THE HARRIS ORCHARD, garden and hayfield were all within
one enclosure. The apple trees, currant bushes, etc., respected the
territorial rights of the potatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, radishes,
turnips, cabbages, beets, etc., and never once overstepped their bounds.
The other occupants of the enclosure reciprocated; in short, they were all
good neighbors.
The garden demanded far more of the attention of my
grand father and his helper, Mr. Wynne, than both of its neighbors put
together. It required plowing, planting, fertilizing, hoeing, weeding and
potato bug picking all to satisfy the garden. The orchard uncomplainingly
suffered neglect. It could have stood a lot of spraying and pruning but
the best it could get was having the worm nests burned off when they
became too pestiferous for endurance. The hay field gave bountiful crops
of sweet timothy and clover for which it got nothing in return but a few
wheelbarrow loads of cow manure from the barn yard. The droppings of the
hen house, because of their high nitrogen content, were reserved for the
garden, and they were not distributed lavishly but just so much to each
hill in keeping with good New England husbandry.
It was
astonishing how much good food grandfather and Mr. Wynne could get out of
our rocky garden, the potatoes alone being enough to justify its
existence. We grew ruddy Peach Blows, White Hebron Beauties, Early Rose
and, eventually, Burbanks. Old Mr. Wynne devoted all the space assigned to
him for the growing of potatoes, “tatties” he called them. He had a large
family and they needed food. In the autumn he harvested his crop and
trundled it home in his wheelbarrow.
He and I were great friends. He used to say that I was
getting to be a big boy and when I asked, “How big, Mr. Wynne he said
that I was knee-high-to-a-grasshopper and weighed about four pounds less
than a straw hat. He was an old man and quite bent and he often sat down
on his wheelbarrow to rest and smoke his pipe and I often joined him,
sitting on one of the handles of the wheelbarrow. As he tamped his tobacco
down into the bowl of his pipe, scratched a match and lit up, I knew that
I would be welcome and took my accustomed seat.
Sometimes he sat and smoked reflectively and sometimes
he talked quite freely in his broad Irish brogue. One day I asked him why
he talked so funny and he said that he did not talk funny, that it was I
who talked funny and that they would not be able to understand me at all
in Ireland. When I asked him why he raised so many potatoes he said that
he raised them because he liked to talk with the fairies that were always
to be found in the “tattie” patches. He used at times to point out some of
his fairy friends to me but somehow I never could see them.
There were, however, plenty of interesting things which
I could see in the garden all the growing season. In the early spring the
lettuce and radishes began to break their way through the soil, harbingers
of good things to come. The early peas began to climb the bushes provided
by grandfather and the vines of the case knife beans began to climb the
poles cut by Mr. Wynne in Pine Grove and planted in long rows stretching
across the garden. Previous generations of case knife beans had climbed
the same poles in other years and after having been dried and shelled, had
eventually found their way into the big iron pot in which they were cooked
to a delicious brown, covered with strips of pork, and borne triumphantly,
steaming hot, to the dining room table by Delia to gladden the hearts of
folks both old and young.
People
from other parts of the country sometimes wonder how the humble baked bean
has been able to hold its position for generations as prime favorite for
Saturday night suppers served along With cornmeal pudding on the
aristocratic tables of Boston, but they would not be so much given to
wonder if they once had the privilege of eating beans and brown bread as
those delicious viands are served in New England.
The beans served on our table could not have been
nearly so inviting if grandmother had bought them over the counter of a
chain store. Our beans were the product of the toil of Mr. Wynne and
grandfather, and therefore they were extra sweet.
As a matter of fact grandfather and Mr. Wynne seemed to
be of the essence of all of the edible things which were grown on our
miniature farm. The potatoes, cabbages, beans, onions, turnips, beets and
even the Northern Spy apples seemed wondrously better when we thought of
them as our produce grown on our farm. The milk we drank, the eggs
grandfather took from the nests in the barn and the roasting roosters who
learned how to strut and crow in our barnyard. All of these things were a
part of our very selves.
We lived near to nature in those days; we were part and
parcel of the universe and in our own quiet enjoyment of things, our lives
were fuller than they could have been otherwise.
Mr. Wynne had a pet toad that hopped along ahead of
him, snapping up flies and other insects as he went and Mr. Wynne was very
careful not to step on him or strike him with his hoe. I think that our
toad recognized a certain kinship with Mr. Wynne, any how, he was never
far from him. Every autumn our toad disappeared and every spring he
reappeared entirely forgetful of the fact that for much of the year he
seemed to be nothing more impressive than a badly soiled chunk of ice.
Mr. Wynne with his wheelbarrow, his pipe, his tattles,
his toad and his fairies was an interesting person for a little boy to
know and then too he was the father of Mike and Jim, two of the best
fighters in school and he was also the father of Delia, our “hired girl.”
Our
garden certainly was rocky, especially in the eyes of folks from more
favored spots. I was exhibiting it once with considerable pride to a
cousin from the West who took the wind out of my sails by exclaiming, “Oh,
I know what that is, that’s your rock pile.”
The cow was the principal beneficiary of the hay field
although volunteer crops of carraway seeds yielded their spice for the
delectable cookies which were eaten between meals by us hungry boys.
Sometime during August when the weather promised fair,
we had our hay-making. No wisps of grass either in orchard or yard escaped
the searching scythe of old Mr. Wynne and when the hay had been cured and
all of the windrows had been raked into neat little cocks, along came Ab
Harrington with his well matched pair and his capacious hay rick and with
the help of old Mr. Wynne, tucked the entire crop away in the hayloft
where it could be forked into the chute leading down into the manger for
the use of our cow during the winter.
Our orchard projected eastward between the Arnold Hill
farm on the south and the Alfred Hull farm on the north and the farming
operations on the two farms were all of interest. On the floor of the barn
at the Hill farm, I saw grain separated from chaff by the use of an old
fashioned flail, the only one I have ever seen in actual operation.
Alfonso Stafford (father of Fay who later was to become
my chum) managed the Hull farm for Mr. Hull and did some of the light work
such as raking hay with a light horse-power rake. Old Nate Remington, who
had worked many years on the farm, did most of the work with the two-horse
team, Bobby and Fannie.
The Hull farm barn afforded refuge on rainy days and
there were hiding places in plenty, and when we could think of nothing
else to do, we could always tease old Nate who regarded us as
abominations. Once upon a time, he gave way to his pent up rage and
shouted, “I’ll put the flat hand on ye,” which I am sure he would have
done had he been able to catch us.
The barn
with its hayloft, horse and cow stables, poultry rooms, Wood and coal bins
and meat storage rooms was an excellent place In the summer time for us
boys to paste pictures of trapeze performers, tightrope walkers, rifle
shots, balloon ascension heroes, clowns and other celebrities of the
circus. Our improvised picture gallery engaged our attention rainy days.
My mania for collecting pictures still continues.
As long as we kept a cow we continued our small farming
operations. Grandmother, not trusting anyone else to make our butter, made
it personally. She strained the big pails of milk into pans and put them
into the pantry to cool off. In the morning she heated the milk on the
stove until a blanket of cream arose. She then removed the cream with her
big skimmer and put it aside for churning day. Grandfather provided the
power for the churning operation.
Devonshire cream, justly famed throughout England, is
the exact counterpart of the cream which grandmother skimmed from the milk
of our cow. To those who have been privileged to feast on English
strawberries served with Devonshire cream, no words of mine will be
necessary. From such cream grandmother’s butter was made.
The hayfield in our orchard also yielded considerable
crops of daisies and brown-eyed susans. They were prized for their beauty
and also for their faculty of determining for lovesick boys and girls
whether or not their love was returned. The first petal plucked stood for,
“He loves me,” the second, “He loves me not” and the last petal told the
story to the trembling heart.
The
yellow buttercups of the hayfield, not to be outdone by the daisies, also
laid claim to powers beyond the ken of men. If a little boy wished to know
whether or not his sweetheart loved butter, the buttercups would tell. All
that he had to do was to place a buttercup beneath her chin and if it
reflected yellow thereon, then the adored one loved butter of course. I
have tried this device many times, not that I cared a fig whether the
little lady loved butter or not. I don’t, in fact, recall ever having
looked beneath my lady’s chin for the tell-tale glow. As I remember, I
looked just above the chin at the rose-petal mouth and the glistening
pearls within. Oh buttercups, buttercups, accomplices in the sweetest of
frauds, would that we could get together again!
