The Farm Hand

Chapter 1

Sven

A year out of high school I wanted to be far from my family's farm. The circumstances of the time denied me my dream of seeing the world and writing about it. The dream wasn’t dead, only postponed, but time moved agonizingly slow in those days. Farm work was drudgery for which I had no taste. It was my misfortune to be born on an Iowa farm.

The sun beat down hot the day my life changed. I was digging post holes for the new fence Pa had promised Mama for two years running. Having fallen out of favor with Pa, I, the eldest son, was told to dig the fence post holes.

My younger brothers cut the fence posts from the stand of trees above The Meadows, where there was a pond to cool us on the hottest days of summer. I was left to sweat in the sun. It was my punishment for telling my Pa I couldn’t wait to leave his farm.

Certainly it was poor judgment on my part to dare to say such a thing to my father. I’d learned a valuable lesson in life, but being honest meant I’d tell him regardless of the hundred yards of postholes it sentenced me to for revealing the truth about my intentions.

I was determined to leave the farm by the time I was ten. My mind was too fertile to be tied to a piece of soil. I couldn’t grow or learn anything I wanted to know on a farm in rural Iowa. I had to be free. By nineteen it was my vow. Because of hard times, it was so far off in my future, I wondered if I’d ever be free of the farm.

It was at this time, Sven walked up the driveway and into our lives.

He was a big man walking in powerful strides, looking like he knew where he was going. He paid me no mind as he passed. I stopped digging to watch him stop at the bottom of the three stairs leading to the back porch and the backdoor.

He paused as if to gather his thoughts before he’d ask for work. It wasn’t unusual to see hands walk up our driveway in search of work.

Times were hard but few farmers would turn Sven away from his door. If size was any measure of the man, and it was in this case, he’d be a treasured when the backbreaking labor of harvest took its toll on the best men. My father was a farmer. He knew a hand when he saw one. This man was as good as hired, I thought.

The latest arrival interested me far more than the dull job Pa assigned me. By this time in my life everyone was of interest to me. I wondered where he’d been? What did he know that might interest me? I intended to find out.

Sven didn’t come with simple answers.

It was a bright, clear, too-warm day, as days often are in Iowa in August. A gentle breeze stirred the stale air. This kept it from being stiflingly hot. These were the last typical things I can recall the summer Sven Gustoff came looking for work.

He might have walked up any one of a dozen driveways in the vicinity but fate brought him to ours. My family was lucky he came to work for us. In particular I was the luckiest one of all to come to know Sven as I’d never known, or ever would know, another man. As I stood there, looking where Sven stood a moment before, my destiny changed.

It was the week we'd stopped hoping for rain. Too much rain after this point would do more harm than good. The corn was high and harvest time was near. The rich sweet smell of ripe corn is as rich in my nose today as it was that day. It’s August again. My thoughts always traverse back over the years just before I harvest. It was a time of change. It was a time I’ll never forget. There was no better time in my life than the summer I grew up for good.

I calculated the odds were high he’d get hired. Good hands are hard to find, and close to harvest, big hands are good to find. They don’t tire as fast, and men like Sven tended to strive to outdo everyone else. If I could see it, Pa would seize on it. Sven was as good as hired.

My mind was already working on the questions I’d ask him, once he reappeared, asking for directions. Pa would send him to me, so he could finish his lunch. I’d give Sven his first orders on our farm. Maybe that would earn me some answers to questions I’d yet to develop.

My brothers, Ralph and Junior, were given choice jobs in the meadow's shadiest spot. I was turned out into the driveway to dig fence postholes. It was too much to hope that Pa would put Sven on posthole digging. He saved that work for his most disappointing son.

I’d fallen out of favor with Pa but we’d never been close. I favored my mother and she kept me out of the field when I was real young. You couldn’t get Ralph out of the field or off the tractors. He was the farmer among my father’s sons. Ralph would run the farm one day and that knowledge made it easier for me to justify leaving.

My position as eldest son carried no weight. Pa saw the farm as our duty to the land. We were born on it and we owed loyalty to it. For me to deny my birthright was disloyalty of the highest order. The land came first, last, and always with Pa. He wasn’t an understanding man.

Mama did her best to keep peace between us. She let Pa call the shots but counseled me to hold onto my dreams. She encouraged me to write, excel in school, and not to take the things my father said to heart.

“His father’s father handed the farm down to your grandfather. Your Pa took it over from your grandfather. He sees you as the natural caretaker, once he’s too old. You and I know Ralph will make the best farmer around, but you’re the oldest Robert, and it’ll take time to shake that idea out of your Pa’s head,” Mama explained. “Be patient with him. He is your Pa and you owe him respect.”

While we waited on the corn. So, I dug without complaint, waiting for the day I was sure would come. I didn’t hate the farm or farming. I saw the horizon and I had to know what went on beyond the horizon. It spoke to me the way the land spoke to Pa. I might come back to the farm, but I had to leave first.

As we waited to harvest, we were finally tending to the fence Mama kept asking us to repair, after a late summer storm took the old one down two summers before.

The old fence posts were rotted. Ralph and Junior were cutting the new posts. It would be a new fence by the time it was done. It was a fence Mama would be proud to have in her driveway.

I wrestled with a fence posthole digger. It seemed as big as me. With the sweat rolling freely late in the morning, the heat was on. The stark white shirt Mama laid out for me before breakfast was glued to my skin. I’d need a new shirt after lunch was done.

Running out of fence posts an hour earlier, I dug holes anyway. My brothers would have cut enough posts for all my holes by now, and if the shade of the trees wasn't enough to keep them comfortable, there was a spring-fed pond set back in the farm’s largest stand of trees where they could cool off when they had a mind to.

The idea of it didn’t cool me off at all. The vision of my brother's splashing around in the pond had entered my head for the second or third time, when the crunching sound of footsteps reached my ears.

I don't know how long I considered the sound before discovering it wasn't part of my daydream, but it led to something else for me to daydream about.

Sven’s fine blond hair indicated to me he was one of us. The first time he spoke left no doubt about the purity of his heritage with the “old country” hanging in his words. Most Iowa farm boys in our corner of the state came with light hair and blue eyes. Many families came from the same region of the "old country."

Grandfathers who came here often knew other farmers’ grandfathers who did not migrate to America. Their love for the "old country" was too great to leave it. The sons who were on the farm now were second and third generation Americans. Sven was one as were my brothers and I.

Pa always put on an extra hand or two at harvest time, driving into town to the Crosby Feed and Grain, where men knew to gather if they were looking for work. I didn't suspect there would be any such drive this season, but Sven had the initiative to come asking for work. He was a different kind of hand. He didn't take to waiting somewhere for the work to come to him. Sven went to find the work.

I'd stopped my posthole digging to consider him. He barely noticed my stare, dismissing it as he passed me to survey the line of holes I’d left behind. With a firm eye he checked my work and the placement of my postholes.

He acted like I wasn’t even there, which raised a rancor in me. Didn’t he know I was the son of the man who just hired him? There was such a thing as respect.

No, in fact he didn’t, and even more troubling to me, he didn’t care who my father was. He acted as if he was in charge of the fence. He acted as if I wasn’t even there. I waited to see if he might find his manners. He didn’t.

I saw the grain sack swing in his left hand. I suspected his worldly possessions were inside. He'd consider a day’s work for a good meal and whatever pay Pa could spare, but, with money scarce, and a hole in his belly, he’d stay on for a sturdy roof above his head and three square meals a day. He came to the right place.

That would be the deal Sven was after. He didn’t walk the roads looking for work to be turned out to look again tomorrow. It was close to harvest time. He wanted something steady, and our farm was as good as any.

I knew the story but I still didn’t like his demeanor.

My Pa was a fair man, when it came to farmhands. Good ones were hard to come by at harvest time. Pa let go the two hands we’d kept on for two years. Both Ralph and Junior were old enough to carry their own weight now. When money was short, you didn’t need hands if there were strong sons to do the work.

He'd explain to Sven what we had to offer. He’d listen to what Sven said. If the harvest was good there would be cash for pay. If the harvest was disappointing, the bills came before the hands got paid. In that case Pa would keep Sven on for the winter to make it fair. That would be the final word on their deal, made over supper tonight. I’d seen the dance before.

There had been time for a short conversation, no more. When Sven came back, he seemed full of himself. He walked off my fence line and had yet to speak to my father’s eldest son. He knew I had my eye on him.

The backdoor closed. Pa stepped out onto the back porch. Right off he cast a glance in my direction to bare witness to my leaning on his posthole digger. I went into motion to get his eyes off. Once I did, a curt comment came my way. The conversation was brief, the outcome predictable. I leaned again once I heard the backdoor close. I immediately looked for Sven.

From fifty feet away he took the same determined strides back in my direction. He took time to consider me as he walked my way. His expression gave me nothing to go on. I may as well have been a fly on the fencepost.

He was ready to go to work. He wasn’t wasting any time. If he hadn’t been hired, my mother would have told him to wait on the porch while she fixed him two sandwiches.

When she handed them over, wrapped in last months newspaper, she’d tell him, “I’m giving you one for now. You save the second one for later. You’ll want to eat it right off, but don’t you do it. This evening you’ll be glad you have it.”

Many more hands came up our driveway than we could hire. I’d memorized the routine over the years.

Sven wasn’t inside long enough for Mama to make him sandwiches. He walked too purposefully to be moving on. He took too long looking at my postholes to be sightseeing, and I’d be the last to know what had been decided.

I was certain he'd stay on for harvest and the cleanup afterward. I knew how Pa’s mind worked and Sven was his kind of hand. It remained to be seen if Sven was willing to work for food and a place in our barn, or if he needed more to secure his labor for more than a few days.

I wasn’t sure about the long term arrangements yet, but I didn’t think Pa would let him get away this close to harvest. While the pay might not be the best, the food was the best this side of Des Moines. I’d never been to the other side of Des Moines.

Those were my thoughts the first time I saw Sven, but he had no interest in the meandering thoughts inside my head. He closed the distance between us as I watched him walk. That’s when his eyes locked on mine. There was still no expression on his face. He disarmed me with a word.

"Sven," he said, sticking out his hand. "Your father has chores for you. I'll be digging your holes for you. You’re to go to the house and see him. I wouldn’t hurry. I think I interrupted at the wrong time. You might give them a few minutes."

In the middle of our handshake, I found the man totally objectionable. His voice carried enough of the “old country” to confirm what I figured at first glance. The handshake had been solid but not cordial. I had no doubt about his strength.

"Robert," I said, more than happy to give up the digger. "Have at it, and my parents don’t conduct themselves in that way in the middle of the afternoon. I can assure you," I said, leaving no doubt where I stood.

“Just the same, I wouldn’t hurry none, but you don’t look like the hurrying kind.”

I turned at the step to watch him. He handled the digger like it was a toy, which left me feeling a bit more useless than usual. He finished the hole I’d been digging since he arrived in three man-sized bites of the digger. It was on to the next hole. The digger took more large chucks out of the black earth.

He'd cut down on the labor I’d have put into it, but he was still an arrogant cuss. It was like I wasn't there watching him, until he went to where I’d marked the spot for the next hole. He didn’t need to look for me. He knew exactly where I was when he wanted me, after calculating my error.

"Your holes are crooked, boy. Where's your line?" he ordered with his voice, wiping his brow while giving me a long look as if to see what I might be good for.

"It's only a fence. I'm setting the new holes a foot inside the old holes, more or less," I explained and neither of us believed that one.

"It's crooked. Bring me back a piece of string. I'll set her straight for you. Won’t do to put up a crooked fence."

"It's okay," I assured him, having followed Pa's orders to the T.

"I ain't putting up no crooked fence, whatever your name is. I need a string to set it straight."

"Robert is whatever my name is and the fence is fine," I yelled at him in my, I’m-the-farmer’s-son voice.

"Don't you take pride in your work, Robert? Don’t you want the fence to represent your home? It’s the first thing people will notice when they drive up. Ask your Mama if she wants a fence to look like there’s no pride in her house."

He sounded like my father, which wasn’t good coming from a hired hand. I left it at that, going into the kitchen to avoid further criticism. I wondered about Sven, while pumping fresh water into my glass.

Leaning up against the sink to peek out of the crack in the curtains, I watched him dig. There was one more hole dug and a new one he was digging. He was trying to make me look bad and I didn’t need any help.

"What are you up to, Robert?" Mama asked, as she came from the parlor, pinning her hair up behind her head like she did when she got out of bed in the morning.

"His name is Sven," I said, pushing the calico curtains aside so my Mama could help me watch our new hand.

"Don't get familiar with the hands. You know how things are," Mama used her be cautious voice.

"But we've got harvest," I reminded her, holding the curtains far enough apart to watch him work. "He's a good worker. I can tell. He wants a piece of string. Says my holes aren’t straight. He’s full of himself too."

"Yeah, and I'd like to keep him if you two don’t run him off, but he's got to be told that there's no money guarantee here," Pa said, buttoning up a clean shirt after his noontime clean up. "I'll give him a cut of whatever's left after we've paid the bank and the feed store. He’s a big one, isn’t he? I really want to keep him if I can."

Pa watched over our shoulders as Sven dug.

"He needs some string," I said again, leaning my backside against the sink to drink some of the fresh water I’d pumped up to cool my parched throat.

"String?" Mama asked.

"He says my holes are crooked. Says he ain't diggin' no crooked fence line. He wants string. I told you he was full of himself. He’s been here fifteen minutes and is an expert on putting up our fence."

"You're setting them holes a foot in front of the old posts, like I told you?" Pa asked, suddenly concerned.

"Yes, sir, just like you said," I said, and he parted the curtains to watch Sven dig.

"I set them posts myself the year after you was born. Crooked! You mean he thinks I build a crooked fence?" Pa said with a hint of being insulted in his voice.

"No, I think he meant he wasn't going to follow a crooked line," I said. "And he wants string. The man takes pride in his work. How bad is that?"

Sven had been here twenty minutes and he’d insulted both me and my father.

“Let’s not lose him over the fence,” Mama said. “I’ll find some string. We need to keep him for harvest if possible. You too put away your man sized egos and let him do the fence if he’s going to do the fence.”

“Amen,” Pa said. “On keeping him anyway.”

Mama brought me a roll of cord she took out of her sewing basket.

"I want this back," she said, shaking it under my nose for emphasis. "You tell him I want it back. It’s the only sample I got of this color cord. It’s the cord I use on the robes for the church choir. Can’t have a dozen different colors on those robes. We’ll look like hayseeds."

“Watch it, woman. You’re married to a well-known hayseed from these parts,” Pa said, in unusually good humor, as he kissed my mother’s cheek.

"Mama, he ain't gonna steal your string," I assured her.

"You best get yourself in gear and go pickup the posts your brothers are cutting. We just might get that fence done before harvest starts," Pa said, emptying the last of his coffee before kissing Mama and heading out the back door.

Pa didn't use the steps, moving right off the porch onto the black soil on his way to the barn to tend the machines. This is how he spent most of his time the last two weeks before harvest time every summer. The barn was cooler and the machinery was old.

"You take him a glass of water. Tell him I'll mend them britches after supper. He can't be taking no meals at my table looking like he might come out of his pants. They come up here looking like strays. You boys don’t know how lucky you are."

"He ain't done that much work yet, Mama," I mentioned, looking at him moving to the next hole and praying he slowed down soon.

"He had to get here, Robert. It's near about afternoon. You want him to dig them holes for you, don't you? He needs a sandwich and that's all there is to it. Quit sassing your mother and take him a glass of water. I'll get lunch for you and your brothers and make a sandwich for him, while I’m at it. Your Pa came in early to eat."

It was early for Pa to eat and I never saw him eat anything. He and Mama were somewhere else in the house and they were acting like a couple of school kids. I remembered what Sven said and I blushed. No wonder Pa was so agreeable.

"Yes, ma'am," I said softly, realizing this gave me time to question him and Mama would cover for me when I was late coming back with the fresh cut fence posts. The way Sven was digging postholes, my brothers were going to need to work faster.

"Your Pa'll get in the corn with or without help. He'll work around the clock if need be. If we can keep this one by a little kindness, we'll all be better off, Robert," Mama said, standing back at the window and peeking out. "He is big."

"A hard worker, too, Mama," I bragged, turning back to the window to help her watch. “Tell Pa I waited to take the boys lunch and that’s why I’m slow.”

"Robert, go out and take care of that man. Quit wasting time. When you’re done with him, come get the sandwiches I'm making for your brothers and take them their lunch. Quit your foolishness now. I’ll take care of your father.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will,” I said, and my mother gave me a stern look for my suggestion.

“You’re not making sandwiches for anyone, Mama. You’re watching our new hand,” I reminded her, as she stood beside me.

“You quit annoying me now. I got work to do," she said, letting the curtains fall back in place, as I held it open a crack on the other side.

"Yes, ma'am," I said, giggling about her curiosity as she raised the corner of the curtain again.

"Mama, you're never going to get those sandwiches fixed if you don't quit wasting time," I kidded her.

"You hush and take him out that water and this here string he asked you for last week," Mama said, mussing my hair and encouraging me to move before my father back in to find out why he hadn’t heard the farm truck start to tell me to quit lollygagging.

My fascination with Sven had only begun. I wanted to know who he was, where he came from, and how he got here. Life was suddenly interesting right on our farm. My desire to leave could wait until I got my answers.

Chapter 2

Farmers & Farms

Grabbing the biggest glass from the cupboard, I pumped the handle, rinsing the glass with cool water before letting it fill to the brim. I spilled a quarter of it before getting it off the porch, not bothering with the stairs.

I noticed Sven’s back and shoulders bulging with each of his movements. He was built for digging postholes. Sven seemed content with the task and far better suited to it than I was. He took his time noticing me with the water. He drove the digger into the ground before turning to take the water.

"That’s for me?" he asked, meeting my eyes with his for an instant.

"Yeah," I said, failing in my effort to find something witty to say. “My Mama's making sandwiches. I'll bring you one before I take lunch to my brothers."

"Much obliged."

I was still annoyed with the abrupt tone in his voice. I still wanted to know his story, but thinking of a good question wasn’t easy. He didn’t invite questioning. While he drank, I found myself checking out the torn and worn overalls he wore. The ones Mama brought to my attention.

He handed the glass back to me and took up digging again. He paid me no mind, leaving no room for a question. It was obvious he'd dug postholes before and his body didn't strain from the labor. It was hot, and sweat came easy on August afternoons. His motion was fluid as he manhandled the digger, yielding up twice the dirt I did in a single effort. I wrestled with it while forcing it to do what I wanted it to do.

"Robert, come get that man a sandwich,” Mama said from the back porch, as she wiped her hands on her apron.

Upon hearing her voice, Sven turned from his work to face her, leaving the post hole digger in the hole.

"Sven, ma'am," Sven said politely and like he was giving her something of value. "That's mighty kind of you ma'am. I'll be sure I earn the kindness. Don't be fretting none about that."

"Sven," Mama said, disappearing back into her kitchen before the sound of her voice reached us.

He was a bold one, I thought. Proud enough to want to be called by name. Maybe he thought it might do him some good with Pa if Mama found him agreeable.

"You're Mama’s a pretty woman," he said before turning back to the digger. “Women tend to age hard on a farm. Tough job tending their men.”

"You best not worry about my Mama," I said, not being sure of how to consider his words.

"Most women her age are plum wore down from making babies and tending to their families," he said without paying any mind to my insolence.

"She only had us three. Couldn't have no more after losing Richard Lee back a spell."

"Sorry to hear! You said you got brothers. No sisters?" Sven inquired with a smile.

"Two brothers, Ralph and Junior. They're up at the meadows cutting the posts for them holes you been digging."

"And you're Robert," he said as a peace offering of sorts. "What have you done to be left digging fence postholes? Digging holes is a job for hands, not sons. My Pa put us working fence as punishment, when we couldn’t mind our manners or some such as that."

"What makes you think I done something?" I argued his logic. “Holes got to be dug to stick the fence posts into.”

"I met your Pa. He sent me to relieve you, remember? Just a hunch by how he said what he said. I calculate your Pa not to be a man to be crossed. By your Mama's age you'd figure to be the eldest. Yet here you are doing hired hand work. I put the rest together on my own, figuring your Pa not to be a man who does things without a reason."

“Pa and I don’t see eye to eye is all,” I explained.

I found his reasoning to be annoyingly close to the truth. I was supposed to be questioning him. He knew the lay of the land without asking questions. That was a neat trick I’d have to learn. He was smarter than he looked.

For such a big man his voice was on the soft side. His eyes seemed to smile with his words. Unloading a pile of dirt next to the old faded fence post, he tilted his head as he grinned with a curiosity of his own.

My eyes were still on him as I pondered how to take what he had to say and how he said it.

“I don’t mean to rush you, but that sandwich sure would take the wrinkles out of my belly, boy.”

"I'm Robert," I reminded him, picking up the glass to fill when I brought him back the sandwich. “You calculate a lot from one conversation. Most hands don’t do much figuring.”

“I suppose. Probably best to keep my figuring to myself. I figure you’re looking for more, but I’m a bit weak from lack of nourishment right now myself. I’m a better conversationalist when I got something in my belly.”

“Pa’s a hard man, but he’s fair. I’m digging on account he said dig. There isn’t a lot of figuring to it,” I said after more reflection.

"As much as I enjoy talking, a sandwich would taste mighty good. I only had an apple and a tiny piece of leftover dried beef this morning. More water would be appreciated as well. Don't worry, I'll earn it, boy. I don’t take anything I don’t earn."

This time he continued facing me as he spoke, maybe thinking that would get me on my way faster. Instead I took advantage of his attention. Even then, I sensed there was a lot more to Sven than what showed. He spoke quite well when he wanted, but he spoke like a farmhand otherwise. I was educated enough to know someone who had some education behind him.

"I'm not worried. Here. String from my Mama’s sewing basket. She wants it back," I said, as if he might not recognize it as string. "Where you from anyhow?"

"Over Muscatine way originally. Not far from the river, but not far enough some years."

"That where your farm was?"

He squinted as though he was looking off in the distance and might point to it for me, but instead he aggressively planted the posthole digger back down into the dirt, turning away from me in an unexpected awkward movement.

"Yep, right about there. How about that sandwich, boy?" he said with impatience. “You want these holes dug for you and I need that sandwich your mama made me.”

So much for asking him questions. I began with the wing dinger. I knew better than to ask a man who’d been thrown off his farm about the farm. I should have stopped with where are you from. I had insulted him and he’d let me know it by turning disagreeable. It wasn’t a big change.

He went back to digging and I returned to the kitchen. One sandwich was on a plate on the table next to the door, ready to be eaten. Mine would be wrapped in newspaper along with a half dozen more for Ralph and Junior.

Mama would tell me to eat up there so I was out of my father’s way for a spell. If my brothers helped me load the posts, we’d swim in the pond for a few minutes to cool down before got on with our day.

Our lunch was in a bag on the draining board next to a bottle of lemonade Mama made after breakfast and cooled in the root cellar. Time was a wasting and my brothers would be getting nervous about lunch by this time. I was running behind.

The white shirt Sven was wearing now dangled from a fence post by the time I got back to the kitchen window. The post leaned to one side allowing the shirt to brush the ground in the slight breeze that ruffled the material. The fence once attached to that particular post had fallen on hard times and the wood was feeble, unable to hold the nails that kept the wire in place. There was a role of new wire in the barn, but we weren’t far enough along to get it out yet.

The straps that held up his bib overalls hung down in front of him tied together to keep them off the ground. His undershirt adhered to his tight chest. His arms bulged into thick knots when he dug. I looked at my bicep and made a muscle that was more disappointing than usual.

I could see he was taller than he was wide, although his shoulders made mine look like a boy’s. He put me in mind of a statue in a museum I'd seen in one of my textbooks. His upper body tapered abruptly into a small firm waistline not visible before he let the bib hang.

His waist looked no larger than my own. I lifted my shirt and watched as I sucked in the shapeless belly to find more disappointment. I could miss a few sandwiches and still have ample girth to hold up my pants.

It was obvious Sven missed a few meals along the road. Asking him about losing the family farm was in poor taste. There were plenty of farmer’s sons who suffered the same fate as Sven. Luckily my brothers and I didn’t know what that experience was like.

Harvest was still a few weeks off if the weather cooperated. That’s when Sven was going to be worth his weight in gold. I wondered if the table my mother set would be enough to hold him here until after the harvest was over? He looked like it might be time to work on fill out his overalls again. After harvest there would be slim pickings for hands.

He'd sure take a lot of chores off me. Pa would spell out the terms over dinner, while Sven was digesting Mama’s fried chicken, okra, beans, potatoes, and biscuits. Pa’d shove the platter of chicken in front of Sven, telling him to eat his fill.

Then Pa’d spell out the terms he was prepared to make him. Nothing like buttering up the hired hand. We always had Mama’s fried chicken at a time like this. ‘The devil with pay. Give me another piece of that chicken.’ I was hankering for a piece already and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet.

Sven would consider the offer and keep eating at our table until he decide. As long as he kept coming to the table, odds were he’d keep coming back. You can’t eat money and hard work is good for the soul. It’s a combination farmers keep hand in hand. If you didn’t go to work every day before sunrise, what were you good for?

Mama just might go into her change jar before she risked letting Sven go. She'd watch his work from the kitchen window, while I was up at the meadows, and she'd tell my father what she saw. The church money rarely made it to the church and Sven might be a good reason why.

Often you can't tell what kind a worker a hand is. Some times the biggest boys are laziest. A dozen hands came up the drive this year. They were a barometer of tough times. Pa hired one for a day or a week, when he could. Mama fed them all, whether or not we could put them to work.

"There but for the grace of God…," were words often spoken after a hand's departure. Even in hard times, we were luckier than most, sharing what we could because we could, but nothing we did guarantee us next year. If our luck held and the harvest paid the bills, we’d get next year. So far we’d made it through the depression, but early rains, or no rain at all could finish us off no matter what we did.

This was the first year I'd considered those facts in depth. My future was no longer my own and as badly as I wanted off the farm, I wouldn't leave as long as my parents needed me. I’d stay on the farm as long as they needed me to stay. My mistake was letting my father know too soon, I wasn’t staying any longer than that. We’d hardly had a civil word between us since.

A dozen farms we knew of had been taken over by the bank. Those families had been scattered around the countryside. Farmer's sons sought work with the farmers who were left and there were fewer each year and each year the farmer’s sons had to travel further to find work.

I'd never paid much mind to the hands. They came and stayed for a spell, and then they were gone. This made me uneasy. I didn’t like to see misery. Now, it was our farm and each year it brought us closer to ruin. Each year there seemed to be more work and each year the price of corn fell further, like the markets were testing to see just how little money we’d work for.

Sven's muscles were glistening in the afternoon sun, bulging under the labor. I finished my second glass of water and my daydreaming, still watching out the window. I'd never had an older brother. The thought of having one instead of being one appealed to me. Sven would make a fine older brother.

At that time, I wrote off my keen interest in Sven concerning that idea. I didn’t know enough to think anything else. Admiring his body because mine lacked shape came naturally. I often admired the boys with better-built bodies at school and Sven’s was far better-built than any of them. We were close to the same age, but I didn’t know his age.

I shook my head to keep my mind on my business and pumped his glass full to cool it before pumping it full a second time, grabbing the plate on my way out the door.

This time he watched my approach with interest.

"Getting hot," he said, pulling off his undershirt to wipe under his arms and then his face. "Thanks."

He took the water and then all but emptied it in one large long pull. Some of the water ran from the sides of his mouth as he guzzled, leaking generously down on his already damp chest. The little that was left went over his head, plastering the fine blond hair to it. He playfully shook his wet hair, looking at me to make sure some of the water got on me. He smiled as I stepped back to avoid it.

“Sorry,” he said, not meaning it.

I spent my time checking out the holes in his overalls that no longer had the undershirt over the holes. He’d covered some with the bib but I found others. They were in serious need of repair. I noticed his white flesh and blond hairs showing through the worn fabric.

"Thanks," he said again, considering me seriously for the first time, while giving me back the glass. "That for me, or you just taking it for a walk?"

"Oh, sorry, I was just thinking that you're big," I said, looking at his chest and finding myself at a loss for words beyond the obvious. He was amused.

Handing him the plate, I felt feeble beside such a powerful man.

"Yeah, the ladies often claim that to be the case. I’m happy to take their word for it and anything else they want to give me. Speaking of big, that’s a nice sandwich."

He took several large bites out of one half of the sandwich, unable to disguise his hunger. For a few seconds the sandwich was all that was on his mind. Once the first half was devoured, he paused as I spoke.

"I was referring to your body," I said, trying to explain myself and feeling as if I was failing to communicate.

"What did you think I meant?" Sven asked, sounding surprised that I needed to explain the comment. “The ladies were talking about my body two. Parts of it anyway.”

I had a feeling little surprised this hand. I was once more left unhappy by the tone in his voice and the conclusions he drew. Although it wasn’t clear to me what was objectionable. I was sure something was.

The words he used irritated me. I was sure he was making fun of me without bothering to laugh. I still wanted to find out about him, but every thing I said seemed to lead away from where I was heading. So far our conversation left me feeling foolish not to mention uninformed.

"Boy that's good,” he said after taking a single bite of the remaining half sandwich.

“My name is Robert,” I said, turning the tables on his casual wit.

“I wasn’t calling you..., but you know that,” he said smiling. “You’re brighter than you look.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You knew I was talking about your size…, the size of your muscles. You are a well-built man.”

“I did. I was just enjoying the water and sandwich. Nothing I said meant much, because I haven’t said anything. Life’s too short to read too much into words.”

“You’re bold and you’re smart and that can be a bad combination for a farmhand. You don’t want my Pa thinking you’re a smart ass.”

“Your Pa isn’t a man who can be kidded. I work for him, not for you. You look like you could use a little kidding, Robert. We’ll talk when work doesn’t stand between us. I’d enjoy that.”

“I was hoping you’d talk to me about where you’ve been,” I said, and he nodded, as he finished his food.

“In this heat I was feeling a bit weary. You can’t pay much attention to anything I say in the heat. Thank you for the sandwich, Robert. Thank your Mama for the kindness and don’t worry, young Robert, I’ll earn it and I’ll be happy to do your fence posting. Feels good putting my back into some work for a change. Haven’t done an honest days work in more than a week."

"No kindness involved. She feeds the hands no matter how long they're here. We don’t have much but we share it as best we can. You’d a’ got a sandwich even if there wasn’t work for you.”

“I wouldn’t feel too comfortable with that arrangement. Always some piece of work needs doing. Can’t eat if I don’t do something. Not my way,” he said, posthole digger already back in his hands.

“You’re big and you’re strong and harvest is coming. We don’t have a lot of money to pay out, but the food can’t be beat anywhere in this end of Iowa. You stay and you’ll get an even share of the food and as much as we can afford to pay," I said, getting a jump on Pa’s speech that would come later.

"Harvest coming. Strong back. Hard worker. Don't take up too much space in the barn, but I do require a fair amount of feeding. For that I’m willing to work from before sun up to after sunset," he claimed. “Missing a few meals reminds a fellow what’s really important.

“Having the bank steal our farm out from under us and scattering my family far and wide, I know how tough times are, young Robert. I’m a farmer’s son too and I’d dry up and blow away if I didn’t get in on a harvest somewhere. This seems like somewhere to me. I don’t require much.”

"Times are hard. We might not be able to keep a hand around while we wait for harvest," I said.

"Your Pa said there'd be work. I told him I'd work for food, until the real work starts. He seemed agreeable, but he didn’t take as much time looking me over as his eldest son has. Perhaps I don’t suit you because I don’t bow and curtsy proper?"

I laughed and for the first time it was easy being with him, even if I wasn’t supposed to be elsewhere.

"It’s between you and him, but we we’ll share even with you once the bills are paid. You’re fine with me, Sven. I’m not use to being made fun of, but you don’t need to please me. My stock with my Pa don’t run too high at present. The best favor I can do for you is not recommend for my father to hire you."

“Not my intension to be making fun of anyone. If that’s the impression I left with you, I apologize. As I told you, I don’t take much seriously. You can’t when you’re in my shoes. You got what you got, until it’s gone. Then, you got nothing. You’ll learn to take life less seriously in time, young Robert. It doesn’t take us seriously after all.”

"I suppose. It’s a lesson I haven’t had to learn.”

“Got to get back to work if there's nothing else? I feel like I can get this fence done before dinner."

"How long since your people lost your farm?"

There was no doubt how he felt about the question. His back stiffened as he let the digger rest under his hands. He looked like he was thinking and realized it wasn’t as easy as it should have been to come up with some answer.

The intensity of his look eased some as he considered a response. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his face, leaning hard on the digger, almost putting it back to work before relenting. He spoke in sad words.

"It's been a spell. Can't rightly say how long. Seems long, Robert. Two harvests and most of a year I figure, but without being tied to the land, a place, it could be three harvests before this one coming up. That’s the best I can do at the moment.”

“I’m sorry you lost your farm,” I said, feeling sad for him.

“You don’t lose a farm. I know right where it’s at. The bank came with the sheriff and took it. Ran us off like we were vagrant. That farm was in our family before my father was born. Everyone in our family put their lives into it for over eighty years, and the bank took it, because they have money and times are hard. The river beat us. The rains beat us. The bank stole what was ours.”

"Funny," I said without thinking.

“Funny!” he said, the veins straining in his neck.

“No, I meant funny how things work. Pa has a sense. He’ll get us all up one morning. ‘We’re starting harvest today.’ No matter what the plan was. Last year the rains came early. We started harvest a week earlier than he planned. The rains came a week early and caught a lot of farmers in the middle of harvest. The year before that it was no rain. He kept waiting. Everyone else in the county had their crop in when the rains came. The whether held and we had the biggest crop we’d had in years. Pa has this sense,” I said.

“My Pa had it too, until it failed him one year. It only takes one failure to put you out of business. No matter if you’ve had 80 harvests, when one goes bust, you go with it. The bank holds all the cards and says, ‘get off. It’s our farm now.’ I’d like to shoot me some bankers.

“Mama says they ought to be forced to work all the farms they take. That would cure ‘em of taking farms. Those boys don’t want nothing to do with an honest days work. They shuffle money and steal from the people who do work.”

“Your mama sounds like a smart woman,” I said.

"Bankers will own it all before it’s done with. They got the money. They got the laws set on their side of the scale. All a farmer’s got is a strong back and a high tolerance for suffering. My mama says that too."

"You ever think of doing anything else?" I asked, as he was about to put the digger back to work.

"Anything else? I'm the son of a farmer's son. No, I've never thought of that. A man's got to dip his hands in the soil from time to time or he withers away and dies. We grow the food. How’d people eat if farmers didn’t grow the food?"

"I suppose," I said, not being able to get where he was.

"What is it that so interests you about my clothes?" he asked, as he caught me looking at his overalls again.

"Me?" I asked, thrown off by the blunt inquiry.

"You know," he said in firm words, "a boy shouldn't ought to be looking at a man the way you look at me. Someone might be mistaken about your intention. The underwear was a sacrifice I made while leaving a house sooner than I expected, when a farmer came home early.

“It was a serious loss considering I never finished what his wife so boldly began. Leaving them was considerably more acceptable than losing what the husband of the woman might have cut off me had he caught me in his bed. With the condition of my pants I have nothing to hide from any eyes that wish to pry. Yours have done their share."

"Mine?" I said, not knowing how to answer the accusation.

"You are a most curious lad and you’ll find I'm little different than other men once you take a close up look. Let me get to work before your Pa fires both of us."

"You take the wives of men who hire you?" I asked, alarmed by his confession.

"Only those looking to be taken and only after the husband thinks he can take advantage of my labor without the agreed upon pay. One takes compensation when he can. I give a full measure of work and expect the agreed upon compensation. So remember that when you’re the farmer."

"As for your britches, Mama mentioned to me that she'd repair them after supper if you like. I was looking to see what she was talking about. I meant no disrespect.”

"Your Mama noticed the condition of my pants? I'll have to apologize for being so careless. There are few alternatives to letting them wear themselves out, until I have funds to replace them," he said, with a far more sophisticated lilt to his words. “Haven’t had much in the way of cash as of late, as you can tell. A few repairs here and there would suit me fine. We can make arrangements when you show me where I will sleep.”

"I wouldn't have taken notice if she hadn't mentioned it," I said, trying to explain myself. "Seems like men’s pants all wear out about the same. All of us have patches where you got holes."

"I was more concerned about your interest in certain areas of my pants. Far be it from me to tell another man what he likes. My business here is business, however. I don't want to lose a job over a misunderstanding."

"Rest assured, I want you to stay, because you'll take some of the strain off me. I don't usually get to know the hands. I just happened to be here when you came," I said.

"Well, that does make sense. I don't want to be an imposition on your Mama’s kindness. She must have plenty of mending to do with three sons. I don't wish to be more trouble than I'm worth, but I have no wish to embarrass her or myself either."

“Understood and it’ll be taken care of after supper.”

"I must admit meals have been hard to come by as of late. I should be working not tantalizing lads with tawdry tales of my indecencies. You were taking lunch to your brothers, I believe."

"Well, I haven’t had indecencies of my own to brag about. Listening to you offers me hope I might one day.”

He laughed and his posture eased up as he leaned on the digger. I sensed a lighthearted nature under the stern exterior.

“You’re young. You’ll have more experiences than you’ll care to admit by the time you’re my age.”

“How many have you had?” I foolishly asked. “More than you care to admit sounds like a lot to someone with my limited experience.”

"About every other farm as of late, I'd say. Not to be worrying, boy, I got the last one. I'll be resting for the next one while I’m here.”

“That’s not funny,” I assured him.

“I only take wives who aren’t being loved proper. Those are the ones who turn to the hired hands for service."

"They ask you for it right out? Offer it to you?"

"Some women need more than their husbands can give them. Some simply need some affection no one else will give them. A strong young man comes along. They speak to him of love and romance, once the have his eye. When you are on the road and alone and lonely yourself, the ability to deny yourself the sin of the flesh can be almost impossible. I’d never touch a fair man’s wife, no matter the reason, but if a man thinks he’s getting more than he’s paying for, I can be seduced as part of my pay.

“A wife might see my loins as the answer to her prayers. It’s only the answer to mine if the debt I’m owed isn’t made good. Many men make promises they don’t intend to keep, and at times desirable wives are more than willing to make good on their husband’s debt.

"You are full of yourself, aren’t you?" I observed. “I bet about half of what you say is true.”

"I’ll be the first to admit I have little strength when it comes to pleasure. I can tell you it’s a long lonely road, Robert, and my back is strong, but I'm not strong enough to resist temptation. I doubt I’m little different from most men in my situation. We all wish to be wanted if only for a few minutes of good hard sweating."

"You never been caught at it?" I wondered aloud.

"We can talk about this after your Pa tells me he’s keeping me on. You should know better than to distract me by getting me telling you naughty tales of my past. Besides, my experiences are likely tame in comparison to a handsome young lad such as yourself in spite of your denial," he said. “We can talk of my dalliances later on if that’s your interest. Right now I need to get to digging.”

"He's gone. I'm in charge," I said with unusual authority in my voice. "Like you said, I'm curious and rarely hear from someone with so much to say. You might not be here later."

"In that case the answer is no, I never got caught. I did lose that underwear. That’s the risk you take, when you take that risk. At times it’s more adventure than I need. She was young and fair of face. My mind was on her when it should have been on work."

“The husbands don’t suspect you?”

“No, I’m careful enough to be sure he’s far enough away to allow for a proper bedding. While staying longer would be a luxury, it’s one I don’t allow myself often.”

"I thought marriage was about faithfulness. Why betray that?"

"You need to ask the wives. Spending a lot of time figuring out the why can ruin the experience or prevent it."

"What about farmers’ daughters. I've heard stories at school about lust girls cavorting with the hands. Most boys I know claim to have been with more than one farmer’s daughter."

"You do persist. Well, you are the boss. It's not smart to talk about the yearnings of young ladies who have larger appetites than the sense to govern them. Of all the temptation that’s the most dangerous. Unrestrained desire is a certain recipe for disaster.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time some young girl throws herself at me. They’ve managed to resist my so far.”

“Many a day was spent recovering from a night in the hay with the farmer’s daughter. They stay longer than discretion allows, come more often than is wise, and won’t take no for the answer, once you give them what they want."

"You said of all the temptation there is out there. We’ve got wives and daughters so far. Do tell. What else is there?"

"Let's see, what's left?” he asked himself thoughtfully. “Wives? Daughters? Ah, and farmer's sons are the biggest bother of all. They are unrestrained on a farm and endlessly curious. They speak with their eyes before asking lurid questions, seeking answers that stimulate their fertile imaginations,” he spoke in a flourish of words that were aimed directly at me. “Once stimulated a farmer’s son will mount almost anything. You give them details with stories of lustful pursuits and some can’t keep their enthusiasm contained in their trousers, but I’m sure you know plenty about farm boys. You are one, after all, and I’m telling you nothing you don’t already know. Now, can I get back to work or do you want something more of me?"

"You are full of yourself," I said, feeling my face flush as I realized he was patronizing me.

"You asked and I should not lie to the farmer’s son. Farm boys have something other than love on their minds, when they ask about my love life, but unlike women, they aren’t particular and don’t need to exercise caution with the hired hands, who’ll be gone in a day or two and keep their secret.”

“It’s not funny,” I declared. “I’ve never heard such as that. You’re making it up to get a rise out of me. I’m on to you.”

“Ah, you’ve found me out. Being a good hand, I try to give what’s expected. You seem to expect stories. How can I resist entertaining you with mine? You’ll have to decide for yourself what’s true.”

"Well, I suppose that about covers it all?” I said with disdain.

"In personal experience, yes. Farm animals were never my style, but I can tell you what a few of the bolder farm boys told me about such experiences if you like? Three was one lanky lad who had a thing for his favorite pig."

"Very funny. I've got business to tend to," I said. "You've got fencing. I think I’ve heard enough for the time being."

"Yes sir, boss. I'll save those stories for after supper. There's one about a lamb I think you'd like. I’m still not certain if that one is true or not. Farm boys do like to stretch the truth to be entertaining."

"I stand by my previous observation. You’re full of yourself and too bold for your own good," I said.

“I’ll be needing to wash up before supper, Robert,” Sven reminded me. “A towel and some soap would be helpful. You can show me where when next we speak.”

“There's a pump behind the barn where we wash up out of sight of the house on account Mama don’t want to see a bunch a bare butts and all.”

"As it should be, a lady shouldn’t be exposed to the likes of us. You'll come show me when the time comes? I don't wish to miss a meal or a chance to rinse off the day’s dirt."

"Sure, I’ll take care of it when I bring my brothers back from the meadows," I said, as he put his back into his work and I put my curiosity to rest for the time being.

He was full of himself. I wondered what I’d be like after being on the road too long to remember how long.

Chapter 3

The Meadows

“Robert, I put your sandwiches in with the boys. You take your time and don’t rush back. You’ve been out in the sun for long enough today. There’s cheese in the bottom for Ralph.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, knowing which of my brothers got what.

The empty farm truck bounced mightily against the pasture as I headed toward the last substantial stand of trees on our farm. We'd been nursing those trees since I was a boy, after previous generations had cleared all but a few small stands of trees from the rest of the land, as if they stood in the way of the plow. This made my trips to the meadows all the more enjoyable.

Only because of the pond and the fact these trees furnished shade appreciated during family outings over the years did they remain untouched. Thinning out the woods periodically for things like porches and fence posts was being smart caretakers according to Pa.

Our farm was well managed. We did no more harm to the land than necessary. Each time I thought about it, I loved it, but being tied to it didn’t appeal to me. Being responsible for it wasn’t what I wanted out of my life.

To me leaving didn’t mean not coming back, but each time I got in the truck, I had the urge to keep driving until I was far away. Watching the horizon, I found myself looking back to when the thought of leaving the farm first came to me. I tried to nail down that moment when leaving was more appealing in my mind than staying, but I knew how it all started.

I remembered Jose from when I was twelve. He was one of the youngest hands Pa hired, seventeen he said. I never saw Jose as a hand. He told me tales of his life on the road, after he left Mexico when he was younger than I was then. I no longer remembered Jose's face but his stories still stirred my imagination. Jose road the rails to get where he wanted to go. No matter where he went, there was work.

Jose left me with a curiosity about what lay beyond our farm and our piece of Iowa. That’s the first time I considered traveling to see the world for myself. Pa didn’t share my enthusiasm for the rest of the world.

I remembered the year Mama had Richard Lee. She stayed in the hospital over in Des Moines. After church one Sunday, Pa took us the hour's drive to see her. My eyes could hardly take in everything I saw. That set the stage for Jose’s arrival several years later.

We returned to take Mama home later on but they'd buried Richard Lee beside the church without any of us boys being there. We were told Richard Lee had gone to live with God. For a long time after that, when I prayed, I told God to have his own babies and leave my Mama's alone. I was seven and I’d seen what was beyond our farm.

I returned to Des Moines and the same hospital the year I was thirteen, after breaking my leg. The day they put the cast on I lay in the back of the truck on a pile of hay Pa’d put there for me. As we drove toward home, I watched the western sky as the sun boiled low on the horizon.

I wanted to go to where the sun set. I suppose my yearning grew from there, especially at school where we read about exotic places. I stood in our fields wondering which way I needed to look to see the Great Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China.

Pa and I traveled back to Des Moines two years later. That’s the year we came closest to losing the farm. He took the money from the harvest there rather than wait for Wednesday, when the banker came to our town.

That was back when Pa and I still got along. As the eldest son, I got to go with him to Des Moines. I held the money in my lap inside a canvas sack. Even when there were no hard feelings between us, we rarely spoke much. It was then I saw how tenuously we clung to our land.

Pa told me if we waited the two extra days to pay the banker when he came to town, the bank could take the farm. Not because we didn’t have the money, but because they could and then they’d take the money too, because that’s all bankers care about.

I didn’t like the sound of it. I didn’t want my life to hang on some man wanting what I had and using any means possible to take it away from me. My dreams of leaving the farm intensified after that visit to Des Moines.

A year later Pa returned to Des Moines with the money for the mortgage but without me. We were on the outs by then and Pa traveled alone. Ralph was only a year younger than me. If anyone loved the soil more than Pa it was Ralph. My father wouldn’t take him because he wasn’t his eldest and the eldest took the farm from his father.

I rarely left the farm once Pa found out I intended to leave the farm. Funny how my desire to travel led me to my staying put. When Mama ran short of something, she always sent me into town to the General Mercantile Emporium and Grocery, which took all of fifteen minutes each way if I dawdled, which I did. Even when I dawdled, it didn’t take as long as driving to the meadows.

When Pa ran short of something and couldn’t make the trip himself, he sent Ralph to get whatever it was and Junior to keep an eye on Ralph. If Ralph loved anything as much as he loved the farm, it was girls. Any time he got a chance, he’d woo a girl all afternoon if he got the chance. Having his little brother with him didn’t give him that chance.

I should have kept leaving the farm to myself but I didn’t know any better. I always told my parents what was on my mind. This particular thing didn’t set well with Pa, and I had become an outsider on my own farm.

Now, I heard about the world from the radio in the parlor after supper, from books I carried home from school, and from hands that weren't too shy to talk. It wasn't their lives that interested me but where their lives had taken them and how they came to be on our farm.

Sven wasn’t the least bit shy, but I didn’t get the responses I expected. He wasn’t like other hands. Sven made me feel like a boy and his answers created more questions. Sven was like no one I’d ever met.

I couldn’t just up and leave. The farm was in trouble and I owed my family that. I loved the farm. It’s difficult to explain how my feelings troubled me. Pa's reaction, when he found out I intended to leave, was like a hard man turning cold. He shut me out that day and that’s how it was.

His long hard looks and disapproving headshakes reminded me of where I stood with Pa. Only when telling me what he wanted me to do or when we were in the house in front of Mama did he speak directly to me. Mama knew our relationship was strained. She loved her husband. She loved her son. She did the best she could to keep the peace.

There was no mention of me leaving after I graduated high school, but Pa wasn’t one to forget. His life was the farm, Mama, his sons, and everything that involved. Having his eldest reject the life he'd chosen didn't set well with Pa. The strain between us only grew over the years. It was the sports jacket affair that finished us off, but it could have been anything..

I would have changed it if I could, but I couldn't. I see now how disrespectful I’d been to Pa, but I didn’t see it then. I had no hard feelings for Pa and I was sure sorry he had such hard feelings toward me. I stayed because he needed me and it was the honorable thing for a son to do.

My mind moved from one topic to another, spurred on by the new hand, who woke my mind to life beyond the farm again. Before I knew it I was sitting in the truck, engine running, sitting in front of the picnic table. I looked around to see if my reverie had been noticed. I didn’t want this coming up at the dinner table.

‘Roberts lost his mind, you know,’ Ralph would announce to anyone in earshot.

I shut off the engine, leaning on the steering wheel to watch Ralph emerge dragging his axe behind him. The bib on his overalls was down and the tip of the straps dragged along the ground.

At eighteen Ralph was busy becoming a man. His shoulders were widening, while his biceps and chest showed deepening muscles from the constant work my brother did. He was still thinly built but growing out of his boy’s body in a way I hadn’t done. I still had my baby fat. It didn’t flatter me but I was never the bundle of energy Ralph was.

Ralph had brown hair and green eyes with skin that was always tan, while Junior and I had blond hair, blue eyes, light skin, and bodies that refused to display muscularity. Mama claimed Ralph took after her brother Frank, who drowned at seventeen up near Fort Dodge.

Ralph cast a dirty look in my direction, leaned his axe against the end of the table, collapsing at one end, leaning his head on his arms, waiting for me to deliver him food. Junior stopped shaping the fence posts to come to the door of the truck.

“Do you know how hungry we are, Robert? I told Ralph to quit ‘til he ate, but he keeps cutting trees like he’s a maniac. You know how he gets when he don’t eat.”

“I’m sorry. I was tied up, Junior. I got here as quick as I could,” I said.

“Yeah, you sat there five minutes. Ralph’s been complaining for an hour. You know how he gets.”

“What’s new?” I asked. “He was complaining when I left you off this morning.”

“Anything I can carry, Robert? Let’s don’t argue. I get enough of that from Ralph. He argues about everything. He thinks he’s Pa when we’re out here alone.”

“Yeah, take the lemonade and glasses. Pour him a glass and maybe he’ll feel better. We got us a new hand. I’ve been tending to him.”

“Bugging him with questions I bet,” Junior said, knowing my habits as well as I did.

“Yeah, he’s big. Hard worker,” I said.

“Bet he don’t last ‘til dinner. Pa ain’t keeping no hand on for a weeks when we ain’t got that much to do ‘til harvest.”

“We’ll see,” I said, opening the door and following Junior to the table with the grocery bag full of goodies. There was always pie and other favorites for lunch. That would be the first thing Ralph looked for.

“Hi yea, Ralphie. How’s tricks,” I said in my most cheerful voice that Ralph hated.

“Do you know what time it is?” Ralph barked, looking at his arm where a watch would be if he had one.

“No. I doubt you do either, but it’s lunchtime now.”

“Yeah, well I know my stomach’s been eating on my backbone for a couple of hours. A man’s got to eat if he’s going to work,” he complained.

“Shut up and eat,” I said, pushing the bag over in front of him. “We got a new hand. I been tending him.”

“We do? I bet he got fed on time,” Ralph complained. “Where’s the cheese. Mama knows I got to have cheese on my ham.”

Ralph rummaged in the bag, pulling out items as he searched. When he found the cheese he was disappointed. He’d have to find something else to complain about, but that wouldn’t take long.

“It’s on the bottom, Ralph. Right were it always is when Mama sends ham.”

“You can have mine,” Junior said, finishing off one sandwich and reaching for another. “Hand me one of those bowls of potato salad while your not busy, Ralph.”

I sat down with a sandwich and enjoyed the shade. The lemonade was still cool and refreshing. Before long we were all busy chomping away. We may have been dirt poor farmers, but we ate good.

“Where’s he from?” Ralph asked, leaning on his elbows as he chewed on his sandwich.

“How would I know?” I replied.

“Because you been down there talking to him. I know you, Robert. You know everything about him by now.”

“Over Muscatine way, but closer to the river.”

“Pa gonna keep him?” Ralph continued, giving it some thought.

“Don’t know. He’s making up his mind and told Sven he’ll tell him at supper tonight.”

“He eating with us at the table?” Ralph asked after a spell.

“Yep,” I answered, knowing what Ralph would say.

“He’s staying on,” Ralph said.

“Is not. It’s two weeks to harvest. Pa ain’t keeping no hand on for two weeks just to have him around for harvest,” Junior deduced. “We don’t got any money, Ralph.”

“Is to. If he eats at our table he’ll stay. You listen to what I’m telling you, little brother. Ralph knows.”

“Is not. It’s two weeks until harvest.”

“You haven’t seen him, Junior. I think Pa’s going to try to keep him if he can. It’ll be up to Sven,” I said.

“Sven? He’s one of us, huh? See him? What’s see him got to do with it?” Junior asked.

“Wait ‘til you see him. You’ll see.”

“Good grief, a hands a hand, Robert,” Junior said.

“Are not,” Ralph said.

“You been swimming?” I asked.

“No, he kept saying we’d wait until after lunch. We didn’t know we’d get lunch at supper time,” Junior complained. “You coming in? The water is perfect.”

“I don’t know,” I said, not enjoying the pond as much as I once did.

When Ralph was finished eating, he stood up and pushed down his overalls and underwear, leaving them behind his seat. He headed down the path toward the pond, having recovered some from being starved for a half hour more than usual. I walked down the path with Junior, standing to watch Ralph throw himself off the wooden raft over and over again.

“You think our brother’s a mite touched?” Junior asked.

“No, I think he has more energy than he knows what to do with,” I replied.

“You’d never know how he was dragging an hour ago. Complaining about how hungry he was.”

“All that’s in the past. Ralph isn’t one to stick with a thought longer than necessary.”

“Do you think he’s related to us, Robert? Look at him. There ain’t an ounce of fat on the boy. Look at us. I heard about those traveling salesman,” Junior said.

“Junior, you saying our mother slept with someone besides Pa?”

“On most days, I’d say no way, but when I look at Ralph, he don’t look like no one in our family.”

“Mama’s brother Uncle Frank,” I said.

“You ever see Uncle Frank?” Junior inquired.

“He drowned before we were born,” I explained.

“Likely story if you ask me. Awful convenient if you want to explain a son no one can explain,” Junior continued.

“Oh shut up. Ralph’s our brother. We’re stuck with him.”

“You know he’s been sneaking out at night?” Junior asked.

“No, when did that start?” I asked, needing anything I could get on Ralph.

“When he met that girl moved in to the Tyler farm.”

“Ralph’s got a girlfriend? Who’d put up with him?” I asked.

“No one. He’s been visiting three different farms since he started at Tyler place.”

“Boys a Casanova,” Junior said. “What do girls see in him?”

“Ralph?” I laughed.

“Better them than me. I sleep with the boy. I wake up and he’s tangled around me. His underwear is poking out in a way I don’t want to discuss. I’m going to tell Mama to put him out with the pigs,” Junior said.

“Pigs. Out with the pigs? What’s that mean?” I asked, thinking it was sounding familiar.

“That Jerry Stemhouser kid I went to grade school with was sleeping with his pet pig. You didn’t hear nothing about that? I thought everyone knew. Boy was having relations with his pig,” Junior said, shaking his head. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“That’s a joke,” I said.

“Well I ain’t aiming on becoming Ralph’s pet pig. He can sleep in the barn he don’t quit. I swear he ain’t related to me, Robert. Uncle Frank must have been a randy man.”

“Maybe your right. Ain’t legal having relations with your brother. Maybe he isn’t related to you,” I said, laughing at Junior’s seriousness on the subject.

“You hush. There ain’t no relations. He tried and it’s not funny, Robert. I aim on being virgin when I get married.”

“No you didn’t say that but it’s good knowledge to have. If he’s getting sweet on you, he might go for a pig.”

“You hush. I should have known better than to tell you anything personal. You’re as bad as he is.”

Junior sat down to pull off his boots before stripping to go in the pond. He handed me his folded clothes and let me take his boots in my free hand.

“Junior, I don’t think they’ll fit me. You’re three inches shorter than I am and twenty pounds lighter,” I joked.

“Leave them on my seat at the table. I should be able to make it that far without him getting any ideas.”

“Why didn’t you just undress there?”

“I’m not like Ralph, Robert. I don’t parade around buck naked. I may not have much dignity but I got that much.”

“You say you’re worried about his intentions concerning you and you swim naked together. You’re going to be naked going back to the table. Plenty of time for Ralph to get ideas,” I said, enjoying it when Junior squirmed.

“He don’t think that fast and I dry off on the way back to the picnic table. That way I get right into my clothes.”

I suppose it made sense to Junior. Ralph didn’t mind being naked and would probably go to town that way if Mama wasn’t around to stop him. Junior was more modest than Ralph but he didn’t mind swimming naked. He didn’t want an audience was all.

I was on the modest side. Even when I swam, I left my clothes at the water’s edge, getting back into them as quick as I came out of the water. They always dried sooner or later and when they were dry, so was I.

My brother Ralph was contrary to Junior and me in most ways. He’d always been odd in noticeable ways, except he didn’t notice or care. Ralph had his own train of thought and it often carried him into trouble. His lack of modesty fit in with his frequent derailments.

On a harvest or any other job, if I got to pick who I wanted to work with, it was Ralph. He hardly noticed he did twice the work of everyone else. Maybe he did and just didn’t know any other way. That made his odd ways a lot easier to take.

I watched as Ralph and Junior tossed each other from the raft. They still acted like kids at times. I lost the ability years ago, taking life more serious than it really was.

Ralph had only just turned eighteen. Junior was a solid two years behind him, although Junior was the more mature and responsible between the two. I guess Junior was more like me. I didn’t know who Ralph was like.

I’d lost interest in the pond once the Carters moved off their place. The Carter boys built the raft when I was still little, and I was best friends with their little brother, Paul. Once the bank threw them off their place, I worried about what became of them. Seeing the pond reminded me of happier times, but not so happy it could keep my mind off Paul and his family leaving for parts unknown.

I dropped Junior’s clothes on the table before loading the fence posts. The ride back to the house was easier on my backside. Sven quit what he was doing to help unload the posts as quick as I stopped the truck. I offered to move them down the drive so he could take them off where they needed to be, but he put one on each shoulder and said it was a lot more efficient walking them there.

I didn’t know what he meant.

Pa returned from a trip into town for tractor parts shortly after the posts were spread out down the driveway. He stopped in front of the house and leaned on the back of the old Ford truck to talk to Sven. I suspected the subject of payment for his work came up and Pa mainly talked while Sven mainly listened.

I couldn't tell how the conversation was going. I knew Pa would be worried about Sven doing too much work. He’d talk about how there would be no money until after harvest, and then it would mostly go to pay the bills to keep us on the farm another year. That was how it was done.

I suspected Sven knew that farmers rarely had much money just before harvest time. Sven was a worker and when there was work to be done, he did it. You didn’t need to point him at it or explain it to him. He was in no hurry the day he came to our farm, but Pa wanted to be fair to him.

I watched for clues as I added oil to the engine of the farm truck, making sure the water and such were full to the top. I knew better than to let Pa find the oil or water lacking. He’d walk halfway across the farm to tell me my latest mistake.

Pa had some chores for me to do as he busied himself in the barn again. Our tractors were old and if we were going to get another year out of them, they needed to be coaxed, coddled, and pampered. I think Pa liked that. It was precise and the results were predictable.

Mama came out to tell us what time supper would be on the table. We ate just before dark each night, when the light was at its worst. Most farm accidents happen just before sunset and right after dawn. It’s a good time to be at the table.

Pa decided he’d go up after my brothers and supervise them in selecting better trees for the purpose of making fence posts. It was later I learned the shape of the fence posts were what Pa and Sven were speaking about. Sven could whittle them into shape, if they were stout enough. Pay hadn’t come up and my worries were for naught.

Sven stayed busy digging holes and leaving a post leaning in each one. Mama had me moving canned goods into the root cellar, since the pantry was full from a summer of rich tasty vegetables.

Mama’s gardens were overflowing with vegetables and her afternoons were spent canning, while she made preparations for the evening meal. We always got the freshest of everything and when we couldn’t eat any more, she canned the rest.

When Pa did come back with Ralph and Junior, Sven went to the back of the truck to unload more freshly cut posts. There weren't as many because it hadn't been but a few hours since I returned with a load.

I always left a dozen in case Pa went to get my brothers. That way he didn’t ask why there wasn’t more. This time Sven stacked them all at the top corner of the driveway. Junior stood next to the door of the truck and watched.

Ralph matched Sven post for post, putting one on each should like the bigger man did. His mouth going a dozen miles a minutes, as he told stories to Sven that had them both laughing. Ralph would have walk and half back up as they went back for more post, so he could look at Sven while he talked to him.

“You’re big,” Ralph said loud enough for me to hear.

“The girls tell me that too,” Sven said in words I’d heard before.

For the first time in my life, in Ralph’s life, he blushed. I never thought I’d see the day. Ralph didn’t try to explain himself. That would have been impossible, but I was amused by a man as quick as Sven was with words. I liked him.

Pa went directly into the house. As soon as the last post hit the ground, Ralph and Junior were back in the truck, racing toward the barn with the engine revving. Ralph shifted through the gears as quick as he could so he would hit them all in the hundred feet it took to get to the end of the line.

He slammed on the brakes at the last instant, sliding the truck sideways as it came to rest a foot from the corner of the barn. Junior would have his usual difficulty getting the passenger side door open far enough for him to squeeze out. At times Junior had to slide across and get out of the driver's door as the dust was rising up around the vehicle.

By this time Pa would step out on the back porch, glaring in Ralph’s direction, as Ralph kept his eyes to himself.

"What have I told you about racing that engine like that?" Pa yelled, standing with hands on hips and his pipe clenched between his teeth.

"Yes, sir," Ralph said with conviction. “I forgot.”

Then Ralph was racing toward the back of the barn to be the first one at the pump where we clean up before dinner. Junior would be chasing him as he cussed him for not playing fair, but Ralph never played fair by design. There was no point in taking chances if you could stack the deck in your favor. Ralph was a deck stacker from way back and Junior never seemed to catch on to the game.

It had always been the same as far back as I could remember. Junior was still trying to keep up with Ralph, but it was Ralph’s game and no one knew what came next but him. Junior was the only one who still tried to figure out how to best Ralph, but he still ran second most of the time.

Nothing changed. Pa would not mention the incident again because Ralph was now his golden child, who loved the farm and farming it. Because I didn’t take advantage of the natural progression, I'd become invisible. Pa pretty much let Ralph do as he pleased, only reining him in if he was abusing something like the farm truck or Junior. The admonishments were swift and painless.

"He'd drive that truck from one side of the driveway to the other if he got a chance," I observed, as Sven came toward me as he put his shirt back on.

"He's a boy," Sven said. “It’s what they do.”

"You staying on?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. He’ll speak with your Mama about me."

"What did Pa say?"

"We'll talk it over at supper. Your father is more worried about money than me. I’ve already lost a farm. The money isn’t as important these days."

"You boys clean up now. Supper’s ready when you are," Mama yelled from the back door.

That meant time was a wasting and hunger pangs hit me as the screen door was closing.

"Come on. I'll get you a towel. I don't hurry because my brothers make such a mess when they clean up. I’ve got to clean up before we can wash up."

"You sound as though you might never have been a boy," Sven observed, as we walked.

"I was always the oldest," I said. “I grew up faster.”

"Oh, that means you were never a boy?"

"You have any brothers?" I asked him, suddenly curious.

Sven laughed boldly and seemed amused by the question.

"More than I can count. You're Robert, right?"

"Yes, I'm Robert," I said, knowing he knew my name.

"I was the sixth son," Sven said proudly.

"Sixth? There were girls too?"

"Four and four more boys after me, but two died back in 19 or 20. That flu epidemic took 'em. They were right young. I was only four or five myself."

"I'm sorry," I said, as Sven’s tragedies began to add up.

"Long time ago," he said without hesitation. “Lots of hardship in this life. It’s why you’ve got to be tough.”

He had a gentle voice for being such a big man. He thought about what he had to say in a way I wasn't accustomed. My family was filled with reactionaries. We more reacted than thought things out.

I collected two towels from where I kept mine in the barn and gave one to Sven. He folded it over his arm as we walked down toward the pump.

"You're a hard worker," I said as we walked together.

"Give a man a good days work and you might work tomorrow. There is no trick to hard work," he said.

"The corn will be coming in soon. We'll need you," I said. "I think Pa hired you with that in mind. We'll need at least one more hand if we can afford one. Times are tight."

"We'll see," Sven said. "Best not get your cart in front of your horse. It only confuses him."

"My father almost always hires on two hands for harvest. I’m sure we can’t afford two this year. One maybe."

"I'll do the work of two if need be," he said with confidence. "I usually find a farm for the harvest. It’s the best time to be working.”

Ralph and Junior were busy throwing soap balls at one another when we rounded the corner. They were laughing and having so much fun they didn't notice us. Ralph got Junior in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles hard against his soapy scalp. As Junior struggled to escape, they tripped in on the soapy mud and fell down into the mud they'd made with the excess water they’d pumped.

Ralph was bigger than Junior. He was two years older and stronger as an ox, but in tight situations, Junior could come out on top, which Ralph hated.

"Maybe you boys ought to let the men clean up and then return to your play afterward," Sven said with authority, leaving no doubt he expected to be obeyed.

Ralph stopped laughing long enough to look up at Sven as Junior slipped the grip he had on him only to stumble backward into the mud, and the soap that covered his body got muddy.

“I’m Ralph,” Ralph said, stepping forward to offer Sven a muddy hand.

“I don’t know what you have in mind for me to shake, but we don’t know each other that well,” Sven said with a smirk.

Ralph rinsed his arm and offered the hand again.

“I’m Ralph,” he said firmly.

“I’m Sven,” Sven said, shaking the offered hand this time.

"Damn, you're a big one,” Junior blurted from a seated position in the muck.

"And a hungry one. I'd appreciate a wash up before sitting down at your mama’s table. You boys can play after we're done."

"Yes, sir," Ralph said, stepping to one side as Sven stripped down, folding his clothes and setting them to one side with care.

“Damn,” Ralph said. “Now I know what those girls were talking about.”

“Yes, it’s true, but a boy shouldn’t let the fact he notices such things become public,” Sven advised.

For the second time in a few minutes, Ralph blushed. I was beginning to become fond of Sven.

“I guess you’re right,” Ralph stammered. “You got a hell of a chest too. I'd like to have a chest like that."

"Yeah, well, I'd appreciate the compliment more if you were wearing britches, boy. Something about a man admiring my chest, after getting shed of his pants, that’s a mite worrisome."

“It’s hard to wash up with your clothes on,” Ralph replied.

“Likely to be harder when you’re playing like you’re washing up,” Sven said. “But boys will be boys.”

Sven reached for the handle of the pump that was placed on a small rise to elevate it so the water would swish out over our heads as we pumped. Ralph jumped up to pump the handle as Sven stood under the water’s flow.

“I’ll get that,” Ralph said. “Here’s some fresh soap I brung down. This way it’s easier to soap up.”

Sven nodded approval and took the soap. Ralph pumped, let Sven later up, pumped some more, and never took his eyes off Sven.

Junior stood off to one side trying to slide out of the mud and the soap he’d collected with Ralph’s help.

After Ralph pumped out a dozen gushing waterfalls in a minute or two, Sven stepped back and I handed him his towel.

“A family operation I see,” Sven said. “I’ve never felt quite so well taken care of. Thank you boys. I’ll return the favor.”

“Nah,” Ralph said, still squatting beside the pump. “We’ll just get you messy again. Glad to lend a hand. I can tell we’ll be working together a lot.”

When I stepped up to the pump Ralph deserted the handle, leaving me to pump for myself, but Sven moved up the slope to seize the handle, draping his towel over his shoulder, he pumped away as I enjoyed my refreshing bath.

"Brothers," Sven said, shaking his head and glaring at Ralph. “You leave a job in the middle and you won’t be working with me, boy.”

"Here," Ralph said as soon as Sven let go of the pump handle, handing him his T-shirt. “It’s damp. I hope we didn’t get it wet.”

"Thank you, Ralph," Sven said with my brother's name slipping easily from his lips. “That’s sweat from earlier today.”

“I’d lend you one of mine,” Ralph said. “But it would only be good for half of that chest.”

Sven laughed and shook his head, falling victim to Ralph’s charm.

When I was drying up, Ralph stood watching Sven putting on his shirt. Junior jumped under the pump and rinsed off the drying mud. Sven got back into his overalls as Ralph stood next to him, handing him his shoes.

"You're staring, boy," Sven said to Ralph.

"Oh, yeah, I've just never seen a chest like yours. You don’t know how I’d love to have your body."

“Once again, if we’re going to talk about my body, putting your britches on would be the polite way to do it.”

“How’d you get built like that anyhow?” Ralph asked, undaunted by Sven’s concern.

"Takes hard work and good food," Sven said.

"You think I could get big as you?" Ralph asked with an unusual seriousness. “Ladies like muscles.”

"Ralph!” Junior said, sounding alarmed. “I hope you're referring to the man’s chest," Junior giggled.

"Shut up, Junior," Ralph snapped. "Us men know what I’m talking about, little brother."

"Well, boy, maybe you been looking at the wrong chests," Sven said. "There was a lady on the last farm I worked. Now, she had a chest on her. That was admirable."

We all laughed without Ralph finding humor in the comment.

“I think I know her,” Ralph answered.

“Why am I not surprised,” Sven said.

“I just asked if mine might get like that one day.”

"Well, boy, I wasn’t much bigger an you when I was your age. What, you about fourteen?”

“Fourteen! Fourteen? I’m eighteen. I don’t look fourteen,” Ralph protested to both Junior and me.

We were laughing too hard to be of any help to his wounded pride.

“I was going by the way you act,” Sven said casually, as he finished tying his boots and stood up. “You could pass for sixteen if you stopped talking.”

“Sixteen!” Ralph objected, not catching the hint. “I’m eighteen. Eighteen.”

“You’d probably look more mature with your britches on,” Sven said, smiling impishly as he placed the towel over his forearm, strolling toward the house, whistling as he walked.

Ralph stood, hands on hips, staring after him. Junior lay back down in the mud, laughing. I finished dressing and caught Sven as he was hanging the towel on some wire near the barn door.

“Sorry about Ralph,” I said. “He can be obnoxious. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“Sorry? Why would you find it necessary to apologize for your brother?”

“He does act immature. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea,” I explained as he started toward the back door.

“Robert, I assure you I didn’t get the wrong idea. Being around your brothers reminded me of a time when my own brothers had their laughs at my expense. Ralph reminds me a little of myself when I was still a boy. I was just as full of myself then as he is now. I like him.”

It didn’t matter what I said to Sven, it seemed to evoke the same kind of response. I decided to take him in for dinner without any more comments. I didn’t understand my anger with Sven. I didn’t understand my anger at all. I’d never felt so twisted up inside as the day Sven came.

Chapter 4

Table Talk

Sven stood inside the door until Mama directed him to sit beside Pa. Ralph was bumped down a seat and sat to the right of Mama. I sat on the other side.

“You like fried chicken? Mama makes the best fried chicken this side of the Rockies.”

“I surely do, son. Probably my favorite,” Sven answered.

“That’s where I sit,” Junior complained as quick as he came into the kitchen. “Mama!”

“You boys quit fussing. Junior sit beside Robert. There’s enough room at this table for ten people if need be,” Mama said.

“Mama, that’s my seat. Why do I have to move. Make Ralph move.”

“Hush and go dry your hair, before you come back to my table. Then, sit beside Robert and hush.”

“Pa, he’s in my seat,” Junior unwisely appealed to a higher power.

“Did you hear your mother, Junior? We’d hate for you to miss this fine meal the Lord’s provided us this evening.”

“Yes, sir… that’s my seat,” Junior said under his breath, letting the screen door bang when he went back out.

“Ralph, you could have sat beside Robert instead of taking Junior’s chair,” Mama said. “You knew you’d set him off. You work at causing trouble.”

“I want to sit beside him. I like him.”

“Don’t you be bothering this man,” Pa said. “He’s not here for your entertainment, Ralph.”

“It’s time you started acting like an adult,” Mama said, as she put some bowls down on the table. “Now Sven didn’t come in here to listen to us squabble.

Junior came back in with his hair still wet but slicked down on his head a bit better. He plopped down in the chair beside me.

Mama said grace and Pa passed the platter of chicken directly to Sven without picking the choice piece out for himself.

“Ralph’s right about the chicken,” Pa said. “You’d be hard pressed to find better in this neck of the woods.”

“Yeah, but he never mentioned these biscuits. Ma’am, these are the best biscuits I’ve had since I was home. They’re prize winners.”

“You miss your mama’s food, Sven?” Mama asked with understanding in her voice.

“Yes, Ma’am. Maw was an artist when it came to making something out of nothing. Broke her heart to see us all sent in different directions,” Sven replied.

“Hard times are sad times,” Mama said.

“Eat up,” Pa said, digging deep into the mashed potatoes before passing them to Sven.

“You going to keep him, Pa?” Ralph asked, taking the potatoes from Sven. “You see the size of this guy. You ought to see him naked. He’s big all over.”

“Ralph!” Mama said. “That’s not table talk, young man. I’m not going to tell you again. Don’t be bothering this man.”

“Well he is. I mean he’ll work hard and hold up his end. We got to hire a hand anyway. He’s right here is all I’m saying, Pa. He’s a keeper you ask me. I wouldn’t throw this one back, no siree.”

“Ralph, let the man eat in peace. I aims to try to hold onto Sven, but we got two weeks before harvest and little more than food and a roof to offer between now and then.”

“Mama’ll feed you like you never been fed, won’t you, Mama. You’re going to stay, aren’t you?” Ralph asked, looking up at Sven. “He’s going to stay, Pa. I can tell. I think he likes us.”

“Ralph, Sven looks capable of speakin’ for himself. I’m sure he appreciates your approval, but we’ll talk business after supper,” Pa said. “Show a little respect for your mama’s meal and hush for now.”

“Yes, sir,” Ralph said, shoveling in some pole beans before looking over at Sven again. “Good, huh?”

“Eighteen going on eleven,” Junior said between bites.

“You hush too,” Pa said, aiming his fork at Junior.

After the meal was done, we left Mama to take care of the kitchen. Pa stood on the back porch as the stars began making their nightly appearance above the barn, as he lit his after dinner pipe. Sven sat on the swing and I sat down next to him, after determining the chains would probably hold us. I wanted to smooth things over with Sven. I still had the feeling I’d said too much or the wrong thing, but I knew Pa had something to say first, and I sat silent, until the business was done.

"She looks like a good crop. God has surely blessed this Sorenson farm this year. Now, if he'll hold back the rains, until the harvest is in, I think we'll be okay. If he doesn't so choose, and we can’t pay you fair, I'll keep you on for the winter. You’ll eat at our table. You’ll have shelter as long as it suits you. I can’t promise you more than that. Wish I could but I can’t. I won’t deceive man about where I stand.”

Pa paused, taking a long pull on his pipe. I loved the smell that came from his pipe. The smoke circled out around his right ear as Sven leaned forward, folding his hands between his knees. He left no doubt how he felt.

"I'll be staying on in that case, Mr. Sorenson. I'll take my chances with the pay part. If you can't pay a fair price for my labor, then I’ll expect to stay the winter. I’ll do my share of the work if I do stay on. We can shake on it if you like. It sounds fair to me.”

Sven stood which put him two feet from where my father stood. My father took his hand off the green railing I’d painted earlier that month, made a quarter turn toward Sven, shaking his hand, after removing the pipe from his mouth with his other hand. There was a twinkle in Pa’s eyes.

“Done, then. You’ll eat at the table with us. You’ll sleep in the barn with Robert. Robert, put this man near the window so he has fresh air. See to it he has the proper bedding. Don’t let him be coming to me needing something. You see to him. That’s your job.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, happy to have it.

“Harvest… ten to twelve days off,” Pa said, after Sven sat back down. “Fencing and mending things ‘til then. We’ll take our time so we’re ready for what’s coming."

Pa spoke softly so as not to deter the stars. I never saw a man so fascinated by the night sky. Pa puffed. Sven and I swung easily as the clanking of dishes came from the kitchen as Mama got the kitchen back in shape.

“Robert!”

"Yes, Pa, I'll take care of it. Just let me know what you need, Sven," I said to him. "Come on. I'll get the bedding and show you where I sleep. It's comfortable and quiet out there. No annoyances," I said, biting my tongue over my offhand reference to Ralph.

"You sleep in the loft?" Sven asked surprised.

"Yeah. Like I said, quiet. I like reading out there."

"Robert!" Pa said sternly.

"Annoyances is me," Ralph said, standing inside the screen, listening to the negotiations. "Robert don't like me much. We was cut from different cloth."

"Ralph!" Pa said. "I'm not going to keep at you two."

"Well he don't. He don't like no one lately. He wants off here. You know he wants off here. Why don’t he just go? We got Sven now. We don’t need Robert."

"Ralph!" Pa said more than a little annoyed.

Taking his eyes out of the sky for the first time in a spell to look back over his shoulder, driving Ralph out of the screendoor.

"Brothers," Sven lamented. "I was at odds with most of mine at one time or another. What I wouldn't give to be back there with them right now,” he said. “You boys don't know how lucky you are to be able to stay together."

"Back where?" Ralph asked from his unseen perch beside the door.

"Ralph!" Pa objected again. “You boys leave this man alone. Robert, I told you what you need to do.”

Pa rarely raised his voice but he was more than a little riled over Ralph’s comments. No one spoke about that which wasn’t to be spoken about. Mainly my departure from the farm. Not talking about it meant it seethed under the surface all the time. Ralph was as angry as Pa that I was going to forsake the land they loved.

None of us knew how our petty disagreements would all be foregotten in a couple of weeks. When things are the way they are, you expect them to stay that way, but there’s always something waiting in the wings to make yesterdays concerns seem like no big deal. That night we were busy trying to stay busy until the harvest began.

"My boys talk more than good sense would allow. You'll have to excuse their curiosity. Ralph's too forward toward strangers, especially any young girl who crosses his path. You seem to have caught his imagination. It’ll pass."

"Ralph's fine, Mr. Sorenson," Sven said. "Reminds me some of myself. I haven’t been with my brothers in years. Your sons make it seem like home. It’s like being with my own brothers again. I rather enjoy it."

“I hope you are as kind once you’ve been here a spell. Junior’s a good boy. Ralph, he’s the colt you can’t quite break. Robert, well.., you need to ask Robert,” he said, coming up short once he got to the black sheep of the sorenson clan. “I don’t know nothing about Robert any more. No sir, not a thing.”

Once the bedding was carried out to the loft, Sven sat with me on the porch eating ice cream with rhubarb cobbler fresh from the oven. There was laughter coming from the kitchen as Ralph and Junior let got shed of the last of their energy. It was easier to listen from a distance than to get in the middle of whatever game they were playing tonight.

*****

Sven settled in quietly. There was an easy acceptance that seemed to travel in both directions. Rarely were hands invited to take meals at the table with us. That was because it made them a passel more uncomfortable than it made us. Like Sven, most hands had family, somewhere.

Sven ate at our table from that first evening. He fit us like a pair of new gloves. He was polite and more intelligent than he let on. Something about him appealed to each of us. Even Pa smiled more, talked more, and laughed more loudly because of Sven’s knack for saying the proper thing at the proper time.

Sven didn't have much to say that would tell us more about him. There was a sadness that came with him, as he frequently watched my brothers laugh and play a few feet away. I suspected that he might be thinking of his own family and a farm where he once lived.

In the evening I usually left him in the swing, when Mama called me in to play cards, after she’d gotten the kitchen in shape. He rarely played the games we had been playing after supper as far back as I could remember.

Pa usually spent the evening watching the stars before he secured the farm to his satisfaction before turning in. Sven accompanied him at times and while neither of them talked much, I did see them going on a few times. I wondered if my Pa reminded Sven of his.

Sven was a pleasant addition to our family, except my attempts to learn more about him never led me to what I wanted to know. I realized that swinging silently in the swing with him was about as close as I could get to the real Sven. Once I asked my first question, he was making plans to get up and make his getaway.

One evening a few days later with Junior out milking his cows, Ralph got up from the table, where he was losing badly at cards, he went out to sit in the swing beside Sven. Mama got up, calling it a night, and I watched the swing through the window.

There was no love lost between Ralph and me. Seeing him accomplish what I’d so consistently failed at didn’t help much. I truly wanted to make a friend out of Sven and he kept a distance between us. As soon as Ralph sat down there were laughing and poking each other like kids. Ralph had that effect on people.

"Tell me about your brothers," Ralph said with his usual extra energy as he pulled his legs up under him while Sven swung easily, pondering Ralph’s words.

"No different than you boys, Ralph. More of them. We lived on a farm together. You would be me. Junior would be Henry. Robert would be Timothy. Like you, I came between Timothy and Henry. Henry and I were buddies, though we hated each other often as not, and Timothy was more reserved, older, trying to mature, and that annoyed Henry and me. It’s just like you boys.”

“Which one is Junior?”

“Henry?” Sven said, “He was younger but more serious than me.”

“Robert. Which one is Robert?”

“Timothy. He was one older than me… serious, like Robert. Always trying to outthink everyone. Smart.”

“Which one am I?” Ralph loaded the question.

Sven reached over and mussed up Ralph’s wavy brown hair and Ralph returned the favor without understanding the action. They were like brothers. There was a naturalness between thoe two. Where I tried and failed, Ralph had succeeded.

“Me. Curious. Way more energy than called for. Maw would say. She claimed I was living with the energy of the boys that died. I was high energy. I’m growing out of it.”

“You think I’ll grow out of it?” Ralph asked, sounding like he knew he was living too fast for his own good.

“Sure. I was late growing up. With all those older brothers, I didn’t need to grow up. They took care of the farm. Three of them took pieces of Paw’s farm. They lost theirs when Paw went belly up. No holding onto any of it.”

“Your brothers died?”

“Two died. I was looking forward to having more brothers to play with. They never got that old. I was seven, Henry was six, so they were four or five, I guess. Reminds you to live while you can. No telling when you’ll stop.”

“What happened to the farm?” Ralph asked, as if he didn’t know about how banks worked.

“It stopped being ours after my great grandfather cleared it and began farming it before Abe Lincoln was president. We fed people for eighty years and couldn’t afford to hold onto the land. Broke our backs for eighty years and still couldn’t get the land away from the bank. That’s sad.”

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one and some. I’ll turn in the fall after harvest."

"I'm eighteen. Just turned. You look older, Sven. The road age a man faster? I want to stay right here on this farm. I want to die here. I never want to leave. I wouldn’t know where to go," Ralph said in an unusually thoughtful moment for him. “You can stay with us. We’ll be your family.”

Sven put his arm across Ralph’s schoulder.

“You’re a special boy, RAlph. I hope you’re able to do just that. I feel old. I feel like I never lived with my people. I worry about them, where they are, if they’re okay… eating or not, healthy or not. It’s not easy losing everything.”

“We’ll be your family if you want. Everyone likes you. What’s not to like. You do more work than any of us.”

"The road's a hard place to be. I’d love nothing more than staying on somewhere, but that’s not a decision you and I are going to make," Sven said, turning his head to smile at Ralph, who looked up at him with admiration in his eyes. "You do seem younger, Ralph. I don’t remember ever being young as you."

"Is that a joke or something? I don’t always get jokes."

"Yeah, something like that. You act younger than eighteen, but in a good way. You have the innocence of youth. I had it when my family was still together. You grow up faster once you lose everything familiar."

"I ain't all that innocent. Molly Prentice and I had a roll in the hay more ‘an once. Brenda Helms and I dated all last summer. She liked to…, you know what girls like. I didn’t think a girl could get the best of me, but she wore me plum out. Had to get shed a her or give up working. I’m a bachelor at heart, but I can’t resist a chance to have a roll in the hay, you know. Not that innocent any more. I like girls too much to be innocent."

"Gentlemen don't tell the secrets of ladies they’ve bedded," Sven interrupted. “No one really needs to know.”

"It’s the truth. I'm not innocent is all I’m saying. I didn’t want to lie to you about that."

"Innocence has little to do with where you've dallied or how often. You have experience without accumulating the wisdom that should come from it."

"They usually don't have much to say," Ralph observed. "They just want to get busy on account I don’t always have a lot of time. I got to get where they are, get back home, and get enough sleep so I can work the next day. It’s hard on a man."

"Ah, youth," Sven said. “I am familiar with having a big appetite and a shortage of time when facing a feast. Just remember, you don’t need to have your way with all of them right away. There are always girls looking for boys.”

“Yeah, you said it, brother. Hey, Junior's got cows over in the pig shed. Come on, I'll show you. He hates it when I interrupt him milking. He talks to 'em while he milks 'em. Nobody else talks to him. He'll really hate two of us watching him. Come on. He sells cream to the neighbors."

Ralph jumped up as if he were on a spring.

“Carters gave them to him on account they didn’t want the bank getting their prize cows,” Ralph advised as he moved swiftly toward where the cows were kept. “He tended Millie and Betsy while the Millers was first thrown off their place. They brung them here too, once they got thrown off. Junior had always helped Mr. Miller with his cows.”

Without so much as a word Sven pulled himself up and followed the eager Ralph into the night. Ralph had a way of charming people into doing what he wanted them to do. He was harmless enough, but his never-ending motion got on my nerves. Ralph's life was all about having a good time.

These were the final days we'd have time for anything but work until after we brought in the corn. It was my favorite time. Mama served us up her fresh baked goods, while the days slipped away and the seasons began to change.

“Tell him about Shirley’s boobs, Ralph,” Junior begged, as they walked back toward the porch, where I was sitting in the swing.

“Oh, man, she’s got some tits on her, Sven. Nipples, oh man, I’m going to be hard up tonight. Junior, you know better than to get me started on Shirley’s boobs this time of the evening.

“She isn’t too keen on nothing else, but her tits are worth the energy it takes to get over there. Melissa’s are about as big but she’s not so keen on having them attended to. Melissa’s more fun if you can get her going. She’s a good kisser,” Ralph explained with his usual attention to detail.

“Ralph, you are not going to be a gentlemen,” Sven said as Junior laughed.

“I certainly hope not. I’m doing my best to avoid it, but don’t tell Mama. She’ll give me a licking she hears about the girls I been with. She knows their mothers. I know their mothers. I wouldn’t mind bedding a couple of them, but Mama would skin me she got wind of that.”

“You’re hopeless, Ralph,” Junior assured him. “I wish I had your nerve. You can tell some stories. I’ll say that for you. Every week you got a new one.”

“Trust me, your mother doesn’t want to know about their sons’ dalliances, Ralph,” Sven said.

“That’s the way I figure it,” Ralph said, galloping up the steps. “Mama, is there any more of that cobbler,” Ralph shouted from the stairs.

The screen door banged behind him, and then it banged behind Junior, when he went inside.

“Ralph’s a pistol,” Sven said as he looked across at me sitting in the swing. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he looked out at the corn. “Harvest isn’t far off now.”

“There’s plenty of room,” I said, scooting to one corner of the swing, hoping he was ready for some intelligent conversation.

“No, I think I hear your Mama’s cobbler calling me. If I hope to get a little more I best get inside fast.”

The screen door banged behind Sven and I moved back into the middle of the swing. The breeze contained a trace of cool. This was another sure sign that the corn was close to being ready. The longer we left it in the ground the sweeter it became, until you waited too long and got caught by early rains and a muddy mess that made the machines useless, but for now there was more cobbler and fresh milk to comfort me.

Pa won the second card game, but he always won when he played. Junior was sent up to bed with his usual protest. He’d be asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Ralph jumped up to sit beside Sven as soon as Junior vacated the seat.

“Ralph, you’re not to be bothering this man with your nonsense,” Pa said sternly. “Robert, if Ralph bothers this man you come to me. I’ll put a stop to it. It’s time for you to be in bed, Ralph. You got a day of wood cutting ahead of you tomorrow. You need your rest.”

“Pa! I’m a man, now. I done turned eighteen. Robert could stay up once he turned eighteen. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Robert had some sense,” Mama answered. “You don’t show no signs of that. You’ll be asleep in five minutes, and I catch you going out of that window, and you won’t be able to sit for a month of Sundays.”

“Mama, quit treating me like a kid,” Ralph objected.

“Ralph!” Pa said, and Ralph got up. “We’ll talk some more tomorrow, Sven. I want to hear more about your…, ah, adventures,” Ralph said as he disappeared into the hallway.

It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I was well over eighteen and still couldn’t put in the hours my parents did. Pa woke me in the morning and he was still going long after I was in bed most nights.

"Robert, you're falling asleep on your chair. You go to bed. You won’t miss anything,” Mama said, after my third consecutive yawn. "Sven, you're welcome to sit up with us for a spell if you have a mind to. When you're ready for bed, Pa'll go out with you and collect them coveralls. The material came in I was waiting for. I'll have them mended and on the ladder for you come morning.

“Grown man can't be walking around coming out of his britches and those patches I put on when you came are hardly enough to cover the holes. Next time to town we'll see to it you get a fresh pair, won't we, Pa?”

“How are we going to manage that, Mother?” Pa asked. “Mercantile isn’t extending no credit these days.”

“Junior’s donated the money for the cream he’s selling in town. I still have some change from my canning in my church money. We’ll put it back after harvest.”

“Junior’s a good boy,” Pa said. “You heard your Mama. Lots of work to be done tomorrow. Better get your rest,” Pa said to me.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Sven’s got experience cutting wood. I’m putting him in the meadows with Ralph tomorrow. Junior’ll be helping your Mama. That lets you free to dig fence postholes,” Pa said.

He was the boss and his mind was made up. Another argument served no purpose. Sven had almost finished the holes. I would dig the holes without complaint, no matter how much it burnt my butt to do it.

“Night,” I said, heading for the barn, looking to see if Sven decided to follow me.

I decided to lie awake until Sven came along. The next thing I heard was Pa on the ladder before first light. I felt as if I’d just gone down and it was time to get up for another days work.

I could have walked off the farm that morning, but I didn’t.

Chapter 5

Rise & Shine

It took a minute to realize I wasn’t dreaming. My eyes were still fogged over when I heard the unmistakable sound of Pa’s voice in my ears.

“Rise and shine you two. Coffee’s a waitin’. Can’t sleep all day. Sven, your pants are on the ladder down here. Good as new. Mother is an artist with a needle.”

“Yes, sir,” Sven said, as I tried to keep my eyes open, but they kept snapping shut.

I heard Sven on the ladder a minute later, but my eyes still refused to cooperate. Maybe just five more minutes.

When I got to the kitchen there was a steaming cup of coffee in front of my chair. Sven and Pa were working on a biscuit and I reached for one as I sat down. Mama stood in front of a stove full of pans with all the smells of farm fresh food filling the air. I was suddenly starving.

“Morning, Robert.”

“Morning, Mama,” I replied.

I spread her fresh butter on my biscuit, adding a scoop of her strawberry jam for color. It was like someone set a firecracker off in my mouth. The flavor woke me up and I sipped coffee and smiled.

“Biscuits melt in your mouth,” Sven said.

“They sure do,” I agreed. “Try the strawberry jam. It’s perfect.”

By five every morning of my life breakfast was being put on the table and the day's work never ended for Mama. Where she got the energy to keep going or enough sleep was a mystery. It wasn't a question I felt comfortable asking her. As I recall, she was always up when I got up and she was always up when I was crawling up to the loft exhausted.

"How far did you go in school?" I asked, having had time to consider my line of questioning.

"When I was fifteen the farm was in serious trouble. We’d had a flood that spring and we planted a month late. The corn hardly grew all summer, and the rains came early and wouldn’t quit. The bank was sorry but the rules were the rules. I was fifteen is the best I can tell you. I never went back. I hope there isn’t going to be a test,” Sven worried in good humor.

“Lots of farmers sons quit going at fourteen and fifteen. You’re way smarter than any of them. Do you read?”

“Yes, I do,” Sven said. “When I have something to read.”

“I’ve got books in the boys bedroom. I used to sleep in there with them. I’ll make a list and bring you what you like,” I said.

“That’s an invitation I won’t refuse. Thank you. I miss reading.”

"You're awful smart for not going to high school," I said, looking for answers he wasn’t giving.

“High school isn’t the end all and be all. I got a little education along the way. A man isn’t done learning until he’s dead.”

Sven talked like a farmhand some of the time, but there were times when he used words I didn’t know. It wasn’t simply what he said but the thought he put into saying it.

He was quick on his feet when it came to answering my questions, except they weren’t so much answers as they were supposition. I was supposed to draw my own conclusions and I wasn’t dead yet.

After Pa left with Sven and Ralph in the farm truck, Junior took off on his bike with jars of jam filling the egg basket he’d installed on the handlebars for safe transport to their destination in town. Also in the basket were two jars of cream and two blocks of fresh churned butter.

By lunch he’d return with his pockets jingling with change. My eyes followed the bike as it turned off the lane that ran in front of the house. I was mostly bird watching and taking breaks for water, although the day wasn’t as hot.

He’d gone out and turned onto the lane at the start of his deliveries. Our lane went to the county road, where Junior went right. That road went into town seven or eight miles away, depending on where in town he went. That was the road I’d follow out of town when I left.

We were about to have one of our best harvest as far back as I could remember. If everything went right and the rains held off, with so few farmers left on their farms, we might realize the best corn prices in years.

That was what I was waiting for. Once I left, I’d do jobs along the way, if I didn’t find something right off. I’d send money back. Even without being here, I’d contribute. That would show my father I didn’t intend to desert my family, or at least I thought it would.

I imagined being on that road one day west of town on the new two lane that was no more than ten miles away. I’d follow it to the state line. I wouldn’t stop until I reached someplace new and exciting, but I wasn’t on the road quite yet. There were holes to dig and my Pa to shake his head at how I dug them. I’m sure I wasn’t going fast enough, but there were hardly any left to dig.

“You made good time, Junior,” I said, when he stopped next to me and the posthole digger.

“I guess. More fun in the meadow. Pa gave Sven my job,” Junior complained.

“Well, he gave me Sven’s job. So it’s about even.”

“Too hot to be out here in the sun. How long is Pa going to be pissed off at you. It’s been going on a year now,” Junior said.

“Pa’s got a mind of his own, Junior. Your guess is good as mine. I’m just putting in time. Only a few holes left.”

“I’ll tell Mama you’re ready for lunch. I’ll ride out with you when you take Ralph and Sven theirs. I want a crack at that pond. I might stay until supper time if Mama says it’s okay. You out to stay too. Pa ain’t going to get no more pissed off than he already is, Robert.”

“You have a point there, little brother. I think I’m going to take your advice. We could use a little free time. We’ve got more posts than enough already.”

The sun was high enough to start baking my brain, while I dug and cussed, remembering how much easier it looked when Sven did the digging. The injustice was huge to me, although if I wasn't digging postholes I'd have been helping Pa with the tractors. That never went well.

Pa got angry easy when I was around. He banged things, and asked for tools by names like “the thingamajig,” “the whichimacallit,” and “the whim-e-diddle.” When I guessed wrong, we exchanged words neither of us had any difficulty understanding.

By the time Pa returned I was digging up a storm. I was already tired. He glanced over to make sure I was there, and then he started firing up the machines. There was something exciting about hearing them all running in the open space between the barn and the house. It was a sound I could feel in my feet.

We had two columbines and the smaller farm tractor that was as old as me. One columbine was half my age.

Other peoples’ misery had enhanced our capability. When the Ingrasols’ farm was in trouble, old man Ingersol parked their new International in our barn to keep it out of the hands of the bankers. When he went under, he took what Pa could pay in cash and the promise of more once times weren’t so hard. They were still hard, but we had a second newer tractor with good pulling power.

Mama said, “It’s an ill wind that doesn’t do someone some good. It still makes me sick to think we can benefit from our friends’ troubles.”

“The Lord’ll make’er right,” Mr. Ingrasol said to her, walking down our drive toward his place, turning down a ride, wanting to have time to think.

We’d used the new International the year before and I got my share of time driving it. It was a step above anything we had before. It might make the difference in keeping another farm from going under. Mighty good people think about their neighbors at a time there is no helping them.

No doubt in my mind, they were right with the Lord. They hoped we might hold on because they helped us, when they couldn’t help themselves any longer. Farmers were damn good folks.

Pa had the newer International out and running for a couple of hours that morning. When he went in to drive the old International out of the barn, the transmission let go, and Pa was swearing up one side and down the other. I thought the man might have a heart attack.

He’d gotten into his truck to drive to Des Moines to order the parts he’d need to have it running by harvest time. The International dealer was the only place that would extend credit before the harvest started, but they knew their machines were key to bringing in the corn.

Before noon Mama called me to the kitchen. She’d set me a place at the table with lemonade and a sandwich.

“I wanted you boys to sit in here and cool off before you take the food to Ralph and Sven. There’s a couple of extra sandwiches for you and Junior. Take your time. Be sure to stay in the shade up there. I don’t want you out in the sun any more today, Robert. Your Pa won’t be back much before supper and you’ve had plenty of sun.”

“You sure Pa won’t be back earlier than supper, Mama?” I asked, wanting to be sure.

“You leave Pa to me and don’t sass me, when I tell you something, Robert. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry,” I said, but I knew I’d hear about it from Pa later if he knew I was lollygagging at the pond.

Once I cooled down, I headed toward the truck with Junior in two.

Mama was sympathetic to my feelings. She understood that I could have left the day after I graduated high school. Mama wanted me to be happy and Pa wanted me to do what was expected of a farmer’s eldest son. The problem with Pa’s opinion, I could end up being the eldest son of a farmer without a farm. Sven was living proof that farms fail.

Ralph was far better suited to farm life. He’d pick up right where Pa left off. Pa was just too hardheaded to admit it. He wanted things his way, no matter what I wanted.

I turned right onto the farm road and started to relax as I bounced along. I checked the sky for signs of rain. There were a few lazy white clouds that meant all clear. We’d gone without rain for a little longer than we liked, but rain now would mean trouble.

Rainy season was a month off if Mother Nature kept to her regular schedule. A few showers would be soaked up immediately by the dry soil, but we hadn’t even had a shower.

The sound of the truck pulling into the clearing brought Ralph out of the woods. He plopped down at the table and waited for me to deliver lunch. Sven finished the post he was working on, adding it to the pile before coming over to offer me a hand.

“Robert, you’re looking well today, and you’ve brought us nourishment.”

“Lunch is ready,” I said.

Ralph set out the containers of carrot salad and the rest of the rhubarb cobbler Mama kept aside for our lunch.

“Where’s the cheese, Robert. Mama knows I can’t eat sandwiches without cheese on it.”

“Keep digging, Ralph. There are two slices in the bottom. After that you’re on your own,” I said.

“Here it is. Two’ll do.”

“You better claim another sandwich if you want one, Sven. Ralph will eat the bag he gets a chance.”

“Will not. You calling me a hog?”

“No, I never thought of it that way, but now that you mentioned it...”

“Go soak your head, Robert. I work for my food.”

Sven ate politely and didn’t pay Ralph and me any mind.

“Fine lunch, Robert. Extend to your mama my appreciation.”

“I’ll do that, but if you want a second sandwich you better get it in front of you.”

Sven had finished a sandwich before Ralph finally got around to sitting on the front bumper of the truck to eat his.

“Watch your finger’s, Ralph.”

“Shut up.”

"He drive you nuts, yet?" I asked.

"Ralph? He's just fine," Sven said. "Did his work fine. No complaints from me."

"We're going swimming after lunch. He's neat. Did you know he’s been to Nebraska and Illinois," my brother shouted so he could talk around his food. "You should see him lay into one of them trees I cut, Robert. He can cut a post quicker ‘an Pa cuts posts. Just whittles them right down. Look at all them he done already. He's fast. He's going to show me how, aren't you, Sven?"

“I’ll teach you the way I was taught, after work is done.”

Ralph sounded excited as he bragged about Sven's ability. Coming back to the table for another sandwich, he rummaged for a spoon to eat his carrot salad.

"Pa ain't twenty-one either," I said, "You learn to save some energy as you grow older. Pa’s in no hurry."

"What the hell do you know about growing older? You're so… you're so… strange. Some times I wonder if you really are my brother, Robert. I don't see the resemblance you ask me. No, I don’t. You must be adopted."

"Watch your language, Ralph. I've had cause to wonder the same thing as of late," I said. “Junior looks like me. You don’t look like nobody.”

“Mama’s brother, Frank,” Ralph reminded me. “Spittin’ image, she says.”

“Prove it,” I said, knowing I’d get him going.

“He’s dead. You know he’s dead. You don’t take Mama’s word on a thing like that?”

My mind crossed over the conversation Sven and I had the day before. He claimed to have bedded women on the farms where he worked. No one ever knew Mama’s brother, Frank, except Mama. As I looked at Ralph I found myself wondering if someone had paid her a visit one day while Pa was working in the field.

I shook my head to rid it of such stupidity. Ralph was my brother and always had been. I gave Sven a dirty look for setting such an idea loose in my head.

"Criminy! Why'd you have to bring the food?"

"Ralph, I always bring the food. You’d starve to death by now if I didn’t bring you lunch every day."

“You two are like a couple of old ladies. Give it a rest,” Sven ordered, reaching for the carrot salad, placing a small amount on his sandwich. “You don’t know how nice it is having good food.”

“I didn’t start it. He started it. He always starts it. Robert don’t like me none. I don’t like him much either.”

“You always start it,” I said. “You’re always arguing about something. You never shut up.”

“You’re older. You should know better,” Sven explained. “Brothers don’t need to be fussing with each other all the time. One day you’ll both regret it. You mark my words.”

Ralph took another sandwich, searching in vain for a slice of cheese that wasn’t there. He considered Sven’s sandwich for a minute before opening his to scrape some carrot salad onto it. Once he spread it out, he looked it over, holding the other slice of bread at the ready. He loaded the rest of the carrot salad on top, slamming the other slice of bread on top of that and biting into it with carrot salad oozing out of all sides.

“You’re hopeless,” I said.

“This is good, Robert,” he shouted. “You ought to try it.”

Sven shook his head, setting down the uneaten half of his sandwich before drinking from his large glass of lemonade. He savored the flavor as I ate the rest of my sandwich.

"He's twenty-one, Robert. You look older than that, Sven. I figured you to be at least… twenty-two,” Ralph said with careful consideration of the man sitting across from us. “You married? How many kids you figure you got? Any girls? Maybe I can court one one day, you figure. I got a lot of girls around here."

“Yeah, none of the girls around here are going to go out with you for long,” I reminded him.

“Long enough. Long enough,” Ralph boasted. “Besides, I don’t want no kids. Kids’d slow a man like me down.”

“Boy,” I said.

“Do they all grow big as you where you come from?”

"Ralph, give him a chance to answer one question before you ask three more," I said, hoping to learn something.

"Okay," Ralph said, standing up to wait next to the table for his answers. “Robert says I talk too much. Do you figure I do.”

“Ralph, lunch is time to relax. Lunch refuels the body to allow for a proper portion of work come an afternoon. Lunch isn’t the time for questions.”

“I wasn’t doing that. I just wanted to know where you came from, Sven. We don’t get hands our age very often, never in fact.”

“You’re hopeless,” I said.

“You’re both hopeless,” Sven said after careful consideration.

Ralph decided it was time for action. He backed the truck up to the pile of posts and he started loading them alone. Sven got up to help him, while I gathered up what was left of lunch.

“We’re going swimming. I know you got to get back,” Ralph said.

“Not really,” I said.

“He says they swim after lunch. Why don’t you swim with us? You’re red as a beet. You don’t want to get sun poison.”

"Let's go, Sven. Time’s a wasting,” Ralph said, pulling off his boots. He piled the rest of his clothes on the table. “I'll race you to the pond."

"We've got to work this afternoon, Ralph. We can walk to the pond," Sven said.

"Ah, come on," Ralph complained. "Does everyone get like that when they get old? You got time to take a dip. Tell him it’s okay, Robert. It’s okay, Sven."

Sven leaned on the front of the truck to strip out of his clothes. I usually left mine beside the pond, but I reluctantly undressed next to the table. Ralph came back to finish his lemonade before racing off again.

"Boy's a pistol," Sven said, waiting for me near the path.

"That's one word for it," I said. "Pa said not to let him be a pest."

"Ralph? He's no pest. Just a big kid. He works hard. Why be so hard on him?"

"What?"

"Whatever you got caught in your craw. Ralph's fine, Robert."

"I s'pose. He gets on my nerves."

"He's your brother. That should be enough for you to ease up on him a mite. Maybe he hasn't grown up quick as you and maybe that ain't all bad from where I sit. We grow up too quick as is these days."

"He gets on my nerves."

"He’s your brother. Brothers stick together."

"You got brothers, Sven. You know how it is.”

"I got a passel and I know what it's like not knowing where they are. I know what it’s like not remembering what they look like. I know what it’s like at night when I’m all alone."

"You don’t want to be caught alone with Ralph at night. You're the oldest?"

"No, I’m the youngest. We got three sisters but they have families of their own now."

"Where are they?"

"I have no idea. I run across John, he's the oldest, now and again. I know Paul was working in Iowa City last year. No way to keep track. My brothers are all lost out here somewhere."

"Where’d your parents get to?"

The answers got harder to come by as the questions dug deeper into the new hand's life. I was finally gaining some momentum once he let his guard down.

"I’m going to start calling you Ralph. Paw died year after we lost the farm. Mama's with her sister's family near Peoria over Illinois way."

"I'm sorry about your Paw. It had to be hard on him."

“Broke his heart, losing the farm. He believed his life was a failure. He took care of us all his life, but in the end he was helpless to save himself.”

“I hope it never comes to that here.”

"What I'm saying to you, Robert, is that Ralph is your brother. One day you’re going to wake up and you won’t know where he is, if he’s safe or if he’s even alive. That's all I'm saying. These are the best times you'll ever have. Don't waste them stirring up trouble for yourself. Let Ralph enjoy what’s left of his youth. Don’t deny him that. You’re more mature. Act like it."

"He talks too much and never has a thing to say. Someone has to keep him in line," I explained, not sure of my reasoning.

"Well, we’ll see if you can enjoy yourself," Sven said. "Don’t worry, your job is safe. I doubt they’ll hire someone to dig them holes in your absence.”

We started down the path after Ralph. Sven put his hand on my shoulder as we walked. Why I felt close to him, I can’t say, but I did. Being with him had me feeling like I belonged there. I hadn’t felt like I belonged on the farm in some time. I realized he was smarter than he let on and he was sharing some of his wisdom with me.

They won't miss you for at least another fifteen minutes. You look like you need to cool down most of the time anyway. Must be hotter than the hinges in that driveway today. Smart of me to learn how to cut fence posts don't you think?"

"Real smart," I said, and he laughed. "Yeah, maybe I will go for a dip."

The shade the trees furnished cooled the day considerably, as the cool spring water feeding the pond refreshed us. For the first time that season I lay on the wooden raft.

Ralph would sun himself for a few minutes, jumping up to dive into the water and scamper back up the ladder to dive again. He’d repeat this over and over, until he’d burn off the energy that kept him in constant motion. I kept my mouth shut and let him be.

“Is this great or is it better ‘an that?” Ralph asked, diving again. “Come on, Sven. Don’t be a lazy bones.”

Each time Ralph came back up onto the float, he’d make certain an ample amount of the pond was spilled on us as we relaxed. Sven finally jumped up, and taking Ralph by one arm and one leg, he tossed him into the water like he was a little boy.

Ralph’s answer to this assault was to race back up the ladder to charge at Sven, trying to use his limited weight to force him into the water. More times than not Ralph bounced off the bigger man and ended up flying through the air, laughing his head off before he gulped more of the pond.

Sven was a man in total control of himself. He took no offense from Ralph’s constant motion, and they both seemed to enjoy the exercise. Sven allowed Ralph to force him into the water. Ralph leaped in on top of him. When Ralph surfaced, he tried to dunk Sven but couldn’t budge him. Every once in a while one of Sven’s big hands would reach out to engulf the top of Ralph’s head, and he’d push him under the surface for long enough to calm Ralph down.

I made the mistake of standing up, considering whether or not to make a dive into the water. Before I realized it Ralph came up behind me and was immediately trying to wrestle me into the water. Wrapping his arms around me, he pushed, jerked, and nudged me toward the edge of the raft. I was not someone who enjoyed being forced to do anything and my resistance merely enflamed his desire to triumph.

“Ralph!” I declared. “Cut it out.”

“You’re no fun,” he said, backing away from me in capitulation and as soon as I took my eyes off of him, I found myself flying through the air, hearing Ralph in my ear. “Gotcha! You let your guard down.”

“Ralph!” I yelled, before going under.

"One day you'll long to hear the sound of him rambling and running on. You’ll consider days like this among your happiest, Robert," Sven said as I surfaced mad as a hornet.

"What do you mean?" I gasped, gulping more of the pond.

"I mean life is short and you ought to make the best of it."

As Sven and I shared another revealing moment, Ralph came raining down on top of us, screaming and laughing as he hit the water. He then proceeded to try to dunk me, having had no success at all trying to dunk Sven. I slipped his flailing arms, forcing Sven up against the raft as we jousted for supremacy of the pond. Without warning Sven used one of his hand to push me beneath the surface and with the other he sank Ralph. I came up gasping for air from the unexpected dunking.

“Whose side are you on?” I yelped as Ralph tried to climb on my shoulders to push me under again.

I came up gasping yet again and found Sven and Ralph wrestling next to me. I took the opportunity to push Ralph under. He came up spitting water and laughing crazily over the insult. Sven laughed and I laughed as Ralph went right back to trying to dunk Sven, which ended badly for him.

“I don’t take sides,” Sven said. “I defend myself. I do believe you’re smiling, Robert. It’s a lovely smile. You should use it more often.”

“We use to do this all the time. Robert use to be fun before he decided he hated me,” Ralph explained.

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“Do to,” Ralph argued. “You don’t like you ain’t the only bull and not even the best one.”

“Ralph! You got a dirty mind on you.”

“I just said we was bulls. You made up the rest,” Ralph said as Sven took the newest insults under consideration.

“A couple of old ladies,” he said, swimming back to the float and climbing up to look over the pond. “We played long enough, children. We don’t get back to work, your Pa’s going to reconsider keeping me on.”

“Hell, you’re working for food,” Ralph said. “Pa got a deal when he found you.”

“Pa didn’t find him,” I said. “Sven found us.”

“What’s the difference for criminy sakes? He’s here ain’t he?”

“A couple of old ladies.”

Once again I found myself wrestling Ralph for a superior position in the pond. Long gone were the days I had the upper hand. What Ralph lacked in logic and strategy he more than made up for in persistence and sinew. He was bold and brash and likely to say anything at any moment and there were things I didn’t want to hear. My only strategy to deal with this dilemma was distancing myself from him.

…………………..

“Your move, Sven,” Pa said, puffing his pipe and studying carefully the checkerboard.

Sven sat motionless, hands folded in his lap. I sat beside him in the still swing. He looked at me and he looked at my father.

“Mr. Sorenson, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to take advantage of me.”

“Your move, Sven. Stalling isn’t going to save you, son.”

“No, sir. I can see that. I don’t play checkers very often, since I left home.”

“Stalling isn’t going to help,” Pa reminded him.

Sven unfolded his hands and scooted one red checker one space. Click, click, click, was the sound my father’s black checker made as he finished Sven off.

“Another game, Sven?”

“No, sir. I know when I’m licked.”

Pa laughed and sat up straight on the apple crate he’d pulled over to sit on.

“Robert?”

“Pa, I know better,” I said. “I don’t play a game I don’t have a chance of winning.”

“No, you don’t,” Pa said in an indictment that spoke about more than checkers. “No, you don’t. Thanks, Sven. Maybe a game of rummy later on. I need to check the gates and get things ready for the morning.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sven said, and they left me sitting on the swing listening to the crickets and the frogs, while Ralph and Junior argued over cards.

“You boys sound like you’re ready for bed,” Mama said thru the screen,

“Ah Mama,” my brothers said in unison.

“Get,” Mama ordered, and they scurried off to bed.

Then it was only the crickets and the frogs after that.

The sound of night on a farm is like no other sound. I doubt a symphony orchestra could capture the music of a farm at night.

Chapter 6

Patience

I took the lantern I read by to the loft and waited for Sven to come out. I wanted to continue the conversation we had at the pond and I wasn’t going to fall asleep this time.

“You’re up?”

“Reading,” I said, trying not to sound like I was up to question him.

“A lantern in the loft doesn’t sound like a great idea.”

“I’m careful. I keep it away from the hay.”

Sven was in the shadow and had his shirt off and was working on his boots as I looked over the top of my book at his shadow.

“What are you reading?”

“Moby Dick,” I bragged, having read it first in ninth grade.

“Melville? “My name is Ishmael.” Have you read Billy Bud?”

“Billy Bud?”

“Yes, it’s less symbolic, which makes it easier to understand. Speaks more about the human condition.”

“Preachy? Moby Dick isn’t preachy,” I thought out loud.

“You could add that book to the Bible. It would fit fine anywhere between Jonah and the great flood.”

“That’s not funny,” I said, not being the least bit amused by his theory.

“It’s not meant to be funny, Robert. Everything written probably comes from the Bible or Shakespeare, if you aren’t going to count Twain. I’d count him.”

“Twain? Twain’s hardly up to the standard of the Bible or Shakespeare.”

“Not moral enough for you, I suspect. Twain was down to earth. He wrote about real people.”

“Morality is hardly a subject I’d consult you about?” I blurted, having lost control of yet another conversation.

“Ah, I suspected we’d return to my dallying at some point.”

“A man who takes other men’s wives is of questionable character at best.”

“It’s easy to judge another man’s character from your comfortable loft,” Sven observed.

“It’s the same loft you’re enjoying,” I snapped, realizing he was insulting me without being able to put my finger on what the insult was.

“Yes, a man who judges another man’s character would see it that way. Perhaps if you were out and about in the countryside, lonely, hungry, tired, you wouldn’t be so quick to deny favors or accept them when offered. My association with farmers’ wives has more to do with their character and less to do with mine.”

“It’s wrong. When a man and a woman are married, there is a trust involved. By taking the wife you’re ruining the marriage.”

“Hardly. I don’t see it the same way. I see it as perhaps saving that marriage. The woman is searching for fulfillment. I bring it with me. They don’t need to go out looking for it, where they might be found out. Few farmhands aren’t faced with that situation. Lots of unhappy farmers’ wives out there.”

“They just come to you, begging you to give it to them,” I quipped.

“Few things are so direct. They follow me with their eyes. They smile when I look in their direction. They reveal a particularly desirous part of their body. They are where I am too, often and they watch me too, long. Some of the daughters venture out to the loft late at night and I wake up to find them ready to be mounted.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“No, actually, except for the loss of sleep, it’s very invigorating.”

“You must not have been raised very well for you to think you can take women wherever you find them.”

“More like where they find me,” he said boldly.

“And you’ve conveniently forgotten farmers’ sons. I suspected you were trying to embarrass me.”

“Because you are a farmers’ son? No. I don’t say things to shock. Farmers’ sons aren’t nearly as formal as their wives and daughters. They meet you in the field and are curious about your adventures. The ones you find objectionable. Excited by what they hear, they want to shake on it. They aren’t bashful once the subject is sex.”

“Shake on it? I’m not familiar with shaking on it.”

“Use your imagination and picture two boys sitting alone and talking about the girls they’ve known.”

“I don’t understand what you’d get out of it?”

“Ah, and that’s because you lie comfortable in your loft. I’m passing through it and you own it.”

“My Pa owns it.”

“Have it your way.”

“It’s not right.”

“No less right than how you treat Ralph.”

“Ralph? I treat Ralph fine. He gets on my nerves.”

“Yes, and you get on his with your judgements.”

“What judgments?”

“We really need to get our sleep. I have a long day of post cutting ahead of me,” Sven said, growing silent.

Once again I’d said everything but what I wanted to say. I hadn’t asked any questions about where he’d been and about his life that led him to our farm. I couldn’t figure out why every time we talked, when we were alone, we ended up arguing about something that had nothing to do with what I wanted to know.

"Ralph's been with girls. Girls kept hanging around him at school, whenever we went into town too."

"Not surprising. Ralph's a bull. That’s what you have against Ralph? He’s not moral enough for you."

“No. I told you I don’t judge folks.”

“Right,” Sven said like he disagreed.

“You think it’s because he’s a bull and I’m not?”

“A better bull perhaps, but he’s a bull who knows what he wants for sure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I didn’t. He did. At the pond today. You objected.”

“Do you memorize everything we say?”

“No, but I hear everything you say because I listen. Putting it in context isn’t nearly as easy.”

“At school they called him the rutting runt my senior year. Everyone knew about his success with the girls. It was embarrassing.”

“Ralph’s no runt. I’d say he’s persistent enough to succeed at whatever he makes up his mind to do.”

“We’re all late bloomers, Mama calls it. He’s grown three or four inches since then. I started growing at sixteen. Junior’s still a runt.”

“Non-rutting type according to how you treat him.”

“That’s got nothing to do with how I treat Ralph. You don’t know everything.”

“No, I don’t, but I know what I see.”

"I'm older than he is. The girls never hung around me."

"Maybe you don’t encourage them. Ralph's got this energy about him. Your Mama mentioned it. He's always in motion and he is bound and determined to get to the living of life. I don’t see Ralph as the patient kind. You run deeper. Ralph’s like a honey-bee darting from one flower to the next, tasting as much nectar as he can stand.”

“We are brothers.”

"You have much on your mind, Robert. Ralph has little on his. For you life is a complicated maze. He's mostly motion and energy looking for a good time. That's something people are drawn to 'cause they would like to have what he's got."

"Girls?"

"Energy and motion are quite attractive. Girls aren't going to take him all that seriously, but he provides them a certain amount of entertainment value.”

“Like you?”

“Like me, Robert. I’m the carnival side show to the women on the farms I work. As I’ve told you, I lack the strength to say no. It’s an affliction that haunts the lost and lonely.”

“I don’t know I could say no under those circumstances.”

“Ralph and I fall prisoner to any lady who looks our way, but they don’t take us seriously. You, on the other hand, girls will take very seriously. If you are serious all the time, well, there are girls who want to have fun without making it into something permanent, which is where Ralph and I come in."

"…And that's why I haven't been with a girl? Well that explains everything. Except it’s rarely on my mind."

"Robert, maybe you haven't been with a girl because you aren’t ready to be with a girl. Life isn't all that hard to figure if you aren’t too demanding. In some ways Ralph has it easy. He keeps moving until he bumps into something that seems interesting and then he takes a look. You'll never bump into anything because you're too careful. Bumping into stuff isn't necessarily a bad thing. New things are sometimes like doorways."

"That's why I haven't been with a girl? I don't bump into stuff? Girls are like doorways? That certainly explains a lot."

"Morning comes early and I want to give your father a full measure of work. Good night," Sven said abruptly, rolling over to face the window and closing off the conversation.

I wanted him to like me, but I didn't think it was going all that well. He seemed to have an understanding for my brother and girls. I understood neither and now there was another mystery I wanted to know more about.

"Good night," I said, not certain I was ready to go to sleep.

As much as Ralph and I were alike and as close as we once had been, Ralph was in some ways the opposite of me; darker skinned with dark hair and not as fleshy, being mostly cut tight to the bone with small but visible amounts of muscle. I knew everything there was to know about my brothers, which couldn't have been unusual. Junior was more like me and we were both on the shy side. He had the same hair and build as me. He was quiet like me. He enjoyed having time to himself and even read at night, like I did. I knew about my uncle, long ago dead, but only had my mother’s word on it. Of course, my mother’s word had always been gold and that was that, or was it.

As I tried to sleep, it crossed my mind that some farmhand one day had come up the driveway and he took Mama to her bed while Pa was out laboring in the field. That's why Ralph was so dark, so bold, and easy with the ladies. His father was a vagabond.

I shook my head to get the thought out of my brain, knowing how ridiculous it was. Mama loved only my father and she had never looked at a hand twice if he wasn't sitting at our table or waiting for something she intended him to have. My conversation with Sven had my brain addled and not in a way I could appreciate, but what if Mama had…, and then I was in the driveway and there was a line of men I didn’t know waiting to get into my father’s bed with Mama. One after another they came and the line kept getting longer and there were more hands waiting to be with her than there were in the entire state of Iowa.

I woke up in a cold sweat, cursing Ralph for not looking like Junior and me. Why would I have such a dream?

……………….

I wrote about my feelings and my dreams in one of the notebooks from school I kept stashed under the hay out in the loft. Late at night, after the farm was quiet, I wrote about my hopes and desires, the ones I didn't dare tell anyone about.

Once I finished writing down what was on my mind, I lay in the soft hay, staring out of the open window at the high flying moon, and I was sure I heard the trains calling to me. If I didn’t leave soon, I'd become my father, raising my own sons, while trying desperately to hold on to my farm.

I first realized that I might never leave the farm the day I realized I didn’t know anything else. That made me all the more desperate to hear the stories, even when I was having thoughts that I would never have stories of my own to tell, and so I wrote notes to myself and in the loft I dreamed about freedom late at night.

Sven slept in the window and the stories he had to tell upset my idea of the world. I was too disturbed by the things he had to say about life that writing anything down was impossible. My mind was a jumble of thoughts that made no sense. The dreams of the night before were enough to make me put away my pen for all time. I would never let anyone know such a thing once crossed my mind.

Pa called us and Sven took two minutes to dress and disappear. I was never in a hurry to start another day, even when I could wake up, after hearing Pa’s voice. While I suppose I was prepared to stay if I had to, the idea that I wasn’t the one meant to tend the farm was never far from my mind.

Ralph refused to take the lead, even when I offered it to him. Ralph and I loved each other like brothers, but we went at each other like we weren’t. Our hatefulness seemed to have overtaken our lovingness as of late. Having Sven point it out didn’t appeal to me no matter how right he was. I knew I wasn’t being fair to Ralph, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

Ralph wasn't quite a year younger than me. We’d long ago learned how to rub one another the wrong way and spent a lot of time at it. I was the first born, and neither of us could change that fact. It was our positioning that angered both of us most.

At sixteen I moved out of the bed we’d shared since he’d been out of diapers, moving into the loft to get away from our wrangling and Ralph’s overactive adolescence. It became one more thing we held against one another. He decided I hated him and that’s why I moved to the loft. I did nothing to convince him otherwise. My anger was easy to express, but other feelings were more complicated than I cared to admit.

I watched him working in the field one day after harvest. He kneeled in the soil like he was in church. He dug his hands down into the black earth, running it through his fingers with reverence. He was in awe of its power to produce and reproduce. He held the soil to his nose, smelling its fragrance before tossing it in the breeze. It got caught up in the air and scattered over a wide area with Ralph all the time watching its journey.

Ralph was the farmer, but he wasn’t ready for the responsibility. I couldn’t escape the farm. I suppose that made me even angrier with him. I could see he felt something I would never feel. With Sven working for us, Pa, Ralph, and Junior could get through harvest without me. I wasn’t going to leave yet, but if it looked like Sven was going to stay on my family could make it with only one part time hand during harvest. The only other solution was for me to find a way to feel like Ralph felt about the farm.

The land was in his blood in a way it had never found its way into mine. Ralph felt about the soil as I felt about my freedom. There was a longing in it. It called to him to stay close as my dreams called for me to leave.

I knew I was jealous of Ralph, but I didn’t hate him. I wished I could be like him. When he got a reputation at school, we were further distanced by this notoriety. What Sven and him read as disapproval was more jealousy. I didn’t know what stopped me from being more like Ralph.

There was no way for me to imagine us losing our farm, even when all about us were losing theirs. It’s not something I would want to be around to see, but there was no escaping our future, whatever it was.

Pa once said we were married to the land and farmers’ sons should never allow themselves to get far from home. I'd been watching the trains passing by the schoolyard for years by then. I always stopped what I was doing to wonder where they came from and where they were heading, even before I wanted to get on one. I don’t know how such seeds got planted in someone, but they sure got planted in me.

I didn't want to be married to anything, until I lived a little. Certainly, Barbara Sue had given me ideas in that area. I suspected it had more to do with the smell of her and the feel of her skin against mine. We met at school and it was my intension to follow her to college, except we both understood I couldn’t leave my family short handed in hard times. We talked of marriage, but not until we’d both done some living.

Raising babies, settling in on a farm, and struggling for the rest of your life is what most kids we knew did. Barbara Sue wanted something different and so did I, when other kids at school never had a thought of getting further from home than Des Moines or Davenport.

Pa followed in his father's footsteps and I suspected Ralph and Junior would follow in ours. I doubt they ever had any other idea about where they belonged. If we lost our farm I wondered if they’d end up like Sven, drifting through life with no place to call home. I’d never once heard either Ralph or Junior mention losing the farm. Mama and Pa were careful not to speak of our circumstances in front of us.

I found out about how desperate times were by asking for a new snazzy jacket. There was a dance at our church and I wanted to impress Barbara Sue with how worldly I was. Mama told me she’d fresh up one of Pa’s old Sunday go-to-meeting jackets he’d grown out of years before. I raised a ruckus. I never asked for anything. It wasn’t fair. I wanted something new so I didn’t look like a farmer.

Mama sat with her hands folded in her lap, listening to my cries of injustice. Pa got up from the table and went into the parlor. He came back with what I recognized as the ledger Mama kept for the farm. Pa handed it to her and she looked alarmed.

“Show him. Show him I can’t afford to buy him a new jacked, a used jacket, or any damn other thing he might think he deserves. Show him.”

Mama carefully opened the book to the last page of entries. She laid it flat open on the table.

“We owe Crosby for seed. We owe the Mercantile from last year. It wasn’t a very good crop and didn’t have enough to pay those bills. That’s why we don’t buy on credit. The bank note is due and if we don’t have a good crop the bank is likely to foreclose. We didn’t pay all we owed the bank for last year, Robert; there is no money.”

I wanted to look worldly and my entire world was likely to fall down around me if anything went wrong. Pa and I were already on the outs by then. By making such an issue over a stupid jacket I’d slapped him across the face in the worst possible way. I’d made him reveal to me that the farm might fail. If the farm failed, regardless of the causes, Pa would see it as his failure. I’d have done anything to take back what I’d said, but it was too late for that and Pa wasn’t one to forget having his son insult him, and I understood why he treated me the way he did.

The worst of it was if we lost the farm my brothers would be cut adrift. I’d be free. If I hated anyone I hated myself for feeling the way I did. My biggest fear was Pa thinking I wanted the farm to fail. So, I stayed on because he needed me. I wouldn’t leave until the farm was on firmer ground. Then I’d run.

I heard my father outside and I was sure he was going to come to remind me I wasn’t on vacation. I still wasn’t ready to write anything about Sven. I certainly wasn’t going to write anything about shaming Pa or my family for being the ungrateful son who left his parents in the lurch.

That didn’t stop me from dreaming about what I’d find out there, when I heard the locomotive off in the distance, heading west and gaining speed once it passed our town.

One day I’d find out where that train went.

Chapter 7

Closing In

Sven slept in the window each night and the stories he told upset my idea of the world. I was disturbed by the things he had to say about his life. As disturbed as I was it didn’t stop me from asking the questions. Writing anything down was impossible. My mind was a jumble of thoughts that made no sense. I was left wondering if my brother might be the random offspring of a wandering lover.

Who was it that Ralph inherited his charm from?

Pa had met Mama when they were both kids and neither of them ever took up with anyone else. Junior had never had a girlfriend at all and I had taken up with Barbara Sue, but to Ralph all girls were his girlfriend and deserving of his attention if only for the few minutes it took him to get what he wanted. It was Ralph that troubled me now that Sven had come along to set loose strange ideas.

Yet another night I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming dreams of my mother flirting with anyone and everyone. I spent one night examining the faces of everyone in town present and past, looking for one that resembled Ralph’s.

By the time first light made an appearance in the wide-open window, I was exhausted as well as angry with Sven for putting the idea in my brain. Ralph and I often accused the other of being adopted but we didn’t take it seriously.

Pa called from the ladder way too soon for my taste. I searched the window for some reason to think it was all a mistake. I listened for the song of the nightingale, but they only sang for Shakespeare.

“Oh cursed' sun!”

My dreams from the night before were enough to make me put away my curiosity for all time. I didn’t think I would ever write down such things, where people could read about the things that ran through my mind as a young man.

Pa called us and Sven took two minutes to dress and disappear. I was never in a hurry to start another day, even when sleep called me back to its warm embrace with no better results. My mind had seized on a subject and refused to relinquish its grip.

Even without my father’s encouragement, I found my way to the kitchen. It seemed like hours since Sven had left the loft. I dropped into the chair across from Sven but failed to greet anyone.

“I’ll need to go in to negotiate with Crosby for the trucks for next week.”

“I thought you did that,” Mama said.

“He wrote me down for three trucks over the ten to twelve days. He didn’t want to talk price until it was closer to harvest. You know that skinflint. He’ll want every dime he can get out of us.”

“I’d like to tell Mr. Crosby what I think of him,” Mama said. “Since he took over for his Pa, we’ve paid more than what’s fair for those trucks,” Mama said, pouring me coffee and warming up Sven’s. “You’d hardly know they were related. Old man Crosby was a good man.”

“Mama, we don’t get the corn to market before prices start coming down we don’t make no money. We don’t make no money and I can’t keep you up to the standards to which you’ve become accustomed,” Pa said, kissing Mama’s cheek to end the conversation with her blush.

The food started coming and there was a minimum of conversation, thank heavens. Pa was going out the backdoor, setting down his coffee cup at the furthest corner of the counter, once the cup had been drained. I was hardly able to keep my eyes open.

“Rough night?” Sven asked, looking across the table at me.

“Yeah," I said with a bite in the word, remembering who was responsible for authoring my dreams. "Something like that."

By the time I got to my hot cakes and eggs I had both eyes open and taking it all in. Ralph came down looking like he had as bad a night as me. He slumped into one of the chairs and leaned his head down between his arms.

“Ralph, if you need more sleep go back to bed,” Mama said, dropping a plate near where he sat.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, looking weakly at the food in front of him.

Pa drove Ralph and Sven to the meadows in the Ford before he drove out past me on his way to town. He’d be sour when he came home, because Crosby made him sour. Talking about money, when money was scarce, was about Pa’s least favorite thing.

I was working in the driveway when Pa drove in past me. He had on his freshly ironed white shirt that he wore when doing business in town. He returned to the kitchen to discuss with Mama the arrangements he’d made. She’d write it down in the ledger as if it was a bill, even though business was done on a handshake.

I moved over to the porch to see if I could detect Pa’s mood and I heard laughter as he described Crosby’s affable approach to the day’s business.

An hour later I was back to digging and he was opening the gate to the main field. He drove the small International straight out into the corn. He cut a lane through it as far as I could, cutting off the machine when I was expecting him to come right back. A half an hour later he came walking back, wiping his hands on a rag as he walked in that long even stride of his.

Pa always knew where he was going and you could tell by the way he walked. There was a lot of determination in his steps but no give whatsoever. I put a little more back into the next posthole, as he walked directly toward me. That was never good.

“Get the pull chain out of the barn, Robert. Put it in the back of the Farm truck. You’re going to be late taking lunch to the boys. I’m going to need you to take the Ford into town to order some parts first. We can’t do without the old International. We’d be two extra days without the corn wagon on the job.”

“It broke?” I asked, leaning on the digger.

“Yep, and you’ve never fixed the hinge on that damn barn door. How long ago did I tell you to fix that?”

“I don’t know, Pa. Too long.”

“See to it tonight after supper dinner. All our days just got a little long.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get the chain.”

I’d forgotten about the hinge. It was the kind of thing Pa didn’t like to tell me twice. It would only take an hour of my time, but the weight of the door made the hanging hinge a doozy of a problem for one man.

The ten minute ride to town wasn’t enough. I ordered the parts and picked up what I’d need to fix the hinge. Before I knew it I was back in the driveway.

It was after two when I took lunch up to the meadows. I passed the old International we’d pulled out of the field with the farm truck. Pa had it blocked up on all four sides and the wheels leaned against the graying wood of the barn that shaded that side of the yard behind the house in the afternoon.

I looked at the upper hinge of the left door where it had come free of the wood. The screws were twisted and rusted and I had new screws in my pocket. Right after supper I’d get on it so I didn’t hear about it again.

Mama told me to stay in the meadows until I brought the boys back for supper. I told her about the hinge and Pa’s order and she told me she’d take care of Pa, as she always did.

The International needed the main gear for the transmission and the brake parts he’d ordered earlier had arrived. This was the kind of job that would keep him busy for a few days. That was best for everyone, because it would keep his mind occupied.

Ralph did his usual impression of a starving brother but cut it short to eat. Sven didn’t complain no matter when the food arrived. I figured there had been days without food and having it delayed by an hour or two wasn’t as big a tragedy as Ralph made it out to be, although Ralph was hardly patient when it came to what he wanted.

Once again they stripped after lunch with Ralph climbing onto the seat and then to the table before jumping onto Sven’s back. Sven had spun round and round as Ralph laughed his crazy laugh and they disappeared down the path with Ralph’s legs wrapped around Sven’s waist and his arms around his neck in a familiarity that seemed a stretch for the time they’d known one another.

I’d found one more thing to be jealous about. I bit off my anger to pack things up and I went to the pond and undressed there, watching the two of them throw one another from the raft. I swam out and became caught in the maelstrom. Not having to be back until dinner gave me time to relax beside my brother and Sven on the raft that was shaded by the long reach of the trees that time of day.

The two of them had done a days work by the time lunch arrived and seemed content with that. There was no protest from me. We were taking the afternoon off and getting back early would only mean Pa’s eyes would be back on me and I would feel obligated to dig more holes to satisfy him.

Ralph and Sven were back at each other after some minutes of calm. As quick as Ralph charged Sven he was flying from the raft and doing a nosedive into the pond. More often than not a modest move by Sven was enough to send Ralph on his way off the raft one more time. There were those times Ralph would mount the raft dripping wet and he’d charge Sven, bumping him closer and closer to the edge, until he finally fell in. I don’t know if he let Ralph muscle him off the raft or if he allowed Ralph to think he was victorious to keep their game going.

Then, as Ralph coyly pretended to lose interest, after being thrown in for the fifth or sixth time in a row, he dog paddled innocently about, waiting for Sven to lose interest in his whereabouts. Then, Ralph eased up the ladder once he saw Sven was not watching, and he ran and jumped on Sven’s back, almost knocking him from the raft.

Sven spun to regain his balance, grabbing at Ralph’s head, trying to get a hold of his tormentor, and finally as he pulled him up over his head, threatening to heave him into the water, Ralph screamed and yelled in protest of his watery fate. Ralph shifted his weight onto one arm, causing Sven to let him down on his shoulders, and then Ralph tried to crawl down Sven’s chest in order to slip his grip.

Ending up upside down with Sven holding him out by his legs, Ralph grabbed the only available handle to prevent being dropped into the water head first.

“Ralph!” I shouted in protest. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

“I’m trying not to get drowned,” he said, still holding the evidence in one hand. “Let me go or I’ll take this with me.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but I’m inclined to accept your terms. You don’t yank willie off and I won’t drop you on your head,” Sven bargained.

It was a done deal, but the impression it left was one that stayed with me. Without much ado they settled back down to rest up for the next round and I was content with the outcome, but Ralph rarely let anything lie for long.

“If I had a corker that size I’d make all the girls moan,” Ralph said casually to Sven.

“If you aren’t making them moan you’re doing it wrong, Ralph,” Sven quipped.

“I ain’t never had no complaints.”

“I should hope not,” Sven said.

“Ralph, you talk too much,” I objected. “It’s time we got back for supper.”

“I talk too much. You worry too much. What’s got your goat this time?”

“You, grabbing hold of Sven like that. What’s wrong with you?”

“Me thinking I might keep him from dropping me on my head is all. If you ain’t noticed there weren’t nothing else to grab by that time.”

“It’s only water, Ralph,” I said.

“It’s only a willie, Robert,” he said. “It ain’t no snake. Sven didn’t complain and it was his willie.”

“You don’t grab another man’s….”

“No, you don’t do anything,” Ralph said, laughing at my criticism. “That’s why you got so much time to bitch about what I do. Why don’t you get off my back?”

I dove back into the pond and swam to my clothes, putting them on without bothering to dry. A minute later Sven was wading out of the pond behind me. He started with some soft simple advice.

“Why don’t you let up on Ralph? He’s a good kid.”

“I don’t want him becoming the farmer’s son you tell some other farmer’s son about.”

“Robert, you don’t get to decide things like that and it’s a rare farmer’s son who thinks such a thought. I’m sorry I was honest with you if it means Ralph must apologize for being Ralph. He’s done nothing wrong, except have a good time.”

“Ralph’s looking for mischief all the time. You merely provide him with opportunity.”

“And you’re going to keep him from it and me?”

“What’s that mean?”

“You are angry at me because I didn’t object to him grabbing my penis. It did put him in a strong bargaining position. His only thought was to get the best of me and that did the trick. It went no further than that, except in your mind.”

“Why would I be angry at you?”

“Why indeed? Needless to say your brother will do all he can to keep you from telling him what to do. Why not let Ralph be Ralph and you worry more about Robert.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Ralph knows a hell of a lot more than you give him credit for. He knows when to be and when to let be. He doesn’t take himself as seriously as you take yourself. You need to let up a little or you’ll end up being one lonely lad.”

I walked away as Ralph came out of the pond. We loaded the posts and drove back to the house without having anything to say to one another.

Why I was opposed to Ralph being friends with Sven is a mystery. It did make me angry to see them having fun together. I wanted to be friends with Sven but that’s not how it worked out. No matter what I objected to, it was more about me not being his friend and less about how crazy my brother could act at times.

It was another example of how much I disliked being there. Had I left the year before, Sven would have come and gone and I’d never have known anything about it. Watching Ralph warm up to him and watching Sven respond was no fun for me.

“Damn near machine quality,” Pa said, leaning one foot on the back of the farm truck. “No doubt you and Ralph need to keep working in the meadow.”

“He uses an ax like a butter knife, Pa,” Ralph bragged. “He’s going to show me so the next time we do fence I can cut the posts. His grandpa was a woodcutter. That’s where Sven learned.”

“Fine job, son,” Pa said, patting Sven on the back. “You boys unload the posts. I’m buying Sven a big glass of lemonade.”

Pa walked with his hand on Sven’s shoulder. They laughed as they came to the back porch. I’d never seen Pa favor a hand before. Sven realized he was getting the better part of their deal, but Pa would never come up short, when it was time to pay him. He’d keep his word as well as he could.

“Don’t forget that damn barn door hinge, Robert. I don’t want to need to tell you again.”

“I’ll do it after supper, Pa.”

Dinner was fried chicken. It was my favorite and that meant we got more chicken for lunch the next day and chicken and dumplings tomorrow night. I licked my fingers and smacked my lips but so did everyone else. Sven held up each biscuit, smelling it carefully before biting into it. You could see the pleasure they gave him. I’m sure we had biscuits more often because of the fuss Sven made over them. We all liked him for different reasons.

“I’m moving out to the loft,” Ralph announced over supper.

“The hell you are,” I said.

“Robert!” Mama corrected.

“Watch your mouth, son,” Pa said.

“Robert moved out there and no one said boo.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, son,” Pa said. “I don’t want you bothering Sven. He needs his sleep and you need yours.”

“Sven don’t mind. Do you, Sven?”

“Not my place to say. You best do as your parents think best.”

“I moved out there to get away from him,” I blurted.

“The lofts big enough for an army,” Junior said.

“Pa!” I complained.

“Did you fix that hinge?”

“Pa!”

“You’d have more stock with me if you’d do your chores.”

“Do my chores? You got me out in that driveway baking my brain every day, digging damn fence postholes. You mention a hinge on a door a week ago and I’m supposed to jump to it. I ain’t a hand.”

“Robert,” Mama said, worrying I would upset Pa further..

“No, simply an ingrate of a son is what you are,” Pa said. “I have no objections to you sleeping in the barn, but I get a hint that you aren’t getting enough sleep, or if Sven mentions you bothering him, you’ll move back to your room.”

“Yes, sir, Pa,” Ralph smirked.

I stood and my napkin slid onto the floor. No one said anything as I went out the backdoor. I was reaching the end of my rope with my father and he was pushing up the day I’d leave. What Sven said to me at the pond came to mind and I realized how inconsequential the afternoon argument had been.

Leaning the ladder up against the side of the barn, I struggled to get the hinge back into place so I could fasten it securely.

“Here, let me hold up the door so there isn’t so much weight on the hinge,” Sven said, steadying the door two inches off the ground, where it could swing unobstructed.

“Thanks,” I said, and as quick as you please the hinge was back where it belonged doing what it was supposed to do.

“You do have a way with words, Robert,” Sven said.

“Sorry you were in the middle of that. My father’s been pushing at me for a long time. I’m getting fed up.”

“First time I saw you put some backbone into something. You see where you do to Ralph what your Pa does to you.”

“No,” I snapped realizing my error even before the word stopped ringing in my ears. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Maybe you need to decide where you belong. If you aren’t happy being here, maybe leaving would be easier on everyone.”

“They can’t afford to hire anyone to replace me,” I said.

“Make up your mind to that and quit wanting to be somewhere else. The more you want to be somewhere else, the harder it’ll be to be here.”

“How can you say that to me?”

“Say what. I’m trying to help, Robert. I got no stake in this.”

“That’s what I mean. A couple of hours ago you were giving me the dickens. How can you just set that aside and come out here to help me?”

“I’m a hand, Robert. It’s what I do. The advice is optional. It comes from seeing other people make mistakes. Some of it comes from mistakes I’ve made. If you don’t pass along what you learn, what good is it?”

“You think I should leave?”

“I think you need to figure out where you need to be and why. I think if you leave, you’ll probably live to regret it.”

“You think I should stay?”

“I think you need to make a decision and live with it. I can’t tell you what it should be.”

“I want to do both. I want to see what’s out there in the world. I want to stay and help my folks as long as they need me.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“It’s the same plan I’ve always had,” I said.

“Maybe stop leaving, until the time when you can leave.”

“He’s going to drive you crazy, you know.”

“No, he won’t. I won’t allow it. Junior’s right, it’s a big loft and you and your brother ought to have enough room to get over whatever is eating at you.”

My feelings about Sven continued to change hourly. Since his arrival everything had become more complicated for me and now, with Ralph moving into the barn, we were embarking on another discomforting chapter. Ralph was doing all he could to get in the middle of any chance Sven and I might develop a friendship. I couldn’t compete with his energy or charm.

We walked down the driveway to where the posthole digger rested. Sven seized it and following the string he’d laid a couple of days before, he dug another hole. I went to our fresh pile of fence posts, dropping one next to the hole as he proceeded to dig another. For an hour or more we continued the routine. The sun was gone from the sky and the heat of the day had passed.

“You’ve worked enough for one day,” I said.

“We played all afternoon. I’m not tired. Ten holes a night and we’ll knock this out in short order without you needing to work in the noonday sun. I’m all sweaty again.”

Sven stood below the pump and started to strip out of his clothes. In a moment of childishness I started pumping once his shoes and socks were clear of the flow.

“Robert,” he yelped, dodging the rushing water and dripping from his shoulders down. “This’ll never dry by morning.”

“Don’t need to,” I laughed. “Pa picked you up a new pair of overalls and a fresh shirt while he was in town today. They’re on the ladder that goes to the loft.”

“They can’t afford to be clothing me at this point,” he said.

“Pa liked them posts you cut. He wants to make sure he keeps you. He’s a fair man to work for.”

“Not fair to his eldest though.”

“He has his reasons,” I defended. “His eldest has made his share of mistakes with his pa.”

“It’s hard for pas to let loose of their sons after so many years. Daughters are easy. They go off to live with a man who swears to take care of them. Sons are safe as long as they’re on the farm. Once they get out of sight there’s no telling what can happen to them.”

“There’s more to it then that. I said some things. They weren’t intended to hurt him but they did. He’s a hard man to cross, my Pa.”

“Yes, I can see that. You stood your ground tonight. It’s a start. Your pa will come around in time once he realizes you’re staying on for his benefit.”

Sven bent to finish pulling off his dripping overalls and I pumped up another load of water that rushed into the pants that dropped down around his ankles.

“You’ve got a little Ralph in you after all,” Sven said, and I went airborne as he kicked his clothes to one side.

We rolled around in the mud together. His laugh broke open the evening. By the time I washed the mud off my clothes and hung them out beside his, we were both worn out from a long day.

Junior was churning ice cream on the steps as we returned to the kitchen for dessert. Pa stood, watching us walk toward the house, smoking his pipe and waiting for the stars to appear. As I opened the screen door, he spoke.

“Your mama says you done dug enough out there, Robert. You go with the boys to the meadows tomorrow. Find something to do up there. You boys need to rest up some for what’s coming next week,” Pa said. “We’ll beat the rains this year, good Lord willing.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and Sven patted my back as we went inside.

Pa’s words and Sven’s touch made me feel like a million bucks. I’d wondered if I’d be digging fence post holes during the harvest. It was good to find out that wasn’t the case.

Chapter 8

The Wait

Mama couldn’t help but notice we’d cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. She checked back over her shoulder before going back to tend to the stove.

“You boys are shined up like a couple a new pennies. There a dance no one bothered to tell me about?”

“No, Mama, we dug some more fencepost holes for your new fence. We were all sweaty and Sven wanted to try on his new overalls.”

“Let’s see. I measured your old ones and took off a little here and a little there. I figured they’d be a good fit.”

“Yes, ma’am, they fit me fine. I could have waited until morning to try them on, but Robert couldn’t wait to see how they fit.”

“Robert, you been pestering Sven?”

“No, ma’am, we got wet while we was washing up is all.”

I sat at the table and Sven went out onto the back porch. When I went back outside Sven had replaced Junior on the churn, while Ralph and Junior played checkers on the apple crate they’d placed in front of the swing.

Pa gazed out into the eastern sky, taking long pulls on his pipe. I sat on the step just above Sven and watched him do Junior’s job.

We ate apple pie, ice cream, and drank tall glasses of milk as laughter and happy talk drifted into the night, until we each found our time to retire. It was a rare night that Ralph went to bed without an argument but he excused himself after two slices of pie and two bowls of ice cream. A few minutes later he carried his quilt and pillows through the kitchen. This explained his early retirement.

Ralph set his bedding down next to where I'd put Sven by the window. I fell asleep listening to the sound of my brother's voice as he questioned Sven about a world he couldn’t imagine. After each answer came, “Yeah, but?”

They started off talking about Sven's brothers and sisters. He spoke of them with reverence. When the conversation turned to his travels, the farms he’d worked, and the inevitable questions about the women he’d known, his answers were anything but holy.

Unlike when I talked to Sven, there was no harshness or misunderstanding. They talked like friends might talk and I resented it. Where I’d failed, Ralph succeeded. Sven answered his questions willingly and without any questions of his own. How my brother could do what I couldn’t was a mystery. He rarely stuck with anything for long. He hardly took the time to become friends with anyone.

I fell asleep being angry and I dreamt about Sven and Ralph frolicking naked through the woods by the pond when they should have been working. I knew by the number of posts I picked up that there wasn’t much time for frolicking between the time they were dropped off and when I brought lunch. No amount of reason could temper the dreams and suspicions. Why did I even care if Ralph and Sven became friends?

Right after Pa came out to wake us in the morning, Sven stood in the open window peeing down on the ground below. Ralph, now bare butted, took up a position beside him. I’d slept with my brother for fourteen years and he’d always worn the baggy underwear that Mama kept repaired for him. It was one more thing for me to resent.

I was too tired to pee and Sven immediately pulled on his overalls and was going down the ladder, heading for the house and Ralph peed on.

“You’re hopeless,” I said, as he pulled on his baggy underwear.

“You’re useless,” he snapped, gathering his things and scurrying down the ladder to dress without my eyes on him.

Ralph was usually the last one to the table but not so this day. I could already smell the coffee with fresh bread mixed up in the aroma. Even knowing how good the first sip would be, I lingered lazily in my melancholy. I had become lost for a direction to take that might make life more enjoyable.

I dressed after a time, knowing Pa would give me a second call if I didn’t move soon. Everything I did was dictated by Pa. My own motivation ceased to exist along the way replaced by confusion about who I was and where I was heading.

Pa stood in the back door realizing he didn’t need to remind me to get up once he saw me walking into the light furnished by an active kitchen and the brightly shinning light on the back porch. With my hands shoved deep into my pockets and my collar up around my neck, I brushed past Pa as he held the screen door open for me. The first early morning cooling was upon us. I made a mental note to take extra bedding to the loft for when the temperatures continued slipping.

I waited for the critical comment that didn’t come. Ralph sat on the far side of the table beside Sven. They both tilted back in their chair at the exact same angle with cups at the ready for coffee intake. At least Ralph’s chatter hadn’t awakened yet.

“Morning, Robert.”

“Morning, Mama,” I said, slipping down across from Sven, nodding my salutation.

“Morning,” Sven said as Mama poured me coffee.

“Move over, Robert. Why do you take up so much room?” Junior said, banging his chair against mine.

“Hush up, young man,” Mama said. “Don’t come to my table growling at your brother.”

“He takes up way more room than Ralph,” Junior complained. “Why don’t you move back over where you belong.”

“I didn’t make the sitting arrangement, Junior.”

“You want to go back upstairs and take another stab at getting up on the right side of the bed this time,” Pa said from the doorway.

“No, sir.”

“Then keep shut.”

“Yes, sir,” Junior said, elbowing my arm as he rearranged himself in his chair.

Once the food started hitting the table all disagreeableness disappeared. Mama managed to sit and eat for a minute or two in between servings us. The first basket of biscuits disappeared in no time and another pan came out of the oven. It was all hands and elbows reaching and retrieving the bounty. Very little food lasted long enough to be passed around the table.

“Bring me the truck back before ten, Robert. You can help your Mama while I’m in town, since you can’t dig no more holes,” Pa said, glancing at Mama. “Lunch’ll be late boys. I doubt any of you is going to starve. You can cut trees or swim for that matter. The rest of that fence will have to wait until we get done with the harvest. If the weather holds it’ll give you plenty of time.”

Pa and Mr. Crosby were still dickering over the price of trucks. We were a couple of days away from starting the harvest and details like the cost of the trucks were usually settled business. Crosby wanted Pa to take three trucks instead of the usual two and Pa wasn’t convinced he’d need three.

When I brought the farm truck back down from the meadows, Pa was dressed in a pressed white shirt and a pair of navy blue slacks. I left the drivers door open as I slid out and Pa slid in behind the wheel and was on his way. I watched him turn onto the lane in front of the house and disappear.

Mama pulled a plate out of the ice box and sat it on the table for me. It was chicken salad she made from the chicken from a couple of days before. I needed no prodding, eating it straight down and following it down with milk.

I took the wash basket out to the line for her and she hung the clothes in the late morning breeze. We talked about the corn and the coming harvest as Mama fixed lunch enough for a small army. Junior was going with me to swim the afternoon away and there were always a couple of extra sandwiches just in case someone needed more.

Once Pa came back into the driveway, I got into motion and went to find Junior. Just before I went back in to get the boy’s lunch, I stopped and listened to Pa telling Mama about Mr. Crosby’s new happy tone. It seems Pa was not only getting the three trucks but it wasn’t costing him any more than the two did last harvest. He laughed about how pleasant it was, when it was usually one of the more distasteful things he had to do.

Since the price of corn usually fell according to how successful the harvest was, Crosby insisted that his percentage for storing and selling the corn was higher if Pa took the three trucks, and being such a generous businessman, Crosy would charge him no more than what it cost for two the year before.

It didn’t sound much like the Mr. Crosby I knew, but Pa seemed satisfied there was no ulterior motive. Having three trucks would mean no waiting for one truck to return from Crosby’s storage bins, during the day. It did make sense if Crosby was getting the corn to market faster that way.

I didn’t let on I’d been listening, when I went in to load lunch and Junior into the farm truck. The sun was high in the sky but the large clouds on the horizon were growing larger and easing closer. Pa was particularly interested in them as he leaned on the fence behind the house, watching them as I drove past the corner of the barn heading toward the meadows.

Pa had replaced the gear in the International and attended to the brakes. Driving it out into the field about the time I left to take the Ralph and Sven up to the meadows, Pa followed the lane he’d cut the morning the transmission broke.

When I returned for lunch and Junior around noon, the tractor was parked in the shade of the barn. It had been jacked up on both sides and the wheels were once again leaning against the barn.

I knew Pa and figured he’d be adjusting on it until we were out in the field cutting corn. If Pa didn’t have work he’d make some. It was a familiar pattern to which we’d all become accustomed. When Pa said it was time, we’d all go into motion with few breaks between 4 in the morning and 8 at night.

We could start harvest any time, but it would be a couple more days before the trucks would start rolling. He wouldn’t allow the ever more threatening clouds to hurry him into the fields.

Once the rain started everything changed. We’d be forced into action no matter the time of night or day, but Pa knew the weather as well as he knew the corn. He didn’t seem worried even with the darker clouds floating directly overhead.

The next few days were spent without appointed duties, although Sven insisted on carving out fence posts and Ralph willingly cut the trees with Sven indicating the ones he wanted for the best posts.

“Pa say what was wrong with it now?” Junior asked.

“Nah, you know Pa. He’ll be working on it until he hooks it up to the corn wagon the day we start cutting corn.

Junior looked back over his shoulder at the suspended International as we turned onto the road that led us along the fence line on that side of the farm.

It didn’t take any time for us to be eating and laughing about this and that. Everyone seemed to be happy for the food and there were no complaints. Ralph was bragging about how fast he could fell a tree. Sven advised him that speed was not the mark of a woodsman.

“I don’t know. The faster you cut the more you get cut,” Ralph calculated carefully over Mama’s heavenly egg salad sandwiches.

“Speed can’t carry you in all situations,” Junior agreed. “Doing a good job can.”

“Sure it can,” Ralph argued. “The faster the better if you ask me.”

“Goes a ways in explaining why them girls you bed don’t hang around long.”

“Long enough to get what I’m after, Junior. Plenty long enough for that. How many you got anyhow?”

“I’m not so good at math,” Junior mused. “But when I do got me one, I’ll take my time to enjoy the experience.”

“I enjoy plenty. The faster I go the more time I got to get more,” Ralph bragged.

“Boys are like girls,” Sven said. “Each has a pace of their own. Trick is to get your pace lined up with her pace.”

“I get my timing down fine,” Ralph bragged some more. “Just never get to practice often enough.”

“Too often you ask me,” Junior blurted.

“Shut up,” Ralph answered as if no one else was around.

I stayed mute on the subject, but was surprised by the image Junior’s comment left me with. There didn’t seem to be anything to add to the subject.

It became a race to the pond for the rest of them, while I cleaned things up. Once the swimming was done, we’d head back to the house.

Even when I had permission to relax, staying away for two long left me feeling guilty. Supper would be early and there would be daylight left afterward. We measure the time before harvest in hours instead of weeks and months. The waiting game we were playing was up to Pa. One evening he’d let us know at supper, It’s time and a call to Crosby would start the trucks the following morning at first light.

I still didn’t know what tipped Pa off it was time. This year we waited for the corn to peak. The year Sven’s family lost their farm, Pa had gotten us started exceptionally early, hiring an extra hand to boot. We beat the rain by a day, while other farmers were washed away. Whatever it took to make decisions like that was a sense I didn’t possess.

I lay beside Junior on the raft watching Ralph and Sven fighting to dunk each other. I listened to their taunts. They fought to get up the ladder first, wrestling once they were on the raft, stepping over us and around us as we tried to enjoy a lazy afternoon.

They were constantly tied in combat of one sort or another. Sven maintained an easy calm control as Ralph frantically did all within his power to gain any advantage he could claim.

Standing on the far end, Ralph took to using his tight firm hip on Sven’s larger more developed version. First it was a standing effort, bump, bump, bump. Then, Ralph took to taking a small run at Sven, usually ending with Ralph bouncing off. After a short time, Sven moved sideways an inch, another inch, an inch more as Ralph could measure his progress as Sven came ever closer to the edge and the prospect of being forced into the water below.

This would seem to be the logical outcome as Ralph moved Sven closer and closer to the edge. Sven spent his time mostly ignoring Ralph’s assault, but once Ralph had Sven on the very edge of the raft, he took an exceptionally long run at him to finish him off. Sven had other ideas and moved back a half step as Ralph charged toward him. Unable to stop his momentum, he ran out into mid-air screaming insults back at Sven until he sank.

When Ralph came back up the ladder, Sven had moved back toward the center of the raft. Ralph ran up behind him as he was looking across the fence at the old Carter place. At which time Ralph tried to lift him off his feet without success.

“You don’t play fair,” Ralph complained, doing everything within his power to lift the bigger man.

“Do you think our brother can make a cow out of Sven?”

“What? What kind of talk is that?”

“Get over yourself, Robert. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m sure I don’t. Why would you say such a thing?”

“Why would you be so offended. You never pay any mind to anything I say.”

My reaction was as much a surprise to me as it was to Junior. I was totally uncomfortable and ready to stand and dive into the cool refreshing water, but I couldn’t move away from the truth fast enough.

“Our brother’s a bull and he’s constantly looking for cows of any variety.”

“Shut up Junior. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You really think I didn’t know what you two was up to ‘cause I slept on the cot? You two were always fussing. Not so hard, Ralph. Can’t help it, Robert. It feels good. I didn’t sleep as sound as you two thought.”

“Junior!” I protested without wanting to look at him.

“You didn’t think about what would happen once you moved to the loft? You knew he wasn’t going to stop. That’s why you moved out.”

“What are you talking about?” I argued, thinking he’d quit.

“Ralph? Your younger brother? My older brother?”

“We always fuss,” I reminded him.

“I’ve heard tell of bulls making cows out of other bulls, when the need rises.”

“Shut up,” I said, sounding more like Ralph than me.

There were some things best left unsaid for my peace of mind. Junior may as well have slapped me in the face that afternoon. I never thought about anything except me getting away from all things discomforting, even when I was sixteen. Even when I saw Junior’s cot leaning against the far wall in Mama’s pantry. I failed to figure that Junior had taken my place in the double bed with Ralph.

Ralph was suddenly standing over us shaking his hair and pushing the water off his body onto Junior and me, causing me to do a slow burn at his insolence.

“Thanks,” Junior said convincingly. “Now, I don’t have to get up from here to cool off.”

Ralph left us alone immediately, once he thought he wasn’t being as big a pest as he intended. He went back over to Sven, who still stood where Ralph had left him.

“What do you look at?” Ralph said, his hand grasping Sven’s thick shoulder as he tried to see what it was Sven saw.

“The past, the future, the people who once tended that farm over there.”

“Carters? They been gone three harvests counting now. There was a passel of Carters. All gone now.”

“Where’d they get off to?”

“Where’d they get off to, Robert?” Ralph asked, looking back over his shoulder.

“Some near to Davenport. I heard tell Richard was over Council Bluffs way. Nothing certain.”

“That your friend?” Sven asked.

“Yeah, we palled around.”

“Aaron was my friend. We was thick as thieves,” Ralph boasted.

“Aaron was my friend,” Junior argued. “And he weren’t nothing like you.”

“Mine too. Mine first. He was between Junior and me by age. They was all nice folks. I miss the nice ones,” Ralph explained.

“There were not so nice Carters over there?” Sven inquired.

“No, not at the Carters. There were folks not as agreeable as they was. So many folks we know are gone. I mean we knew them all our lives. Saw them at church…, in town, at picnics, gatherings…, on their places or they come over to ours. One day they ain’t there no more. Gone who knows where? Robert might know.”

“Yeah, I know how that must be,” Sven said sounding sad. “Sun’s near about behind the trees already.”

“Yeah, we best be pulling things together and head back. Pa had that little tractor pulled apart again. He might need some parts or some help.”

“It was all back together last night,” Ralph said.

“Yeah, I know. It’s older than me. It breaks down.”

“You know Pa well as I do. He’s got his way of doing what he does. Lord knows no one else knows why he does.”

“Watch your mouth, Robert. That’s my Pa your talking about,” Junior said, jumping up like he was ready to go.

Everyone was having his own conversation as we went back to the table and gathered things together. Sven and Ralph loaded posts, while Junior and I made sure everything was in the truck. We piled in with Ralph on Sven’s lap and Junior under my right armpit, shifting gears for me so I didn’t need to reach around him to do it.

We lumbered along without bouncing as much because of the weight in the back, once we’d turned out of the stand of trees. It was Ralph who alerted me to something being wrong. His words made my blood run cold.

I knew something was powerfully wrong. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what.

Chapter 9

Turn, Turn, Turn

The carefree attitude and happy banter comes with an afternoon off, but it left the truck quickly as everyone focused on what was straight ahead of us as we stared out of the windshield. As I picked up speed, there were two discernible bounces that sent us all toward the ceiling, although I don’t recall if they came from a particular rut or from the startling specter suddenly set in our path.

My face first ran hot, then cold. An unfriendly foreboding took hold even before I had an understanding of what was taking place.

“It’s Mama,” Ralph said, leaping from the truck as the words still hung in midair.

Ralph wasn’t one to wait for even an instant once an idea came into his head. It was obvious to him he could get to her faster on foot than the truck could. So he lit out on the run. The door flopped on its hinges as we lurched the final fifty feet, unable to come up with a reason for Mama’s presence in the meadows.

She collapsed into Ralph’s arms as we were arriving. They settled into one of the larger ruts along that section of the road. Sven and Junior weren’t far behind Ralph and I was the last one to get to Mama. Ralph explained the situation in two words.

“It’s Pa,” Ralph yelled at me as he let Sven hold Mama off the dirt. “Get her home, Robert. I got to get to Pa.”

Ralph took off in a gallop, disappearing immediately in the sky high corn.

“Junior, take your Maw,” Sven said, easing Mama into Junior’s arms as he guided her into the truck. “Don’t mind me none, Robert. I’ll hold on,” he said, jumping on top of the posts in the back.

It was about a mile around two sides of the main field from there back to the house. It was half that distance through the corn. Our speed would be restricted by the ruts we faced. Pa would be reminding me to keep my speed down to protect the truck’s axles. I used as much gas as possible, leaping from rut to ridge and back, as the speedometer went from forty to twenty to fifty and back to twenty as I turned right along the fence line. I could see the barn, but it took forever to get there.

We bounced hard on the seat and back to the ceiling. I could see fence posts bouncing off the back of the truck scattering out behind us as Sven bounced up as high as the rear window and back down out of sight. I worried about losing him along the way but I was more worried about Pa.

“We was having coffee,” Mama recounted. “Your Pa said he didn’t have the breaks right and the transmission needed more adjusting. It would only take a few minutes.”

Mama’s voice was mechanical. She reran the facts in her head, telling us what she could see.

“It wasn’t long after. I heard a noise. I couldn’t relate it to nothing I knew. Then, there was a most disturbing silence. There’s always a sign of your Pa, a noise he’s making, banging on something, talking to himself, one of the machines coming on, going off. There’s always some sign of him in my ear. I wiped my hands and walked out onto the porch to check on him. I thought maybe he’d walked out into the corn like he does. Then, I saw the tractor. Your father’s legs were poking out from under it. It was tilted to one side. It was on top of him. He was pinned under it. I didn’t know what to do. All I could think of was getting you boys.”

Ralph was climbing over the fence next to the barn as I turned the truck into the yard. There, under the farm tractor, Pa was pinned with only his legs visible to me. My heart sank and my insides all but came outside. There was no movement, no sign of life.

Before I could get the truck stopped everyone was out beside it, racing to Pa’s aid. Ralph got there first and a cloud of dust sprang up as I came to a final stop with the truck taking a large lurch, reacting to me taking my foot off the clutch without taking it out of gear.

My heart sank and my feet were lead as they hit the ground. It was worse than I could have imagined. Facing my father’s mortality was something I’d never done. He’d always been there and there was no reason for me to believe the day would come when he wasn’t there any longer.

Ralph slid on his knees as he came to the tractor. The jack that held up that side was in several pieces beside the tractor. First Ralph tried to lift it off Pa with his bare hands. Realizing his effort was futile, Ralph he became frantic, pulling on Pa, the tractor, and then running toward the barn before running back without accomplishing anything. He pushed and pulled at the tractor. His efforts were futile; he was unable to do nothing at all.

Ralph was a sight. His shirt was soaked and sweat ran down his face but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

"Do something, Sven," he pleaded, collapsing to a seated position beside the tractor as he wept and gasped for air. "Help him, Robert."

My father was pinned up under the tractor with the weight on his thighs. The oil pan rested across his chest. Ralph went to work trying to fix the hopelessly bent broken jack.

"I can't budge it. This thing’s broke. I can't get it to work," Ralph said, not knowing who to turn to for help. "Damn it," he yelled, slinging the jack handle against the iron machine. It ricocheted right back at him, becoming tangled in his flailing arms as he cussed it and the world. "Damn it all to hell. Do something, Sven," he begged. "Please!"

“He’s breathing but his legs are bad broke. He’s bleeding but I can’t see from where,” Sven said, scooting out from under the other side of the tractor. “Junior, block this side up the way your Pa had it before. Don’t want it falling down on us.”

Pa was always in charge in my world. There was never any doubt what was to be done, because he wasted no time telling you. Now, Ralph was on his own with Pa laying silent, so pale I was sure he was already dead or soon would be. With all that weight on his chest, it seemed the place to start, but how to lift it up without injuring him more.

I wanted to join Ralph and weep and wail but I found myself calmly calculating the situation while formulating a plan.

“Ralph, get your ass up and role that log over here. I’ll get a piece of wood to lift the weight off him,” I ordered.

I came out of the barn with a thick cross beam we’d used to reinforce the loft. It was much longer than I would have liked but there wasn’t time to cut it. Remembering my high school math classes, I rested the wooden lever over the log serving as the fulcrum to pry the frame off Pa’s legs. It was an easy principle applied to a hard situation.

Once Ralph realized what I was doing, he rolled the log a few feet toward me to increase the levers lifting power. As I applied all my weight to the lever Ralph joined me, adding his weight to the operation.

Sven moved down beside the machine, ready to retrieve Pa if we succeeded. With a great deal of grunting and groaning and Junior adding his weight to the lever, I was certain we’d raise the machine high enough for Sven to retrieve Pa out from under it. At the same instant we applied the maximum weight to our lever a distinctive snap ended my hopes of freeing Pa. The wood in the beam I’d selected had splintered, sending the three of us sprawling on the ground.

We’d been back for almost five minutes and had accomplished nothing. Mother stood to one side sobbing as we picked ourselves up off the ground. Sven stood up next to the machine.

“Get another piece of wood to pry with,” Sven ordered, looking at Ralph, who sprang into action.

My mind told me that we’d get the same result a second time, because the weight of the tractor was too much for the wood to hold. A thicker piece of wood wouldn’t fit far enough under the frame to lift it.

Ralph brought back something that looked like a small tree trunk. It wouldn’t slide under the machine no matter how hard we tried. Ralph ran back into the barn and came back with another beam the same size as the first. The result was the same. It took three of us to get it to move the machine. The wood splintered as soon as it started lifting the machine.

We put our backs against the machine, trying to lift it with our hands, but it didn’t budge. We had to do something to get the weight off my father but what we were doing wasn’t able to make a difference.

Sven moved to the other side from where we were picking ourselves back up again. Sven disappeared under the machine and when he came out he stood with his hands on his hips. We all looked to him for help as he surveyed the situation.

Ralph kicked the International and I stood up without being surprised by the woods failure. We were helpless against the monster that had my father trapped. My brain had no more answers.

“We can’t wait. He’s got to come out of there now,” Sven said, moving back under the machine.

Sven seemed to have something in mind.

"You've got the right idea. We need a smaller lever. Half as thick as the beam but no less than half," Sven explained.

The only thing I could come up with were framing boards not half as thick as the first beam.

“Sven, that won’t work. We broke two better boards already,” Ralph said.

“Do what I tell you boy. Get another one. Do it now,” he ordered from beside Pa. “Don’t worry, Mr. Sorenson, we’re going to have you out of here in just a minute.”

Sven sounded certain as Ralph and I put our weight against another piece of wood. Junior stood back this time. Adding his weight to Ralph’s and mine was more weight than the wood could hold. The wood bent over top of the log as we fought to get the frame of the tractor to move.

“It moved. You’re lifting it,” Junior shouted and we became more determined.

Sven disappeared and went silent. I could feel the board taking the weight of the tractor. It was only a matter of time before it snapped. Junior moved from my mother’s side around to the other side of the tractor. As he stood looking under the machine he seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

“It’s not going to hold much longer,” I shouted.

“You’ve got to keep it off the ground,” Sven yelled. “Get some blocks, Junior. Once you see the weight is up off your Pa, set them blocks under the frame.

By the sound of Sven’s voice he was up under the machine. How we would get it high enough to block it was a mystery to me, but holding it where it was took every ounce of strength I possessed.

We couldn’t see that Sven was moving into position by wedging himself under the tractor.

“Okay! Put your backs into it,” Sven yelled.

With Sven inching further back under the tractor, Ralph and I were suddenly lifting the weight an inch and then two and three. As the weight was taken off the board the machine began to sag back toward my father’s legs.

A powerful groan came from Sven’s depths as the frame danced precariously over Pa. Sven huffed and puffed from the weight of he’d taken onto his back.

No one could lift a thousand pounds by himself, I reasoned as the machine continued to sag ever so slightly. I watched it hang there, waiting for it to settle as grunts and groans emerged from down under it. Then, I thought it started to rise almost imperceptibly at first. I wondered if it was wishful thinking.

With more grunts and groans it rose an inch and then two inches more. Then, it moved another inch and one more. I heard loud puffs of air and something that sounded like a wrestling match going on inside the thing. I ran to the other side to see if there wasn’t something I could do to help.

In the end the tractor came eight or ten inches off the ground. When it was as high as it was going to go, Junior scurried along the side placing the thick blocks under the frame.

“It’s done, Sven. The blocks are set. Let ‘er down,” Junior yelled.

“Get your Pa out of there. Don’t pull on his legs. Robert, ease him out to them from this side. Use his hips and shoulders.”

Sven dropped down on his hands and knees once he was sure the blocks were holding. Pa didn’t make a sound as we moved him to safety but his breathing seemed weak.

"Thanks, Sven," I said in great appreciation as I backed out from under the tractor.

Ralph was immediately hugging Sven as he appeared. Lost inside Sven’s arms Ralph let out a sob, "Thank you. Thank you."

"We've got no time for this, son," Sven said. “There’s no telling how much blood he’s lost. He needs a doctor right now. We can load him in the Ford truck. It’ll be easier to secure him.”

"Get something we can tie him to. We need to keep him still," Mama said in gentle tones, surveying the situation as she spoke, regaining her composure. "I don't know if Dr. Randolph can help. Ralph, call ahead. Tell him we’re on the way."

"How far is it? There's no time to change our minds," Sven said. "We don't have time to waste. That one leg looks bad and we need to stop the bleeding. He isn’t breathing right. His skin is cold."

We strapped him to a door I dragged from the barn. Ralph ran back from the house, "Des Moines, Dr. Randolph said. Take him to the hospital on account he can't do much for him at his office. He’ll come over later."

Mama looked old and worn out holding Pa's head in her lap in the back of the Ford truck. Ralph and Junior sat on each side of the door to hold it steady. I'd never seen my mother motionless before, Pa either for that matter. She seemed to have run out of gas, her life ebbing with Pa's. She was caught in a nightmare she couldn't understand.

Time no longer had meaning that day. Had I been driving, I could have gotten lost in the road and the routine of it, but I wasn't driving. Thinking about the damage done to Pa, I considered the damage I'd done to him over the years with my willfulness. I had time to regret it all on the forty minute drive, and there were prayers to a God I had little known for years.

We were almost immediately pulling up at the front entrance of the hospital. Sven was out helping my mother out of the truck and Ralph raced through the double doors. I forced myself out of the truck and stood there trying to regroup.

The harvest was due. Pa was done for this year. He’d always run the show. Now, we’d have to run it and get it done proper or lose the farm. It was more than I wanted to know. What had been a life and death struggle was now a struggle to survive a harvest, bank bills, and now, we were faced with hospital bills.

I looked at Pa’s leg as Sven adjusted the tourniquet he’d put on it. My father’s left leg looked mangled, and he stirred ever so slightly as Sven tightened the tourniquet again while we waited for someone to come to our aid.

I cringed at the color of Pa’s face. I had no idea what the future held, but I couldn't conceive that anything good could come of something so bad. I didn’t know how we could possibly do all that needed to be done without Pa.

As I pondered larger issues, the meaning of time changed yet again, once a nurse appeared at the side of the truck after what seemed like hours but was more like two minutes.

She ran back inside after taking a minute to assess the situation. In another minute we suddenly had the attention of the entire hospital staff as doctors, nurses, and orderlies hurried out of the hospital. After taking another minute to determine his injuries, they whisked Pa away.

We stood staring at each other at a loss for what came next. We ended up in the waiting room, staring at each other still. No one said anything, because to say something meant we had to consider what was happening to Pa. No one wanted to do that.

The fact that no one came to us indicated he was still alive. The rest was something I wasn’t prepared to deal with. My mind was filled with thoughts, racing from one to the next unable to hold onto one long enough to make sense out of it.

Ralph leaned his head back against the wall with his eyes closed. My brother became motionless for the first time I could remember. He even slept in a fit, wrestling the covers, the pillows, and me some nights. I helped my mother watch the doors through which my father had passed. We waited for some word while dreading what those words might be.

Sven stood across from us, his hands folded in front of him, his big back holding up the wall. I figured he could hold up anything by then. He seemed more powerful than I had previously imagined, although I had seen him as part god and part sinner with far more knowledge than anyone his age with his past could possibly have attained.

Now, he was Pa’s savior, and mine. I knew then, I’d never be able to repay the man for what he’d done, but he always seemed to know and could do what needed to be done whether it was carving out fence posts or administering medical aid to stop Pa’s bleeding. In between time he merely held the world up on his shoulders like Atlas. The entire Sorenson family was forever in his debt.

He never ceased to amaze me with his wit and wisdom, and now that he’d saved my father's life, I would no longer wrestle with my feelings for him. A mere farmhand when he came to us, he’d transcended to a place that no other ordinary mortal had reached in my house. My admiration for him was unflagging after that day. The mysteries that surrounded him no longer mattered to me. I’d finally learned to accept what was without asking why.

Sven was a find in Pa’s words, and now, he was a saint.

The doctor finally came to face us. He looked stern and lacking in emotion. We all stood at attention, waiting for him to speak.

"We've stopped the bleeding. He's being prepped for surgery on his left leg. He's lost a considerable amount of blood, but he seems to be responding. There's every indication that he will live if there are no complications. The leg and internal damage needs to be addressed. We'll determine our course of action once he stabilizes. There's no good reason for you to stay here. You won't be able to see him for some time, probably tomorrow, but then, for only a few minutes. By next week we should be seeing some improvement, but his leg will never be the way it was. He’ll likely need assistance for him to walk."

"Next week?" Mama said. "I'll be staying right here with your Pa, son. It's up to you to take care of the harvest. You'll need help. I'll pray that you find it, Robert. You boys listen to what Robert tells you. He’s in charge. Don’t let me hear that you’ve gone against his word.

“You'd better be gettin' back, Robert. You boys will need all the rest you can get. Your father and I will be okay, but you've got work to do, and my place is here beside your Pa."

Mama spoke directly to me in words my brothers couldn’t deny. I was the eldest son and there was no question about who was responsible while Pa was on the mend. I would be expected to do what needed doing to get the harvest in and save our farm for one more year.

It was a place I never wanted to be with responsibilities I was ill prepared to assume. Pa had always been there and I figured he would always be there.

"You want to drive back, boss?" Sven asked me as I approached the truck, facing the reality of how my world was changed that day.

Boss was an odd word to be directed at me. Sven had used it in jest before, but he meant it this time. Sven knew his place, and mine, and it was his way of reinforcing our places in respect to one another. He knew I was little prepared for what would be expected of me, and I was going to lean mightily on him for advice, but I'm sure he knew that as he stood outside the hospital that day.

"No, you drive. Thanks, Sven. For everything," I said, grasping his forearm and squeezing. He patted the back of my hand with a reassuring smile.

“No problem, boss.”

"I'll drive," Ralph said, buoyed by the news of our father’s survival while ignoring the doctor’s cautionary tone.

Junior sat in the back, having nothing to say. He’d lost both his father and mother. At sixteen he was more dependent on them than Ralph and me. We were going back to an unfamiliar house with no idea of how we were going to stay fed. Mama was the cook and except for ice cream and sandwiches, we were severely limited in the kitchen.

We had yet to face the reality of Pa’s condition. He was going to live. Life was all we asked for on the first day. My brothers and I all saw Pa coming back and taking over the farm once he’d healed. These would be hard times but we saw it as temporary. I suppose we simply couldn’t face the reality of life on our farm being forever changed.

My brothers both resented the idea of my being in charge. Even with my mother’s blessings, they knew I intended to leave one day soon and that canceled any right I had to assume responsibility for a farm they intended to remain on forever.

With the resentment came the understanding that Junior was simply too young to take charge and Ralph wasn’t mature enough to handle the responsibilities. While I had no desire for the job, it was up to me to get the work done.

I’d need to find a way to involve them without appearing to order them around. I’d assign tasks that needed doing and remind them it’s what Pa had them doing the year before. With Sven and me driving the columbines Ralph and Junior would take turns on the International and clean up any corn that didn’t make it on to a truck. It all became apparent in my mind as we drove back to the farm.

The ride home was a quiet one. I had too much running through my mind to think about talking. I knew most of the steps but figuring out how to get each step done wasn’t so obvious for the amateur in charge. I didn't know anything about anything because I'd carefully avoiding knowing what I now needed to know if I was to succeed.

I'd never expressed any interest in the details and did only what I had to do in order to keep peace in the house. I hadn't liked that either and I had let everyone know about my feelings early on. Now, it was up to me to see to it that we didn't lose the farm, because without the farm we were without any ability to survive. I looked at Sven and wondered how his family had lost their farm. I made up my mind not to lose ours.

I once again prayed for help, saying I'd do whatever I had to do to bring in the corn and pay the bank so we’d hold on until Pa was back in charge.

I would not complain again about my life or living on the farm. I didn't matter any more. Only my family mattered, my mother, my brothers, and the man who was responsible for keeping the farm going all these years.

It had yet to occur to me that my father would never again be the man he was before his run in with our International tractor. I already had more than my share to worry about, and letting Pa’s injury run its course was best for the time being.

I didn't want to depend on the land for survival, because you can't trust the land or fate or even God to keep you safe. Once again the farm had proved to be a mistress that couldn’t be tamed and it could crush you in a minute along with all your hopes and dreams. I never liked the odds, but we were betting everything we had on a harvest that might be more than I could handle.

Disappointing my father was the least of my worries now. Shaming my family had never been a bigger possibility. The entire responsibility of the farm was mine now. I was nineteen going on getting off this place, and now I had to make a go of it. Not for me but for my family and especially for Pa.

The quickest way to an early grave for my Pa, was his eldest son failing him at a time like this. Life had always been cruel but never quite as cruel as this.

Chapter 10

What’s Next

My brothers and I sat around the kitchen table in silence. Sven stood with his back leaning against the door and his hands folded in front of him. I wasn’t the only one deep in thought about our future. I felt like the eldest brother for the first time in a long while.

Ralph cried at dinner, as we ate the food Mama had been preparing for us. Once the food was on the table it gave us something to do. Only the sound of silverware on plates and requests for items of food interrupted the silence. Even tragedy couldn't cancel out the body's need for nourishment. We ate to stay alive and little more that night. There was nothing to do after we ate but think.

Sven sat pensive, leaning on his elbows with his hands folded together like he was lost in prayer. The rest of us sat numbed, trying to find a way to deal with what happened and what was to come. I’d need to get organized before we could start harvesting. That was what I was expected to do. Sven shared what was on his mind and he knew more than I knew about organizing the work.

"I know people who'll come help with the harvest. I can get two, maybe a man with two near grown sons. They were sharecropping nearby this spring. I might be able to find my brother John. He was near here a few weeks back. I'll put out the word I need him. He'll come running if he can, but he may have already taken work by now."

"Pa won't want that many strangers on the place," Junior said. "He don't cotton to strangers. He gets uncomfortable with men he don't know, Robert. You know Pa."

"Your Pa needs help, son. He's in no condition to handle the affairs of this farm. We've got to see to it that it gets done. He'll rest a lot easier knowing we’re up to the task. That means Robert's in charge of decisions now," Sven said, looking up at me with a certainty in his voice. “He’ll decide what’s best and we’ll abide by it.”

Ralph questioned the idea with ideas of his own.

"Robert? He don't even want to be here. Mama keeps him safe from Pa. She been coddling him for years."

"It's up to us now, Ralph. We can all pull together or we can pull this farm apart," I said, making it up as I went along. "Pa hires hands every harvest, Junior. Without Pa we need more help than ever. Sven, if you know men who'll come to work I can't offer 'em no more than Pa offered you, but if they'll come I'll be glad to have them.

"We were barely holding on and without Pa I don't know if we’ll make it, but I'm doing all I can. I expect no less from you. Mama and Pa are depending on us to get it done."

"When a man needs help, money don’t mean a thing. The men I’m thinking of will work on my word if they know it means saving a man’s farm. I'll make no promises, except they’ll get paid before I do if there’s any money after the bills are paid."

"That's settled," I said. "Sven you see about the help. Use the Ford truck in the morning."

"They'll work and not even know if they'll get paid?" Ralph asked. "Who are these people? Never heard a such a thing."

"People who know what it means to lose a farm. They won’t stand by and watch another man lose his if there’s something they can do about it."

"We got beef in the smokehouse, hams, plenty of eggs being laid and milk. They'll get fed well," I reasoned. “Lord knows who’s going to do the cooking.”

"Helping someone is always good for the soul," Sven said. "They have big hearts. You'll see."

I was never sure how to take Sven. I found myself trusting him to do as he said, because I never knew him not to. My two brothers weren't so easy to convince, but because it was Sven, we agreed to let him bring us help. I had made the first decision with everyone's approval, but we didn't have the help yet.

Sven’s mind was clear and he seemed to know what you did when you got in a tight spot. It left me with one more debt to pay. Sven gave his loyalty to my father and now he was giving it to me. It was a powerful motivation to succeed, because he wouldn’t have done as much if he thought we would fail.

We were up trying to cook coffee well before dawn. I knew to start all the machinery before we sat down to eat. I managed the coffee, while Ralph whipped up something he thought was pancake batter. I was never quite convinced, so I fried some eggs and bacon just in case. We probably had the best cook in the county at our house and we could hardly boil water without her.

Mama had never been so sorely missed as she was that first morning. How we’d make it through harvest on that menu was a mystery.

We moved the columbines into the main field to see if they were working properly. Sven had the International that attacked Pa down on its tires as Ralph and Junior watched.

When we took a break for coffee, Sven told me he was going to see about the help. I didn't question him as he drove away, heading toward town. We went back at the corn for several hours, filling the corn wagon that was pulled behind the International. All the machines were working fine and we broke for lunch a little early, figuring we were ready for the trucks the following morning. When I called Croby’s Feed and Grain to order them for the following morning, Mr. Crosby sounded surprised and he tried to get me to hire hands through him but I knew better.

Lunch was a haphazard affair with us cutting bread so thick we could hardly get our mouths around our sandwiches. We were novices at running a harvest and no better qualified to run Mama’s kitchen. She made it look so effortless that I figured it wouldn’t be all that difficult, but we’d been in control for three less than satisfactory meals and the kitchen looked like a cyclone had hit it.

“When are you going to get Mama?” Ralph asked once he’d wrestled his sandwich into submission.

“You know Mama ain’t coming home until Pa does,” I said. “We got to do this ourselves.”

“We’re gonna starve to death,” Junior said. “You ain’t going to go see about Pa?”

“Yeah, Robert, I want to know how Pa is,” Ralph said.

“They said no one could see him until this afternoon. There’s no point in us running over there until tomorrow. We got work to do.”

“Mama can’t just sit there, Robert,” Junior said.

“She knows all those church ladies in Des Moines. I’m sure she went to see them as quick as we left. You don’t have to worry none about Mama,” I said. “The best thing we can do for them is work and let Pa heal.”

Junior stood at the window pumping water into his glass when I heard the truck on the gravel in the driveway.

"They're niggers," Junior said aghast. "Pa wouldn't hold with letting a bunch of them up here, Robert. You best tell Sven to carry them back where he got ‘em.”

"Junior, I'm going to tell you just once: I told Sven to handle it and we all agreed. I don’t care if they’re blue-eyed Presbyterian Kangaroos. Beggars ain’t in no position to be choosey.”

“Lord have mercy,” Ralph said, leaning against the sink. “They’s black as pitch. I hope you know what you’re a doin’.”

“We didn’t ask what color the help was coming in. I don’t want to hear another word about them being coloreds.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Ralph said. “Boy, you sure are asking for it, Robert. I hope no one else finds out.”

“This ain’t going to set well with Pa,” Junior said.

“Pa ain’t here and that’s that,” I stated flatly.

My brothers and Pa shared a natural aversion to all things new. Strangers, save the random hired hand, weren’t necessarily welcome much past a meal or some chores.

We ambled out onto the back porch as Sven escorted the three of them around to look up at the three of us, who they'd come to aid.

"They ain't ete this morning," Sven said. "If it's okay, boss, I'll cut them some ham for sandwiches to hold them until dinner? Whatever that’s going to be?"

"Sure. Welcome to the farm," I said as Junior groaned, moving back from the stairs. "Not much in the way of food prepared. Whatever we got we'll share. I'm Robert, this here is Ralph, and the grim one over there is Junior."

"Don't you be worried none about food," the bent old fellow said, stepping around Sven to face me. "I'm Jake, sir. I'm a cook and bottle washer right after I's a farmer."

"Mama ain't going to hold with no one running loose in her kitchen. You know how fussy she is," Junior said, finishing the last of his water as he went back into the kitchen, shaking his head.

"Don't mind him. He's a bit long on mouth and short on manners. We can sure use someone who knows his way around a kitchen. I was a little worried about how we were going to get enough to eat," I lamented.

"Ask and you shall receive, son," Jake said, doffing his cap. "These are my sons, sir. The long lanky fellow is Jacob and Kaleb may be short of stature but is able to work from sun up ‘til dark without complaint."

“It’s dark all right,” Ralph said, following Junior back into the kitchen.

"Yes, sir," Jacob said, pulling the hat off his head and stepping subserviently out from behind Sven to present himself for inspection once named.

The youngest boy grumbled something and did not make his presence known to me otherwise, choosing to stay behind Sven, and yet he failed to stand far enough away from Jake's long black arm and the old man adroitly popped his youngest son on the back of the head, saying, "Keep shut. He de boss. You de hand."

"If youse'll show me that kitchen, I'll see what old Jake can do with what you gots. I can keeps us all alive for a spell on a corncob, a ham bone, and a fresh pot a water."

"We've got a little more than that," I assured him, as we headed for the kitchen in a long stream.

Jake was old by anyone's standards, how old I never knew for sure. He was a big bent black man. He bent over when he walked, when he stood still, and when he sat. There was a distinct drawl to his words. He'd been share cropping in a nearby town, but the equally old farmer had lost his place during the summer. The bank threw Jake and his boys off the place and the corn was plowed under about a month before it could be harvested, giving them no reason to return.

"Junior, you stay with the clean up. Take Kaleb with you once he’s done eating so he can see what I need him to do. Ralph, you take Jacob with you. You can spell each other on the International. Make sure he knows the controls first. Sven and I will drive the columbines and we'll leave Jake here to see what he can rustle up for supper. We’ll be filling the corncribs, until Crosby’s trucks come in the morning. By that time we should all know what’s expected.

"I can spell you on the tractors if you like, sir. Won't take no time to be pullin' a meal together."

"You can handle a columbine?" I asked.

"Well, sir, anything with wheels I can fix or drive, or fix while I’m a driven if need be."

"Not much he can't do," Sven said. "Don't let that bend in his back fool you none. Jake can outwork me any day in the week. He was the first man that came to mind, when I knew we needed help."

"These are some hard times for poor folk, let me tell ya," Jake said, after talking sorrowfully about the acres of corn he had lost, when his hard work was plowed under by a bank that had no interest in corn or people.

"I told him the circumstances. No money guarantee but work and they get paid before I do, if we do better than break even," Sven said.

"It's not much of a deal," I said, swirling the coffee in my cup while thinking about getting back to work now that the social amenities were done.

"No matter the money. I'd rather work than sit idle. If that work keeps a man on his land, alls the better."

"We sure need the help but not much of a deal."

"More an we started out with this morning, son" he said, giving me an easy going smile. “The Lord, he do provide.”

I wondered how we'd ever get the crop in. We weren't much better off than before, except we had three more mouths to feed. I saw diminishing prospects but what was done was done. At least we could keep them fed for a time and the three of them had to increase our production by some.

I found myself responsible for other lives that had nothing to do with mine. I suppose it was uncomfortable for all of us that first day.

We continued our preliminary duties, readying the machines, adjusting for the cut, and filing a corncrib while going through the motions of what would become a full time job the following day, when the harvest went into full swing. Jacob and Kaleb had no problem keeping up and things ran smoothly throughout the day.

Later we sat quietly around the table, except for, “Pass the butter, the beans, or the biscuits.”

Jake had somehow cleaned the kitchen so that you couldn’t tell we’d left it a mess from our poor attempts at staying fed. He’d remade the meal from the night before, adding some of this and that, so he said. It was a respectable meal under the circumstances, but it wasn’t Mama’s cooking.

Our new guests were quiet. Jake stood at the sink to eat, serving us when we needed something. Kaleb and Jacob sat at the small table where Mama kept her bread drawer.

The lack of conversation seemed foreign, but what was there to say. Jacob and Kaleb went outside once Jake started on the dishes. Sven and I retired to the back porch and took Pa’s place, watching the night sky blossom. Ralph and Junior sat in the swing without their usual conversation. I had no idea what was running through the heads of the people I’d suddenly become responsible for. My head was a buzz with everything and nothing. I didn’t have any idea how I’d get done what needed doing.

I spent a restless night after getting our new hands settled into the bottom of the barn in a large pile of hay. Dawn came all too early, but not for Jake, who had coffee ready and griddle cakes going by the time I started the tractors.

The trucks came on schedule at dawn as first light appeared on the horizon. They’d continue coming by our contract for ten days to take away the corn.

The day wasn’t particularly hard but it was long. Taking care of the small details seemed to be an endless job. Keeping the boys working was a task fraught with danger. Both Junior and Ralph seemed to have accepted my authority but we hadn’t run into anything out of the ordinary.

When I passed the International with Ralph and Jacob pulling the corn wagon, Junior and Kaleb were close behind, tossing random ears into the rolling bin. I detected some smiles and good cheer as the boys worked together, each trying to outdo the other in quantity of corn they recovered and the speed in which they did the job. My uncertainty about our new hands seemed to be without foundation.

Kaleb was younger, close to Junior's age, shorter in stature, but a bit bigger boned. He was a contrarian in most respects, wanting nothing to do with Jake's happy attitude, or Jacob's willingness to serve, favoring a bit more skepticism, but not so much that he could be disliked. To prove it he won over the most difficult member of my family first, Junior, who had his contrary moments as well. The two of them became fast friends, and after spending his first night in the barn with us, Junior had Kaleb sleeping up in his room by the end of the second day, much to Jake’s alarm.

Junior was fast to find fault with the best of us and just as fast to forget his findings. He was an easy going sort otherwise, who learned lessons from the people he knew, but frequently disregarded them when faced with facts. He tried to fit but refused to remain obedient to bad ideas. He was more like me than I cared to admit in those days. We were both easy to convince once we knew the truth of things, but truth wasn’t always easy to come by.

Jacob was Ralph's age, tall but slight, with his carriage making him seem taller than he was. A bundle of energy and motion but polite in every manner. He'd learned to become part of the background and was good at disappearing, even when he was there in the kitchen with the rest of us. The same couldn't be said of the way he worked. He used his considerable energy to achieve the maximum result from his labor.

While the interactions were strained that first day, Ralph and Jacob learned to work together like a fine machine, each being able to anticipate the actions of the other. When the work slowed and they took a break, they could be seen lying side by side, laughing and talking and at other times wrestling good-naturedly in the corn silk.

The trucks drove easily along side the lumbering columbines. Once loaded they drove the corn into town. With three of Crosby’s trucks this year there was less time spent loading our corn wagon, which then had to move the corn from the wagon into the trucks once our corn bins were filled. On the first day the trucks came from about five in the morning with the last truck leaving us shortly after seven that evening.

We could keep cutting as long as we wanted, using the lights on the columbines, but it doubled the work and it was much more difficult seeing the loose corn that didn’t make it into the trucks or the corn wagon. The first thing each morning the four boys would clean up the rows we cut after dark, while we went back to loading the trucks at first light.

Later in the day the International pulled the corn wagon behind us, collecting the corn we left in our wake as we loaded trucks. By that time most of the loose corn was picked up and the pace for the four boys slowed.

Everything was going fine after two days of loading the trucks. We had cut well over a quarter of the corn in our main field. The International followed us, collecting the corn we’d left in our wake. It was how Pa did it and my actions were dictated by my memory of Pa in most instances. The rest I made up as I went along.

My mind was finally off Pa and involved with what needed doing. We seemed to have enough hands, even though most were small hands.

The sky was full of large billowy white clouds and that rarely meant rain. Everything seemed to be going in our favor and we’d continue this way until the trucks were finished. The feeling that we were going to be okay crossed my mind by the end of the second day.

The fields filled up with exhaust fumes and the din of machinery running back and forth in the ever so slowly dwindling rows of corn. The trucks came and went and the routine had taken hold.

Jake brought lemonade and sandwiches to us early in the afternoons. We’d stop the machine as he stood by encouraging us to drink our fill before moving on to the next machine. He used the swathes we'd cut in the corn as his avenues of travel. He was remarkably agile, seeming to have no difficulty getting up on and down off the machines with the refreshments in hand, although, when I looked at the bend in his body, I imagined everything he did to be difficult.

After dark Jake waved a lantern next to the gate to bring us in for supper. My first instinct was to forget food, but my back had grown stiff and I felt anything but agile climbing down off the machine as it belched exhaust into the night air.

I'd driven our new columbine last harvest, sharing the duties with a Spanish fellow Pa hired for the task. It never seemed like I was in the seat all that long before I was being replaced.

I didn't recall any stiffness from it last summer, but it was now a year later, I was a year older, and I rubbed my back as I walked toward the house. The trucks had made their final runs for the day and it was back to filling corncribs until the trucks would return at dawn.

Sven and I walked away from our tractors with a dozen empty cornrows separating our machines. Meeting at the gate, he nodded, waiting for me to pass through first. He put his big hand on my shoulder as we walked, saying nothing for the longest time.

“You’ve had a fine day for yourself, boss. I’d say we cut a passel of corn today. Fine job.”

“It doesn’t seem like enough,” I said sincerely.

“Won’t ‘til that last field is cut. We’ve got hard workers and we’ll get it done.”

I hadn't paid much attention to the sky all afternoon and had no idea if the rain clouds had joined the billowy kind. Once the rain started, we’d be hard pressed to finish what we’d begun. It took ten days to complete the harvest last season with Pa in the lead. I didn’t expect to be done in twelve. Besides, we were doing the easiest fields first.

Once we hit the slopes and the bottom land our progress would slow. For now, all I wanted was to cut as much corn as fast as we could. That’s not how Pa would do it, but I wasn’t Pa.

Ralph and Jacob walked together in front of us, trying to occupy the same space at the same time, playfully nudging each other off balance. They laughed, seeming not to have a care in the world. They'd given up on the International once it got too dark to see, so I assigned them to help Junior and Kaleb in cleaning up after us, until suppertime released them from any further duty that day.

I'd let them rest up after they ate, but Sven and I would work several more hours.

The smell of cornbread came on a wisp of evening air, making my stomach growl. I took the steps two at a time and went into the kitchen to see what else was cooking. For an instant I expected to see Mama at the stove, but reality returned to me all too fast.

There was fried chicken, kale from Mama’s garden, and Jake was working on mashed potatoes, tossing in butter and adding milk as he beat it together with vigor and the biggest spoon in the house. He was devoted to his chore and paid us no mind.

Five minutes later the kitchen was a buzz with boys and all of them were talking at the same time. In my mother's kitchen you minded your manners and didn't dare get in her way. Jake was less demanding and tended to stay to one side, requiring little from us. The table was full of familiar bowls and platters, but the food had an unfamiliar look.

Almost immediately the forks and spoons started to clang against my mothers dishes. There was laughter and conversation, as plates were filled. No one hesitated to dig in after a long days work.

Jake cleared his throat loud enough to stop us all in our tracks.

“Dear Lord thank Thee for your bounty. Bless this farm and all who dwell here. Amen.”

Once I took note of the seating arrangement, I became less interested in the food. Off at one corner of the kitchen sat Jacob and Kaleb. Their plates were in front of them already prepared with no room for bowls or platters.

After we all had food, Jake sat on a chair next to the sink with a steaming cup of coffee at his elbow. I was in Pa's chair and Sven was in Mama's. Ralph and Junior faced each other, fencing for the choicest pieces of chicken.

I finally decided to take my half prepared plate to join Jacob and Kaleb, forcing my chair into a tiny spot, which made it impossible to eat.

Jake stood, spilling his coffee in the process. He looked alarmed. Jacob and Kaleb looked at me like I might be somewhat daft.

"Mr. Robert, they ain't gots no room as tis," Jake mentioned cautiously as the two boys looked dismayed.

"That's funny. I had too much room over there. Maybe we ought to all eat together at the table and we’ll see there’s room enough for all of us."

"Mr. Robert, white folk and coloreds don’t be sittin' at the same table. We got our place."

"I've never been around… colored folk, and I suppose I'm white folk, but if a man is good enough to work for me he’s good enough to eat at my table no matter his color. Let's all just be plain folk," I said, because it sounded fair to me.

I sat Kaleb’s plate beside Junior and Jacob’s plate beside Ralph before moving my chair back to where it had started.

Kaleb didn’t take any convincing at all, picking up his chair and dropping it down beside Junior. It took Jacob a bit longer to make the move to follow his food, but he sat his chair beside Ralph, checking for any objections before sitting in it.

I asked Jake for some of his coffee, and when he got up to fetch me a cup, I scooted his chair to the corner of the table next to me. When he brought me my coffee, he studied his chair, seeming not to recognize it.

“Jake, bring your plate over and we’ll make room,” I said, knowing it was a tight squeeze.

"I don't eats much, Mr. Robert. I nibbles while I’s a cookin’ and coffee is about all I need by this time."

“Then, bring your coffee,” I ordered. "Well, this is a fine meal you’ve made us, Jake. Thank you."

"Not as good as your Mama's I'm sure, but the best I could do with what we gots."

"This is some pretty good cornbread. Pass me them mashed taters," Junior said, smacking his lips as he reached for more.

Sven maintained his silence and concentrated on his food. Jake drank his coffee for a few minutes to be polite before moving his chair back to where it was before I moved it. There wasn't much I could do about the way he felt but I knew what I felt and I wanted it to be clear not with words but by action. I'm not sure that my Pa would have agreed, but he wasn't here and I was and this made me more comfortable with my new hands.

Junior took Kaleb out to show him his dairy cows after they finished. He sold cream to some families and delivered it on his bike early each morning. Junior took real pride in them, not wanting anyone else to tend them. While he'd never shown any particular interest in the corn, he wanted to take charge of the cows from the first day. I supposed he didn't like the ground so much as the animals on it.

I listened as the two youngest boys scampered off the porch, laughing and joking like they'd known each other all their lives. I reached for one more piece of cornbread and caught Sven smiling my way as Ralph and Jacob got up to play checkers on the table Jake had put in the corner. They laughed and argued and fussed with each other as they played, oblivious to the rest of us. Ralph was a hard bird to figure. He was usually too busy to take up with anyone and in a couple of weeks he’d taken up with Sven and now Jacob.

"Best not fill up so much you don't feel like getting back out there. We can get a few more hours in I reckon," Sven thought aloud. “Maybe let the boys call it a day. They’ve done their share and that International ain’t to be trusted comes the night.”

"Yeah, I agree," I said, feeling tired and wishing I could call it a day. "Fine meal, Jake."

Jake nodded and sipped his coffee with his crooked fingers tangled in the handle of the small cup.

“We can help you clear this stuff up. Boys can lend a hand. We’ll need them out before dawn to pick up the corn we cut tonight. The trucks should be here after first light."

"No, sir. You boys go on. I'll take care of the dishes. I'll have me some molasses cookies baked by and by. Them and cool milk will be tastin’ mighty nice once you calls it a night."

"Sounds good to me, Jake," I said.

Sven walked next to me as we headed back toward the waiting machines. He walked at my speed for a change and I was glad to have him there.

"That was nice," he said.

"Yeah, Jake's a good cook. I don't know my Mama would sit still for him cooking in her kitchen, but it sure beats going hungry."

"No, I mean you, boss."

"Me?"

"With the boys, nice," he said, and said nothing more splitting away from me as we closed in on the idling columbines.

The machine wiggled and waggled over the ground as it coughed up corn and spit out the remnants. I had been trying to do something that Sven approved of since the day he walked up our driveway. This was the first time I felt like he approved of me. That didn’t help my back none but it did put a smile on my face. Needing his approval was still a source of mystery to me, but I did need it and was happy when I got it by doing something that felt right to me.

Our new hands had that beaten down look, when they came that first day, like they weren't sure what was expected of them, but they were sure that no matter what they did, someone would find fault with it. I knew what that was like and I did my best to make them feel at home. It's not something you expect a man to tell you about, because he probably wouldn't know what to say, but the look said it all and it haunted me from the first time I saw it.

I’d once seen the same look on a farmer I knew all my life. His pain ran deep after being forced off his farm. I'm sure he was rooted in the land before someone came and ripped him up by those roots. The farm was in his family for generations and he’d worked it for twenty years. Then, one day, it didn’t belong to him any longer and he didn’t know what to do. He might never know what to do again.

Leaving the only life they'd ever known, leaving places their grandfathers had cleared and furrowed out of the wilderness with their bare hands left them feeling they’d somehow failed. Now, a bank owned their farm, after they made payments on it for about a hundred years, never being able to make enough to get clear of the note. No matter how hard they had worked or how many hours they put in, it was never enough.

Times were hard and the banks didn’t care how hard you worked or how many years you’d worked the land when they came to throw you off.

We'd been luckier than most, until now, and our luck had seemed to be running out, but if I could salvage the farm, these seemed like the people I could do it with. While I wanted to drive into Des Moines to find out about Pa, there was work to do. Mama and Pa were on their own, leaving me to wonder what would become of us all.

While Pa and I hadn't had much to say to each other for some time, I realized I loved him and the things he stood for, even when I didn't feel the way he did about things. It took real character to do what he did without ever complaining or asking for his do.

My family was rooted on the land, but the responsibility was now on my shoulders and I couldn’t be sure I was up to the task. It wasn't Sven's farm and it didn't belong to any of our new hands, but if I managed to hold on for another year, they'd be as responsible as me. I'd be grateful if we were still here at years end. My first day of harvest, 1937, I had no reason to believe we would still be there at years end. I'd do the best job I knew how to do, hoping we'd get our corn to market before the price started to fall.

The next day went well. The trucks came empty and went away full. Jake came out to spell me after lunch, suggesting I take a break. My back had stopped aching and there was a pleasure in seeing the corn getting cut row by row. Everything was running smoothly.

My brothers stayed engaged, and Jacob and Kaleb created a competitive atmosphere that kept Ralph and Junior on their toes. They didn’t want to be outdone by hired hands. It was all good-natured fun and I let them do it whatever way they liked, as long as it got done.

As I pumped water over my dusty head Sven surprised me. He seized the handle out of my hand, pumping for me.

"You should go to town," Sven said in definite tones.

"Can’t stop now. They expect me to be working."

"You need to see about your Pa. You'll feel better when you do. We've got this under control. Jake and I can run the machines."

"Where’s your columbine?" I asked, worried about it sitting still.

"Ralph’s running it."

"Ralph? He's libel to run over the rest of the help," I blurted.

"He'll be fine. I've got Jacob watching him. I showed him how to run it yesterday. You've got to trust him sooner than later if we're going to keep those machines running. We're all going to wear out. Use the help smartly and we won’t wear out before it’s done."

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said, letting him know the truth. "What I know is, Ralph is a cutup who doesn't take anything seriously."

"Give him a little responsibility and he’ll surprise you. You've surprised me. I wasn't sure how you’d react but you've taken charge. Now, give Ralph a chance to help you. He knows what’s at stake."

"You realize if I fail, for the rest of his life my Pa will tell everyone how his son lost his farm the year he got busted up?"

"I don't intend to see you fail. This is about all of us doing all we can. We'll get it done if we work together. A good farmer delegates where he can and keeps something in reserve for the final push."

I watched him speak and felt like we weren't having the same conversation. I didn't feel confident or able, but I knew what I felt didn't enter into the picture. I'd been watching my father do it for years and now I had to do it.

"You've got confidence and you know what it takes to get all this done."

"This isn't on my shoulders. I'll help you but I can't be you. Your mother will want to know about the harvest. Your father will rest easier if you tell him we're bringing in the corn on time."

"He won't believe I can," I said. "My father has no confidence in me."

"Then, you'll show him and he'll believe."

"Thanks," I said, having a bigger view in mind. "I know I've acted foolishly. It's just that I never pictured myself doing this."

"It's what you got and you'll deal with it. There isn't much about life you can predict, Robert. You take what comes your way and do the best you can. If you're lucky things go your way, and if you're not, you do what needs doing to make things right."

The only way I could keep Ralph and Junior from going with me to the hospital was to leave Ralph in charge, and Junior wasn't about to leave the farm in his older brother's hands, knowing Ralph better than anyone. When I left, Ralph was driving my columbine and Sven was back in his. Junior had taken charge of the International for the first time, filling the corn wagon, when the trucks were all on their way back into town.

It was a less stressful ride to the hospital. I still believed this was a temporary arrangement and I'd be turning the responsibility for the farm back to Pa in short order. Sven had just told me about not having much control over things that happen to you, but as usual, I heard what I wanted to hear and I didn't listen to the message in his words.

Sven was telling me the way things were. What I wanted was what I expected. I believed that's the way things would be, until it was obvious they weren’t.

For years I’d been on my way to somewhere else. I never once thought somewhere else would end up being the farm. If it hadn’t been for Sven’s steadying hand, I’d have gone crazy.