Grand Change Page 15

  Nanny was in the yard feeding the chickens. The old horse came to her and nuzzled her arm with his muzzle. The Boss was in the shop building a box trap to catch a skunk that had been marauding our hen house. Nanny called to him. He came out with a few sticks of scrap lumber in his hands. He stopped short, staring at King. The sticks fell from his hands. His face went pale. Then a slow, vicious anger crept in. He took King to the watering trough and watered him. Then took him to his stall and fed him. By the time he came back out, the anger on his face had become almost violent. “Go over to Joe’s, Jake, and call them fellows up,” he said. “Tell them to get out here.”

  When Mabel relayed the message, I could hear the voice at the other end of the line. Along with being weak, it had a thin whine. When the two fat men got out of their truck that evening, they had that edgy look, like they were approaching something that kicks. They were almost right. I hadn’t known that The Boss could hand out such a tongue-lashing. He was almost on tiptoe, sometimes seething through his teeth.

  The two men stood like dogs in a hailstorm, and it was “Yes, sir, Mr. Jackson. No, sir, Mr. Jackson.”

  When The Boss finally ran down and went and got King, the grey-black clouds that had been holding off all day, as if waiting for this precise moment, began to rain.

  The Old Man passed the horse back to the buyers, then stood gripping the lead rope. With hunched shoulders and heavy raindrops streaking down on his head, the large drops splattering on his cap peak and knobby hands, he stood watching the truck leave. King’s head bobbed and turned, his eye whites flashing, sometimes at The Old Man, sometimes at Bill, who was running and neighing along the pasture fence by the lane.

  I don’t know if that was when The Boss decided to get the tractor or not. Quite likely he’d decided before, since it was time to start plowing and he had not made any move that I knew of to buy horses. Whatever, the tractor came with a plow the following Saturday—a cool, clear day with a crisp freshness that tuned in with the coloured leaves wisping here and there in the barnyard. The delivery men rolled them, hooked up, off a flatbed truck, handed The Boss a couple of manuals and left without saying much of anything.

  The Boss had never driven a motor vehicle of any kind. I hadn’t either. He must have spent an hour or more checking things out, flipping through the manuals, pausing at times to peer over the rims of his glasses to check out some object, either on the plow or the tractor. Eventually, he threw a sheepish glance at me, hesitated, took a deep breath, climbed onto the tractor seat, took another look at a manual and sat rigid for a while with both hands on the wheel. Then he flipped out the ignition button and hauled on a rod on the left side of the battery box. Nothing happened. He flipped hastily through the manual again, his eyes shooting alternating glances between the pages and the controls at the battery box. Then he pulled the rod on the right side of the battery box and the starter suddenly gave a cranky, draggy rhutt or two and the tractor jerked ahead in jumps until The Boss threw up his hands like he was dropping a hot potato. He paused then and stared at the rod with his head canted. Then he pushed in the clutch with his foot and pulled the rod again and the motor stirred to life, and there was this low, growling whine until he finally released the rod. Then he let the clutch out and the tractor bucked ahead and stalled.

  In time, after a lot of gear grinding, jerking, stalling, hitting reverse and jack-knifing into the plow, he got moving, with him sitting straight-armed, straight-backed and heading for the barnyard fence. Before he crashed into the fence, he belched out a shocked “whoa” with his hands flapping and clawing, not knowing what to do. He got stopped without too much damage, except a few paint scratches. Then he was jack-knifed in with the plow and, after some jerking and wheel-twisting, we wound up unhitching to get things straightened out.

  He headed out the lane to the field, swerving with wheel jerks, doing his best not crash into a post, and finally got the plowing started, in a kind of way. He’d forget about the wheel now and then or hit the brake instead of the clutch, and he pulled into the headland a few times without tripping out the plow—the furrows were something else—but by noon he had it pretty well down. In the afternoon he went to work to teach me. By mid-afternoon, he left me at it and went and cleaned out the pigs.

  But The Old Man didn’t seem completely settled on things, even after the plowing was done. It was as if his mind had not been completely made up concerning what direction he was taking. Then the double whammy came and helped make up his mind for him.

  The Boss usually left the stock out as long as there was a hint of pasture. It usually took a cold rain or a wet snow to prod him into bringing them all in for the winter. It was a wet snow that fall that did it, and the animals were cold-soaked, with that dirty wet-hair smell, and the barnyard was a sticky goo.

  The milk cows weren’t a problem. We were able to herd the spring calves into a big pen by the barn floor without too much trouble. The fun started when we began putting the young cattle into stalls, with them half wild and nervous, having not seen the inside of the barn since spring. You had to be ready to dodge a careless horn. They could bolt in an instant, and some had to be roped and tail-twisted in. We were working a big steer along the fence leading to the horse stable, with The Boss on the rope and me twisting his tail on the fence side. Suddenly, the steer snapped his rear end and whammed me against the fence, then bolted, knocking The Boss down. The Boss had the rope wound around his arm and couldn’t get free. By the time I got hold of things, the steer had dragged him pretty much the length of the barnyard through the muck and manure. It was tricky business getting The Boss free of the rope with my feet slewing in the muck and the steer twitching and bolting. When I finally did, The Old Man staggered to his feet, and, after few starts, wobbled to the fence and leaned on a post.

  “I’ll look after the rest,” I said. “You’d better go into the house.”

  He didn’t answer, just stood catching his breath. Eventually, he staggered in a hunch to the house.

  At supper, The Boss sat unusually quiet, picking at his food. I did the barn work myself. When I came in, he was sitting smoking his pipe with that same quietness. The evening news was just beginning. Nanny was trimming the lamp wick with a pair of scissors. When she lit the lamp, the weak glow didn’t change much except to shadow the walls and throw a glint into the cap peak shadow on The Old Man’s face.

  Except for his lips, curling around his pipe now and then, letting out puffs of smoke, his face was completely deadpan. I took off my boots and coat and sat with my feet on the oven door and let the warmth of the stove pull away the dampness and chill. I pulled out my makings and rolled a smoke. I had been smoking since spring then, and it was still enjoyment, not the puff and choke habit it turned out to be. Nanny moved a chair over beside me and went at her knitting. We listened to the news and weather until it finished and the evening mass came on and Nanny went and turned off the radio and came back and sat working out a missed stitch. We sat saying nothing for a spell, enjoying the warmth of the kitchen.

  Eventually, The Old Man took out his pipe and began taking sidelong glances at me. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, blunt and resolved. “What do you plan to do with your life?” he said. He sat peering at me, waiting for an answer.

  I had been pondering the future since one evening the previous summer when I was walking in our lane from shooting crows, with my twenty-two rifle under my arm. It was one of those quiet gloomy evenings just before a squall. Somehow, the peacefulness of the grazing cattle in the pasture field by the lane, the lonely chirps of birds in the woods and the softness of the breeze seemed to combine with the mood of the evening to say in unison that I didn’t belong here anymore and that I would soon have to leave. But I had no definite direction, none in the least, actually.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The Old Man took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Well, I’m goin
g to work at shutting her down,” he said. “Me and Ella have been talking about it. I’ll get someone to help us thrash the grain all at once; move the potatoes out, they’re not a bad price now; Fred James will take them out and grade them.” He paused and looked at the floor. “I’m not half man anymore; that’s all there is to it. I plan to keep some beef and a few milk cows, grow grain and hay, get someone to custom combine the grain, custom bale the hay. There’ll be no more potatoes. In two years’ time I’ll be pensioned off. I’ll either rent or sell.” The Old Man’s voice was quiet and steady and completely determined. His mind was made up. He was used to making hard decisions and living with the outcome and there was no sign of flinching. “I was planning for Waldron to take over, but…” His voice trailed off. He straightened and paused, looking full at me. “You’re a good little worker, but you’re no farmer. It’s not in you. I was hoping you’d get an education. It’s not too late; we could help you there.” The Old Man paused again, his eyes searching my face. I made no reply. “Whatever,” The Old Man said firmly. “You’re old enough to start out on your own. You’re welcome to make this place a place to come to as long as we’re around, but between now and next spring you need to be thinking about finding work and making your own way.”

  “We’re not telling you to leave right away,” Nanny said. “You can work out and be here until you get used to things. Maybe shovel snow this winter for the railroad. Agnes told me Fred James was looking for a worker for the warehouse.”

  It all kind of grabbed me pretty hard. I had been sailing along, waiting for things to take their course, with the security of a set home life. Suddenly, that security was being swept away from me and for the first time I had to face life on my own.

  “You’re a young man now,” The Old Man said. “The whole world lays before you, but the time will sneak by. You can’t waste it. The younger you learn that the better.” The Old Man packed his pipe again and lit up and thought for a while before he spoke again. There was just the sound of Nanny’s knitting needles above the crack and burr of the stove. “And you got to be looking down the road. You’ll be married someday, with children. You need to be thinking about that responsibility and it’s a big one. You need to be thinking about being a provider and that means you got to be prepared to have regular work. If you don’t want to get a full education, at least get a trade. Go to work for a carpenter or a plumper, learn the trade. You try carpentry and you don’t like it, stay at it until you get it down anyway. All work is related. You get to be a good carpenter you’ll know things that will help you if you try something else and you’ll have that to fall back on.” The Old Man paused again and studied the floor. Then he sighed, belched out smoke and eyed me sidewise again. “Anything you learn in life will be of use to you one way or another. And try anything; don’t be afraid to fail. There’s no shame in failing; the shame is in not trying.” The Old Man sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “The rest is up to you, I guess.”

  We talked about the subject again a few times before winter. By then, the grain was threshed, the potatoes were sold and moved out and the wood was sawed. After the first big storm I hired on with Fred James. I boarded at home half the winter, then went for room and board at Mrs. Deighan’s. She was a widow in the village.

  That’s pretty well how I left Hook Road. Not much more to it. I went back to visit, of course. But the road was never the same after. Once you leave a place, you see it from a different perspective, and the place wasn’t the same, anyway; the old communal spirit was gone, among other things. The changes on Hook Road snowballed after I left. Add a few short years and it was pretty much as it is now.

  The Old Man was the first to go. He put in a crop of grain and did pretty well what he said, but his old frame couldn’t handle things even with what he had. The following spring he held a sale. Most everyone on the road showed up, though most of them didn’t buy that much. The old farm fraternity, what was left of it, had something to do with bringing them out; but I’d have to say mostly it was because the reality of the beginning of the end of Hook Road community was hitting home. You could see that in the sombreness everyone affected through the whole sale. The auctioneer, a skinny, sharp-faced, jovial type, who had a joke with every article, soon gave up his quips after getting nothing but deadpan expressions from the crowd.

  Nanny busied herself as usual, always her way of dealing with whatever. She helped organize the sale trail. The Old Man sat in the old armchair in the yard, whittling at a stick, pausing at times to glance up at something being sold. There was a firm tightness to his mouth and his eyes would grow misty and he’d look down to hide it. When they auctioned Bill off, he couldn’t take it anymore—went and hid in the horse stable. When he came back they were into the household articles and the armchair was gone.

  One by one, with the curt spasmodic bid shouts from the crowd spacing into the auctioneer’s singsong, ending with the stark finality of his “sold,” the articles worth next to nothing in their usefulness, priceless in their memories and meaning, disappeared into a sea of indifference. And as they went, those that did (most of the horse machinery didn’t), the sombreness grew. It was sad to see it all go, like watching something die. As they were selling the property, I noticed the old light wagon standing battered and all but paintless by itself in the barnyard. I could have cried.

  The farm went to Angus Simms. He was expanding on his back property south of Jar Road, just across from ours. The Old Man and Nanny lived out their days in a little house they bought in town.

  Joe Mason packed it in a few years later; sold out to Tom Dougal. His back went bad and he was over his head in debt anyway. He had a brother in Toronto; moved up there, got a job as a janitor in a big school. Wally wound up there, too. Joe got a toupée about the time Wally’s head was beginning to smooth off and he got the idea to start a wig shop. Last I heard, he was still at it. Linda Robins just happened to wind up there, too. She finally nailed Wally down. They wound up with a house full of kids.

  Alban Gallant sold out to James not long after Joe left; moved into the city and ran the new rink they built there until he retired, His daughter, Candide, was the county beauty queen one year.

  John Cobly took cancer not six months after Alban left; died within a month. James got his farm, too. Agnes went to live with one of their daughters.

  Jim Mackie was next to go, though not by much. He moved to Sault Saint Marie, Ontario; got work handling a crane. I heard he won a fiddle contest up there. Tom Dougal got his farm, too.

  Dan Coulter took a bit of a twist. He got watching some TV evangelist and caught religion; quit the booze and whatnot. He sold out to Hallis Main, who joined his own property to Dan’s on the west side about the time Jim left. Dan moved into town; got to be quite the churchgoer—even did a little lay preaching. The church he went to pretty much buried him when he went out. He had no children and no living relatives.

  Things went bad all the way around for the Wallaces. Charlie’s marriage went sour before too long. Joanie didn’t seem to fit into the Wallace scene too well, and Charlie got into the booze a bit heavy over things. The marriage blew to pieces and Joanie took off with an airman. Charlie moved into the city and went to work with Alban Gallant at the rink and played hockey with the senior team there, when he was sober. The liquor got him pretty bad. He was a hockey bum for a while, played Allan Cup–calibre in Ontario until the booze took him down. Last I heard, he was a skid row bum in Toronto and Wally and Joe Mason were trying to bring him around.

  Alf went kind of soft in the head at the last. I was down fishing at the creek one Labour Day and caught him sitting hunched over on a block in the shop with his arms dangling off his knees. The ashes in the forage were crusted and grey like they’d been there for a long time. Off to the side, the wood sleigh he had started about five years before sat with an auger sticking up from a half-finished hole in one of the bunks and there was a cobweb running fr
om a handle tip to the middle of the bunk.

  He didn’t reply right away when I spoke; just sat looking at me with his eyes slightly staring and his face slack. When he finally did, it was in a low monotone, melancholy and distant: “Used to make knives from files, skates, too,” he said. “Fixed the lock on Harvey’s musket back then. Shod twelve horses in one day and I was an inventor and…” Then George came in.

  “Come on, Alf,” he said. “I need you to help me get that fence fixed. No good in you sitting here all day, mooning.”

  “I’ll be right with you,” Alf said.

  “No, you won’t,” George said. “No, you won’t. You’ll sit here all day, mooning. Now come on, with Charlie gone you’re going to have to pitch in. There’s no more horses to shoe and your inventing never got you anywhere and never will.”

  I decided to leave. Alf wound up in a mental institution. George carried on for a while with Hilda working in the food plant, the big concern built just outside of town. Then he rented to James and went to work in the plant, too. He finally sold out to James and moved to town.

  Tom Dougal hung on the longest; went into dairy. Then he decided to go bigger and by then there wasn’t any more available property nearby so he sold out to Simms and moved out west.

  There were only the big tractors and big machines of the modern era riding on the road then, when they needed to, and the odd vehicle taking a shortcut. Gradually, the houses and farm buildings—with windows like sad, vacant eyes—became dilapidated, their roofs back-sprung, their sides bulging.

  One by one, they were burned and their cellars were filled in, until they were all gone, completing the obliteration of what was once the Hook Road.

  EPILOGUE