We were awakened too early by a raucous flock of crows, convened in the top of a tall pine at the edge of the grove. Their mission apparently accomplished, they flapped noisily away, leaving us aroused to our first day in the country. I looked up at the poplar trees across the road. Against the deep blue sky, their trembling leaves caught the morning’s golden sunlight like ripples on a lake. I loved the sight; our farm was beautiful.
Emerging from my bedding cocoon into the cool morning air, I grabbed a warm sweater to go over my clothes from the day before. Soon I could smell coffee, mingled with the scent of pines from the grove. Despite our primitive, makeshift kitchen, the breakfast menu was the same. When Mother had the oatmeal almost done, my father cut extra-thick slices from a loaf of her homemade bread, speared them with a long meat fork, and carefully toasted them over the open burner of the camp stove — one at a time. Never had breakfast tasted better. Thanks to our food box, and the chilly overnight temperature, our butter and milk were still cool. John and I had slept away all the moving day tensions, and discovered our new fresh-air appetites. We had no trouble eating heartily.
“I’m certainly glad I did a big baking before we left.” Mother said as she watched her rapidly vanishing loaf of bread. Bread was not the only commodity disappearing, so Daddy offered to walk over to Jensen’s later for more milk. But Mother had another priority first….
“As soon as the breakfast dishes are done,” she said, “let’s begin cleaning up around here.” We had surveyed the damage, and we knew what lay ahead. We were about to undertake a project so massive it would make her annual family spring-cleaning whirlwind seem like a deck swab. This was epic….
Debris was everywhere. Two badly deteriorated cotton mattresses lay on the floor of the main room, probably used by vagrants. Cans, bottles, and other trash from humans bothered Mother more than the pine cones and nuts left by animals. Mice had set up housekeeping, freely helping themselves to stuffing they had pulled from the mattresses. Leaves, twigs, and pine needles blown in through the pane-free windows, had drifted into corners. Our sudden flurry of activity scared off a pair of birds that had built their nest on a ledge in the main room, its never-to-be-hatched eggs abandoned. We felt more sorrow for them than the scores of other creatures whose lives we disrupted in the process. No doubt, they all thought this was their own private nirvana.
We found a caved-in root cellar a short distance in back of the house, which was hidden from view by trees and brush — a perfect place to deposit trash. We all worked together to pull the heavy, unwieldy mattresses out, and pitch them into our improvised dumpsite.
Then John and I continued to help Mother fill and haul out more boxes of litter, while Daddy began taking window measurements in the lean-to.
With the level of repairs necessary to really make the place livable, there was no way he could get everything done in the short time he had available, so he decided to tackle the lean-to first. It was about nine feet wide and a few feet longer than the rest of the house; large enough for the three of us to live in until fall. The wall it shared with the main room was the outside wall of the original house. Whoever built the addition cut two doorways into the main room through that wall. There were no doors or framing, just the two raw openings, so his first project was to block these off. Since the sagging barn was beyond hope, he decided to use it as a lumber source. While we continued clearing out debris from the house, we heard the sounds of his salvage operation — squealing nails as he pried boards loose with a crowbar, and the rapping of his hammer as he straightened bent nails, which we knew he was saving in a pocket of his overalls.
By afternoon it was as hot as the day before, but Daddy found a cool spot in the shade to build a picnic-style table and two benches, out of recovered barn material. So, at the end of our very first day, we all enjoyed the decadent luxury of eating al fresco at our new dining table. Then, before sundown, he took the scythe, and cut the tall grass from our al fresco bedroom, to eliminate the staging area for mosquitoes. John and I helped by hauling the cuttings away to our rapidly filling dump. We didn’t miss their annoying presence as we laid out our canvas tarps and bedding. They quickly found us again as soon as it grew dark, but we holed up in our blankets the same as the night before.
The following day, Mother and John stayed behind to finish sweeping and cleaning the cabin, while Daddy and I drove to town for building supplies and groceries. If cleanliness was next to godliness, she was, for that reason alone, a saintly woman. Before I passed her inspection as respectable enough to be seen in public, she made me wash my face and hands, comb my hair, and put on clean overalls — I was making my first appearance at the Park Rapids lumber yard.
It was a rare treat to ride in the front seat next to my father, and I felt very privileged and important sitting there. We chose Park Rapids, the larger of the two nearest towns, because it had the better lumber yard. Most of our shopping there was meaningless to me. I knew nothing about choosing windows, tarpaper, and bundles of lath, but I could readily appreciate the new handle we bought for the pump — no more hauling water buckets in the wagon. The General Store, however, proved to be much more interesting — with its long row of squatty glass jars, filled with every kind of penny candy.
As soon as we arrived home, daddy made a show of pulling out the new, prized pump handle to display. We could clearly see from the pleasure and relief on Mother’s face, that she was the most grateful of all. We watched while Daddy attached it to the pump, and waited eagerly as he tried it out — but nothing came forth. Then he nodded, and took our last remaining water from Shaw’s, poured it inside the pump as a primer, and worked the handle again. When the first rusty liquid finally trickled out, John and I jumped up and down, clapping our hands. After pumping a few minutes to clean out the pipe, he let each of us, in turn, have our first big drink of that delicious cold well water — a much happier experience than our first taste of Jenson’s raw milk.
But the wonders of our trip into town had not been fully revealed. In meticulous detail, I described to John the bounty of penny candy in the General Store. At the perfect moment, I pulled a little brown paper sack from my overall pocket, and dumped its treasure on the table. We divided ten cent’s worth of Mary Janes, chocolate soldiers, licorice sticks, green leaves and bull’s eyes. I think that was the beginning of our private little post-General-Store-shopping-trip ritual competition, to see which of us could make our candy last longer. John, having made a keen appraisal of his strengths and my limitations, almost invariably won….
On closer inspection my father realized that the old wooden platform over the well was unsafe, so his next priority was building a new one. The well had been dug and sided with planks to a depth of forty feet, an excellent reason for having a sturdy platform over the top. We learned later from neighbors, that its total depth was sixty feet, making it one of the deepest and coldest wells around. The water was a treat to drink on a hot day, but bone-chilling to use for bathing.
Once our own water supply was secured, the cabin cleaning operation went into overdrive. Mother scoured the entire lean-to — ceiling, walls, floor, and woodwork — with a scrub brush and yellow laundry soap. Only then, at the end of the third day, did she pronounce it fit for us to move in. The heavens had cooperated fully by withholding rain, allowing us to leave things in the trailer.
At that point, our parents cheerfully encouraged John and me to wander outside on our own, and explore the grove while they continued working. I’m sure our presence would have hindered progress on the more technical jobs. They installed windows, and applied new tar paper to the three outside walls of the shack, securing it with strips of lath. Daddy was as precise in his carpentry details as mother was obsessive about cleaning projects. Even though minor inaccuracies would never have been noticed, he still used a plumb line to ensure everything was absolutely square.
Another major operation was installing the wood-burning cook stove, a small cast iron range with two lids over the firebox, two more off to the side, and a little oven. It was small, because the tiny kitchen space was just one end at the back of the lean-to. We watched him struggle with its mighty weight, inching it into place, until it was exactly level, and positioned under the sleeve opening in the roof. When the stovepipe was assembled and connected — we could finally cook inside.
Using more lumber from the barn, he made a box to fit between the door and stove, for our wood and kindling supply. Next, he built a new washstand for the other side of the room, designed with space on top for our drinking water pail and enameled washbasin, plus a shelf underneath for stowing the slop pail. With these additions, the comprehensive interior plumbing arrangements were complete.
We were overjoyed when it was finally time for our furniture. As we unloaded, Mother cleaned every surface of each piece, to remove road dust before it was allowed inside. The maple dresser, with its glossy sheen, looked strangely out of place in these crude surroundings. The largest item was our free-standing Indiana kitchen cabinet, with drawers in the base, and shelves in the upper section. It became our room divider, separating the space into kitchen and bedroom areas. Once a small linoleum rug was laid, we brought in the picnic table and benches, and our kitchen was fully functional.
Daddy built a bunk for John in one corner of the bedroom, with a space to store boxes and bedding underneath. Mother and I would sleep together in the double bed after he left. With some minor refinements, like a clothes bar, shelf in the bedroom, and more shelves in the kitchen, our new little home felt complete.
The nights were cool enough that we welcomed the warmth from our cook stove in the mornings, when Mother made coffee and hot cereal. But at the end of a hot day, we did not appreciate the extra heat while supper cooked.
Finally, we could begin to think about farming or — perhaps more accurately at this point — gardening. With the national economy in crisis, bartering was a common practice in our depressed neighborhood. As partial payment for the use of our fields, Mr. Jenson cultivated a strip of garden for us outside the grove. We began planting our vegetables there, even though it was late in the season for them to do well. Daddy insisted that we store all of our garden implements and other tools in the shed, and reminded us to return each piece to its proper place after use.
We had been so focused on our various projects, that we could hardly believe it was finally June 18th. The next day was Sunday, my father’s birthday, and also the day he would have to return to Minneapolis. We planned his birthday festivities, and by this time, Mother felt familiar enough with the wood stove to bake a cake for our celebration.
Our last evening together was a quiet one, mostly filled with Daddy’s last minute advice and warnings: We should always keep a fresh pail full of water in the house at night in case of fire; Remember to wait until morning when the ashes are cold before emptying them; Keep a good supply of wood and kindling in the house in case of rain; John and I must help Mother saw wood before we ran out of the supply he had fixed; We should always mind Mother, and try to make life easier for her; Write him letters every day telling him what we were doing, and he would write us as well.
In the morning, Mother fixed us all a substantial breakfast, and made a big lunch for him to eat on the way. A lump rose in my throat, as we helped him carry to the car the few things he was taking back with him. He gave us all hugs and kisses before he climbed in, shut the door, and started the engine. We walked beside the car, holding Mother’s hands, as he pulled out onto the road.
We waved, gulping back sobs as he waved back, and the car pulled away. It dipped behind the first hill, emerging smaller on the next one, looking forlorn with the empty trailer weaving behind it. Coming into view again, this time in miniature, it turned the corner beyond Shaws, and passed behind the trees of The Big Woods, leaving only a faint cloud of dust hanging briefly in the air.
I was so caught up in my own sadness that day, that I did not think much about how he must have felt, observing his birthday by leaving the family he loved. Many times in those last days, when stopping for a little rest, he’d said “I’m sure going to miss you folksies,” as his hands touched our hair, or he gave us a little affectionate hug….
Mother put her arms around our shoulders, as our fists struggled to push away the tears that would not stop. It was some time before John and I were able to draw a deep breath, without catching. Back in the house, Mother put out milk and cookies — even though we’d barely finished breakfast. As we sat around the table, she went over the many projects still to be done. Her cure for unpleasant feelings was activity. “Work will take your mind off your troubles, and make the time go faster until he comes back.” She must have said it as much for herself, as for us.
Following her example, we kept busy outside the rest of the day. Up until then, we had all been preoccupied with inside projects on the house, so the grounds were still a wild and tangled mess. The yard was cluttered with dead oak saplings, leaning at crazy angles like spent javelins. Once we discovered that they were so decayed at the root that a hard push would snap them off at ground level, we began knocking them over and dragging them out by the barn, to be used for building a “log” shelter. Daddy was never far from our thoughts — we paused frequently, to wonder aloud where he was on his return trip….
The work mother prescribed did manage to lift our spirits, and at the end of our traumatic and physically exhausting day, we were more than ready for sleep at sundown. Mother felt we should conserve our limited supply of fuel for emergencies, so we went to bed before it was completely dark. The lantern’s smoky flame, our only source of light, filled the room with noxious kerosene fumes, while attracting legions of moths and annoying insects.
Walking back from the “little-house”, her euphemism for the privy, we noticed that the birds, noisy and active in the grove all day, were already hushed in their roosting places for the night. Only then, did we become aware of a different noise, “the sound.” It was a continuous low-pitched hum, resonating from every direction. Not a creature noise, it seemed to come from tree limbs, and pine needles rubbing against each other, in the light evening breeze. We were all three awed and silenced by its mystery. It cast an eerie, pervasive, lonesome spell. Although we heard it on other evenings, it never had the same intensity of feeling we experienced that first nightfall without my father.
The real impact of his absence did not strike me until later in the evening. The last thing we did outside was refill the water pail. He had always done this while I was inside getting ready for bed. I’d listened to the steady rhythm of the pump, as he briskly moved the handle, the first tinny pinging echoed inside the metal pail, and then progressively lower-pitched tones as the water level rose, until it became a full-throated thunk. When he swung the pail clear and stepped off the platform, I could hear the final drops splattering on the boards below.
Now, I was outside helping Mother make those same sounds. Later, in my night clothes, I watched as she locked the door with a turn of the wooden button. Her profile was solemn and thoughtful, as she took a last look out the window toward the road, just as my father had always done.
Under the covers, I felt strange and vulnerable. The one I depended on for protection and wisdom was gone. Even though I had no specific cause for alarm, I did not know how well my mother would manage. She was alone in an alien, isolated world — one with little use for Greek Poetry….