Some Luck (5 page)

“Ja, jeg elske søt poteter, når det er alt det er,”
said Ragnar.

“Ragnar may not like the rabbit sausage,” said Papa, “but I do. Always have. One thing, Eloise, that you should remember is that a farmer doesn’t have to grow and sell everything he eats. There’s a whole world out there.”

“I like pheasant,” said Eloise.

“Me, too,” said Papa. “You go out into the cornfield after the harvest, and the pheasants are there pecking at the dropped kernels. When I was a boy, we got them with our slingshots, just for fun. And for supper.”

Frank put his finger on the bit of sausage and then picked it up and
put it in his mouth. It was bitter, not like the sweet potatoes. He made a face, but then he picked up another bit.

“He’ll eat about anything,” said Papa. “That’s a good quality in a farmer. When I was in France, that was a place where they eat anything that moves or grows. I admired that.”

“Did you eat a snail?” said Eloise.

“Lucky to eat a snail,” said Papa. “Little fish with the heads on, fried up hard. Didn’t like that so much. Their animals eat about anything, too. Pumpkins. Turnips. Beer. Saw a man give his horse a beer.”

“Do they have beer in France?” said Eloise.

“Up north, where we were, they do,” said Papa.

“How long were you there?” said Eloise.

“Less than a year; wished I’d stayed longer and seen some different parts.”

Where was Mama? Frank’s thoughts returned to this. He thought maybe she was upstairs. Although Frank could climb the stairs and come back down without falling, Papa had blocked them off. He hadn’t seen Mama in a long time, though sometimes he heard her voice floating in the air.

Frank said, “Mama!”

“Can’t go to Mama yet,” said Papa. “But Granny’ll be down in a bit.”

“Mama,” said Frank.

Eloise, who was sitting closest to him, pointed with her fork to his sausage. She said, “It’s good for you. Make you big and strong.”

Frank gripped the spoon more tightly in his hand, raised his arm, and brought the spoon down on the mound of sweet potatoes. The mound jumped.

“No,” said Papa.

“No,” said Frank.

“Eat your food,” said Papa. “You’re old enough to eat what’s on there.”

Ragnar and Eloise looked at each other. Ragnar cleared his throat.
“Jeg skjønner en tantrum komme.”

“Nonsense,” barked Papa. “Frankie, you be a big boy now, and eat your supper.”

Eloise looked up the stairs, and then back at Frank. She said, “Frankie, no …”

He knew what “no” meant—it was an irritating word, “no.” He placed his palms on the edge of the table, both of them, and he took a deep, deep breath, preliminary to a loud, loud noise. He could feel the noise rising from his chair, even from his feet, since his feet were kicking, and as the noise came out, he pushed as hard as he could against the edge of the table, and there he went—the chair arced backward, and he saw the ceiling and the corner of the dining room, and then the back of the chair hit, and Frank rolled out to the side, away from Eloise, and ran for the stairs. Papa’s big hand caught him by the collar of his overalls and then grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around. He didn’t know where he was, the room was going so fast, though he kept his eye on the stairs the best he could, and there was Granny Mary at the top, or just her feet, he couldn’t see the rest, and then there was the floor, and he was sprawled across Papa’s knee with his pants down, and every blow included a word: “Don’t. Run. Away. From. Me. Young. Man.”

Now Papa stood him on his feet and leaned close to his face, and there was that sharp smell again, and the heat and the redness, and the loudness, and Frank closed his eyes and screamed until Papa’s hand knocked him down and he was quiet. Everyone was quiet. Frank lay on his back, and he could just see Eloise with her mouth open at the table, and Ragnar next to her. Granny’s footsteps came closer and closer, and she sat him up. She said, “I don’t know what gets into two-year-olds. It’s like your own child has been taken away and this other being left in his place.”

Papa said, “Put him back in his chair. He’s got some food to eat.”

Granny stood up and then picked Frank up and carried him to his chair, which Eloise had set back in place. Frank sat quietly. They were back where they started, everyone straight and tall, no wiggling. Frank was hungry. It had never been about not being hungry. Granny Mary put his spoon in his hand. Frank used it the best he could, but he ate the sausage with his fingers. Papa didn’t seem to mind that.

After Frank had eaten three bites, Papa said, “How’s Rosanna?”

“Tired,” said Granny. “So tired. I wish this child would come. I do.”

The room ceased shaking, and Frank took some breaths.

Papa said, “He screams, but he doesn’t cry or whine. I’ll say that for him.”

WALTER THOUGHT
he probably grew too much oats, but if you were a Langdon and your mother was a Chick, then it was natural to plant oats, eat oats, feed oats, bed oat straw, and, most of all, enjoy all the stages of oat cultivation. He had talked his brother-in-law Rolf—who had taken over Opa and Oma’s farm, though the old folks were still living in the house—into planting forty acres this year, too. Rolf was twenty, but he had as much gumption as a ten-year-old, Walter thought. Rosanna had gumption for both of them.

Walter especially liked binding and shocking the oats—the weather was hot, and grit of all kinds got into your hair and your clothes and your boots and your eyes and your nose, but a field of shocked oats was an accomplishment, and foretold a barn-load of straw and grain that would get everyone, animals and people, through the winter. Oat straw was a beautiful color—paler than gold but more useful.

And Walter also liked the sociability of August—men and boys from all over the county came to his farm, and he went to their farms, and there was plenty to eat and to talk about. It didn’t hurt that Jake and Elsa were an admirable team of horses to be pulling the binder—patient, strong, good-looking, stylish grays. Didn’t matter who was driving them—a boy could drive them and they would do their job. No running away, like Theo Whitehead’s team of Shires did that year, breaking up the binder on the fence line, and slowing the threshing by four days while everything was put back together.

When they came in for dinner, Rosanna had it all organized out back, under the hickory trees. Tables with cloths lined up in the shade, and the bread and the beans and the caramelized carrots and the sweet corn and the watermelon and the slaw all set out, so that they sat themselves down at their places, and out she came with the roasts, two of them, enough for everyone to have plenty, with her own butter in the middle that she made and salted and sold to the store in town—the best butter in the county, everyone said.

In addition to their own two families, there were the Whiteheads and the Lewises and the Smiths, whom Walter and Rosanna only saw
at threshing and harvest, everyone in family groups, the men to help with the threshing, the women to help with the cooking, and the youngsters to play—Rosanna set the youngsters up in the side yard, with two different kinds of swings, a tire swing and a bench swing—and the girls were put in the charge of Eloise, who had them turning the crank on the ice-cream churn. Even though Walter didn’t grow any peaches, and didn’t know anyone who did, Rosanna got some in town—a peck of them—and the ripest went into the ice cream. Of all the families who did their threshing together and therefore their eating together, Walter’s family was the only one who made ice cream. The day at Walter’s was a long one, because he grew so much oats.

But look at Frank, an advertisement for oats if ever there was one. He was inches taller than the Lewis boy, who was a month older, and he could outrun that Lewis boy, too. What was his name? Oh, Oren. The big boy, almost four, was David. David Lewis was standing facing Frank as Walter passed them, shouting, and Frank was smacking the ground with a branch he’d found. Oren was standing there, looking back and forth between the two of them, and this is what Walter heard—he heard David shout, “Okay, Frank, you stand there, and you tell me what to do.” This was enough to make Walter chuckle, and then Frank called out, “David, run to me, push me!” Frank dropped the branch and spread his arms.

When David ran at him, Frank turned his shoulder to the older boy and knocked him down. Then the boys rolled over in the grass. Rough play, and Walter knew Rosanna and Emily Lewis would stop it, but since Frank had dropped the branch, it was hand-to-hand combat—all boys, Walter thought, needed plenty of that, especially Oren, who stood there with his thumb in his mouth. It was his private opinion that he and Howard hadn’t been allowed enough shenanigans—when they weren’t put to tasks, they were to sit still, do as they were told, speak when spoken to. As a result, he sometimes thought he had never known Howard at all. Walter sped up his step. He was hungry, and he didn’t want to hear anything from Rosanna about letting those boys get away with murder.

As soon as Walter washed his hands at the pump, that was the signal for all the men to clean up as best they could and find themselves places at the table.

The first thing all of them did was down several glasses of water, and then the chorus went around: “Hot one! How hot do you think it is? Over a hundred yet? Not so damp, though. Humidity was worse the other day, over at Bill Whitehead’s. Down by the river there, always damp.” Head shaking. “Got a good crop, though, say that for him.” Then, “Try this, Rolf. Rosanna knows her slaw. Nice piece of meat, Walter. Lean, but tasty, I’ll say. How many you gonna slaughter this year? I got jars of brisket and sausage bursting out of the cellar, don’t know why, just can’t eat enough of it, I guess. Didn’t have to kill a chicken until May this year. Nice melons, too. Soil around our place isn’t sandy enough for good melons. How’s your potatoes looking this year? I didn’t even plant them in one spot, just covered ’em with manure and straw. Every so often, I grab a plant and lift it up, and look at the potatoes.” And then, when they were full, “You can go ahead and grow all the corn you want, Otto, but you ain’t gonna make a profit from it unless you feed it to your pigs. More pigs, more profit. Walking dollars is what I call hogs. We got some Durocs this year, from Martha’s cousin. I like the Hampshires for the hams, but Durocs are longer in the bacon, her cousin says.” Then there was a long conversation about hog breeds. Walter’s own hogs were Berkshires, and they liked oats. But what didn’t they like? Walter felt happy. There was talk about cars—Bill Whitehead’s cousin over in Cedar Rapids had bought his second Model T for $260, but he’d had to pay another forty for an electric ignition. “Least you can get that now,” said Ralph Smith. “Cranking that thing before the war, my uncle had his hand broke.” Walter cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. How a person could have a farm with a mortgage and a car, too, was a problem he hadn’t solved, and so he allowed his father’s preference for horses to prevail.

Here came Rosanna with Joe, the baby. Joe was five months old now, and big and healthy. You wouldn’t know from looking at him that it had been touch and go there for a bit—though how touch and go, maybe Walter himself didn’t know. Small baby, even though he was late, according to Rosanna’s and her mother’s calculations. And Rosanna’s mother thought he looked late: “Like a little old man,” she said, “worn out and wrinkled.” And then the milk didn’t come in the first day, or the second, and there was no denying that she was worried. As for Dr. Gerritt, he was so little help that Mary just sent
him away. Walter himself thought that it was the oatmeal that did the trick—Rosanna could keep it down, first with water, then with milk, then with cream, and then with butter. She got better every day, and after that little Joe got better, and look at him now. Walter’s mother said what she always did, that he was the spit of Walter himself, plenty of dark hair and fat cheeks. Walter watched Rosanna as she carried him around each table, saying, “Joey, Joey, look at all of our friends come to see you!” Joey had one hand on her cheek, and she held the other hand in hers. Rosanna said that he wasn’t as far along as Frankie had been at this age, but Walter himself couldn’t remember. A spring baby got out more, was all he knew, so he had more of a sense of Joey than he had had of Frank. Joey was still getting up in the night, but Rosanna didn’t mind. She was a little protective of him.

The funny thing was that Frank didn’t pay any attention to Rosanna anymore—it was like he couldn’t hear her voice. His head only turned when Eloise spoke to him, or Rolf (that was a rarity), or Walter himself. Mary said this was normal, and so did Walter’s mother, but Rosanna was taking it a little hard. Her mother said, “Someday you’ll have had so many that you won’t remember the differences between one and the other.”

And Eloise said, “You always remember that I was the worst.”

And Mary, not to be outdone, said, “Some things do stick in your mind, miss!”

But there was no denying that what they would do without Eloise Walter couldn’t imagine. Now she was doing some of the cooking and all of the bed making and dusting. She pumped all the water and carried it in, and all winter she had kept the fires going because Rosanna was so sick. She didn’t mind feeding the hogs and the sheep if Walter was busy. She was big, too—well developed as well as strong. As far as Walter was concerned, she had earned the right to have her lamp on whenever she felt like it—kerosene was little enough to pay if she wanted to read late or do her knitting. She had no talent for sewing, so Rosanna had made her two nice dresses and a coat. Three years and she would be married, no doubt, to one of these boys who were now wolfing down his sweet corn, and what would they do then?

Rosanna said that Walter was a worrier, but there was plenty to worry about with prices so low. You may say that hogs paid the bills, or chickens and eggs and cream. There was a fellow down by Ames
who bred draft horses and sent them back to Europe by ship, since so many horses had been killed in the war that they’d lost even their breeding stock, but the thing that made Walter nervous (and maybe this was a result of his own experiences in the war) was the length of the supply line. Let’s say that, every hundred miles, some other person got a right to take a nip of the cherry. Let’s say that. Then, if you were sending your corn and oats and hogs and beef to Sioux City, well, that was two hundred miles, and Kansas City was 250. Chicago was about 325 or so, and beyond that Walter wasn’t willing to go. You could just say that the quarters got thinner or the dollars got paler the farther they came—that was how Walter thought about it. So sending draft horses to France and Germany? That was a strange business, like wheat to Australia. Walter didn’t trust it. The wealth was right here, spreading away from this table—chickens in the chicken house, corn in the field, cows in the barn, pigs in the sty, Rosanna in the kitchen with Joe and Frank, Eloise safe in her room thinking her thoughts. Walter looked around. His work crew was revived now, and making jokes—did you hear about the farmer who won the lottery? As if there were lotteries anymore. When they asked him what he was going to do with his million dollars, reported Theo Whitehead, he said, “Well, I guess I’ll just farm till it’s gone.”