who’s Robert? Don’t you mean The Fly?”

       

26. The Foragers ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

That fall, Ida drove Charles and Robert to “the secret farm.” She headed toward Rainsville. North of where the road made a bend, a farm had once stood. Nature had reclaimed the site. The buildings had long ago rotted into oblivion, leaving no trace above ground. Even the wagon tracks that had led from the location of the barn out to the road had vanished, except for two ruts that could barely be seen amid the tangled growth on the north face of a low hill. Somehow, Ida knew how to weave through islands of blackberry vines and not get scratched. The boys followed her exactly, so that they would not get scratched either. All three carried buckets.

In the vicinity of where the buildings had stood far back from the highway, Ida strode up to “her” crab apple tree. The bright red fruit was two inches in diameter. The tree had set on heavily that year. She helped the boys fill their buckets with crab apples, which she would later slice and boil to make a clear orange jelly that was Robert’s favorite of all the jellies his mother ever made.

“Look,” she said, holding a crab apple in one hand and cutting it open with a paring knife that she had brought in the pocket of her dark blue jacket, “what color are the seeds?”

“They’re brown,” Charles said.

“That’s how you know the crab apples are ready to be gathered,” Ida explained. “If the seeds were not yet dark brown, we’d leave them on the tree a little longer. See how white the apple is on the inside? That’s another indication that they’re ready.”

With buckets full of crab apples, the three made their way back to the car. They emptied the buckets into two bushel baskets in the trunk. Then they returned to the tree to get more of the red fruit. Robert noticed that the skins of the apples were a darker red where the sunlight bathed them.

They made two more trips to the car. By then, the baskets were almost full.

Next, Ida guided her sons to a slope to the north of the crab apple tree. There, she located “her” pawpaw tree.

“What’s a pawpaw?” Robert asked.

“I’m going to show you,” Ida replied. She reached up to loosen a brownish green fruit from the branch. She held it in front of Robert and teased it open with her paring knife.

“The inside is like a mushy banana,” she said.

“Can I eat it?” Robert asked.

“I don’t think you’d like it raw,” Ida cautioned. “The pawpaws might need to be a little sweeter for you. I’m going to put them in Jell-O.”

The small tree had only a few pawpaws, but they had reached the ideal ripeness. Ida carefully laid them in the bottoms of the buckets so that they would not bruise.

“How did you know the pawpaws were ready?” Charles asked.

“It’s just the time of year for them,” Ida said. “Now, you can look at them to see if they are just beginning to turn a little brown. That’s when they’re at their best. If they’re too brown, they’re past their peak and could be rotten.”

Soon, the family was headed home. Ida said, “I sure hope nobody else ever finds my farm.”

Ida was a skilled forager. When March winds gradually straightened the curls of her permanent, she could be found bent over in the yard while harvesting spring greens. She collected the mustard called “bittercress.” She made sure she had plenty of dandelions. Into her bowl went chickweed, the tiniest leaves of the early dock, and a few leaves of the broadleaf plantain. Many of these plants entered into her fresh salads while others were cooked and served steaming hot and generously peppered.

In the spring of the year when the crab apples had been so numerous, Ida would take Robert, Charles, and a friend back to the abandoned farm to collect a few sassafras roots to make tea.

The boys would use shovels to dig just below the surface of the rich soil to expose the thin roots of the shrub with its three distinctively different shapes of leaf, one of them like a mitten. Their mother and her friend then would kneel on an old blanket and gently cut sections from a few of the roots. These she would bundle together to bring home.

“There was an article in the paper not long ago that said sassafras has been banned because the chemicals in it can be harmful, but one not-very-strong cup should be good for us anyway. It’s a tonic that purifies the blood, which has been too lethargic during this long winter,” Ida would say.

At home that evening, Ida would steep the sassafras roots for a minute or two—until each of the four teacups contained a bright amber liquid. She would add honey, and the tea would be ready to drink. Robert would enjoy the flavor so much that he would wish he could have more of the tea.

“The roots are good for tea for only a few weeks, aren’t they?” Joe would ask. Ida would nod. “I wonder,” Joe would continue, “if the government studies were conducted with roots that were past the time when they could be boiled for tea. Maybe the properties change in the other months of the year.”

On another occasion that spring, Ida would take the boys and her friend mushroom hunting at the old farm. She would collect only the morels, which she would dredge in flour and fry in butter.

Back in that same autumn when the crab apples were so numerous, Mrs. Bowen, one of Ida’s best friends, was visiting with Ida over a late afternoon cup of coffee in Ida’s kitchen, and the topic turned to mushroom hunting. Mrs. Bowen’s name was Irene, but Ida always called her “Mrs. Bowen.”

Mrs. Bowen said, “I’ve been giving some thought to that old neglected farm out there by Rainsville. I’d bet you there might be mushrooms back in there.”

Ida gulped. She opened her mouth to say, “No, there aren’t any. I’ve been back there, and you’d be wasting your time.” She hesitated, instead.

Mrs. Bowen’s sharp features sharpened further. She peered into Ida’s soul. “I do believe you were about to say something,” Mrs. Bowen said, meaningfully.

“Oh,” Ida sighed. “I want to let you in on a little secret. Yes, that old place is where I find my morels. It’s also where I get my blackberries, my crab apples, and my pawpaws.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Mrs. Bowen said, setting down her coffee cup with a loud bump on the table, as if she were a queen affixing her seal to a court document. “Just make sure you come get me every time you go out there!”  

“I will,” Ida said. … and, as already implied, Ida would be true to her word, taking her friend with her to “their farm.”

  

16. The Junior Fire Marshals ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

Robert and Charles thoroughly enjoyed the Hartford Junior Fire Marshal Program. Joe might have been less enthusiastic, but he didn’t let it show. A member of the Pine Village Volunteer Fire Department visited Robert’s first grade class and Charles’ third grade class to explain that all the students must take a thick booklet to their parents, who would help them examine their homes for fire safety violations. When the booklets were returned, the students would be declared Junior Fire Marshals.

Robert and Charles skipped happily homeward that evening. Joe, who had already been through the process twice for Charles, was not necessarily looking forward to a third occasion. He hurriedly milked the cows and fed the chickens and other poultry while Ida set the supper table early. Fortunately, she did not serve homemade cottage cheese! Robert was ready to take part in the examination of the house as soon as the supper dishes were cleared.

“Alright, boys,” Joe said, “we’ll start with the bathroom.” The bathroom had been added on to the old farmhouse, and it jutted out beyond the main wall as a tiny room all to itself. When the snowflakes were flying, the space was always cold. Joe had the boys look at the light fixtures and the one outlet, which passed their inspection.

“Isn’t that a violation of fire safety?” Charles asked, pointing to a heat lamp that Joe kept hanging above the pipes of the water heater during the winter.

“Well,” Joe said, “nothing can go wrong with it, and we use it only when it’s cold enough to freeze the pipes. Let’s assume the inspection is trying to find longstanding problems.”

“So which box do I check?” Charles asked.

“Check that the bathroom passes our inspection,” Joe said, removing a pen from the pocket of his overalls so that he could check the box in Robert’s booklet while Charles checked the box in his booklet.

The three moved on to the corner of the kitchen where a toaster, an electric wall clock, and a coffee percolator were plugged in.

“Could the circuit be overloaded?” Charles asked.

“Well, we’ve never blown a fuse, and the circuit is designed to carry enough watts to permit what you see there.”

“Do I check that the kitchen has a safety violation or not?” Charles asked.

“Check that there is no violation,” Joe said. Again, he took the pen from his pocket so that he could do the same in Robert’s booklet.

Robert had already concluded that you had to be older before you could understand the intricacies of electricity. He had no idea what a circuit or a watt was. Robert wondered if he would comprehend the safety of electricity by the time he was in third grade.

The group moved on to the heating stoves with their pipes that went up and over to the chimneys. Where the pipes entered the chimneys, doughnut-shaped metal plates that were painted in ornamental designs surrounded the pipes.

“If we weren’t already using the stoves,” Joe said, “we’d take off those rings and pull the pipes out to see if there might be any obstructions in the chimney or where the pipes make that angle, but the pipes are already hot. Besides, you’ve seen me clean them every spring at the end of the heating season.”

“So there’s no violation, right?” Charles asked.

“That’s right,” Joe said. Again, he marked Robert’s booklet.

Eventually, the three of them had reached the attic. Robert was a little afraid. One night three years earlier, the fire siren had sounded from the station in town. Joe and the boys had run to the GMC pickup to try to catch up with the firetruck. It was heading west on State Route 26 toward Rainsville. Where the road made a bend, a house was afire. Others who had chased the firetruck parked their vehicles and stood watching and conversing in groups. Although no one was hurt in the fire, the event was frightening. Robert vividly remembered the smoke filled with sparks and the orange flames casting weird shadows that danced in demonic patterns on the cars and the outbuildings. In his recollection, Robert could see the hoses spraying water to save the barn as the trees caught flames in their branches that were too near the house. He recalled glass in the upstairs window of the home shattering and a ball of flame rolling out. Now he glanced worriedly at the window in the upstairs of his house.

Joe, meanwhile, had slid the attic entry panel to one side. He switched on his flashlight and aimed it into the darkness. There was a conch shell that a relative had brought back from Florida. There was a Gilbert wind-up clock from the late 1800s. A dusty violin lay near the clock. A potato bug mandolin with broken strings caught the beams from the flashlight. A pair of antiquated tennis rackets leaned against the wall. There were so many interesting items, all stacked and piled together, that Robert almost forgot his fear.

“This cord,” Joe said, “runs from one side of the house to the other through the attic.” He pointed to the cord, which was attached to the rafters. “The electrical service divides fairly evenly with half of the fixtures on one side of the house and the other half on the other side of the house. My uncle Charley—your great uncle—probably had a say in the plan, which is logical and sensible. Also, there is almost nothing hidden that we need to see for our inspection.”

The inspection had lasted until bedtime.

Joe, Charles, and Robert felt much better, knowing that everything was in tiptop shape.

When the boys submitted their booklets, they received badges made of red plastic with gold lines radiating outward from a black circle proclaiming the words “Junior Fire Marshal.” In the center of the circle stood a white stag against a red background; it was the symbol of the Hartford Insurance Company. Charles and Robert also were given red plastic hats shaped like those that real fire fighters wore. The front of the hat had the Hartford trademark, as well as “Junior Fire Marshal” in large letters.

Every afternoon, the boys played “fire marshal” by wearing their hats and putting out imaginary fires outdoors. Soon, the hats cracked and were no longer usable, but they had been fun while they lasted.