My Road To Rotary

Chapter 2

Our Farm & Mr. Wynne

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!