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.
