Lost Without the River Read online

  Some years were worse than others. When I asked my father about that time, he easily recalled the differences: “1931 was a bad year. 1932 was a pretty good year, but there were no prices [meaning that demand was low]. There was a poor crop in 1933. In 1934, there was no crop at all.”

  It was in that year that he began hauling gravel for the county as part of a WPA project. The supplemental income was essential, because at that time oats brought only six cents a bushel and eggs were sold for a paltry seven cents a dozen. With no hay to feed the cattle, many farmers sold their livestock for fifteen to twenty dollars a head.

  One hundred pounds of flour cost only one dollar, but at Christmastime in 1934 my parents didn’t even have that dollar. There wouldn’t be any gifts, of course. There’d been none for a few years. Nor would there be anything but necessities purchased at the grocery store, but how could there be Christmas without my mother’s homemade bread and sweet rolls? And with no pies?

  Each time my father did an extra run of hauling gravel, he was paid with a very small check of only a matter of pennies. These hadn’t been deposited. In desperation, my mother shuffled through the odds and ends in the junk drawer of our kitchen cabinet, looking for those minimal checks. When she totaled them up, the sum was just enough to buy a bag of flour.

  “In 1935,” my father goes on, “there was enough rain to lift our spirits, but 1936 was the worst year ever because grasshoppers chomped through all our crops. They ate everything, including laundry that was hung out to dry. Mother resorted to drying it in the house.”

  The most extreme temperatures in the United States that year were reported in South Dakota: 120 degrees on July 5, 58 degrees below zero on February 17. That summer, the thermometer at our house registered 108 degrees.

  My father continues, “In 1937, because of a terrible blizzard in April and rain in May, planting was delayed, so yields were light and spotty. Corn withered because of the high temperatures. And then two of our horses died of sleeping sickness. In 1938, there was no rain to measure. Snow cover helped us a bit in 1939,” he said, as he completed the summary.

  When at last rain began to fall again, my father was never able to catch up financially. He worked. We all worked. Working defined who we were. He hadn’t been able to pay his father the agreed-upon rental payments; my grandfather forgave those. My parents’ checking account often had a balance of zero or less. I remember my mother’s embarrassment when she’d look at the mail and find an envelope from the bank with a pink slip showing through its window—a flag to the postman that their account was in arrears again.

  When the crops were good, the prices would drop. In an attempt to outwit the markets, some years my father raised Hereford cattle or hogs to be fed and fattened, then sold or butchered. For a few years, my siblings cared for rabbits that eventually found their way to our table.

  His small herd of Holsteins was a quiet source of pride. The milk was tested periodically by an official of the state dairy association. One of the perks of that man’s job: an overnight stay, including an enhanced family supper. A guest, after all, was always given the best. I wonder now who lost his bed to that visitor.

  The cream, separated from the milk, provided a meager, month-by-month income, but equally important as the money was the skim milk. That and the eggs from our motley crew of chickens helped feed us kids. We were always hungry.

  In the fields, still trusting that nature would produce the right conditions—no late-spring frost, the proper amount of rain at the right time (not too little, not too much, and oh please God not hail)—my father rotated the crops. Field corn and sweet corn, soybeans, oats, flax, rye, alfalfa. Year by year, he kept hoping that after the fields had been plowed, raked, planted, weeded, and disced, there would be a decent harvest.

  Our river dried up during the Great Drought, the rushing water reduced to a few stagnant holes. But when, after eleven years, rain began to fall again, it revived. When the river had returned to its normal flow, the fish once again began swimming upstream from Big Stone Lake to spawn in water near our house. My brothers speared large carp in the shallows. When I was seven, I tried to manage the long pole with its barbed metal point, but I had neither the coordination nor the strength to hit one of the slithering fish.

  The hole off the Big Rock, a large outcrop of smooth granite, became a prime fishing spot. Each year the fish became larger and more plentiful. By 1943, there were so many crappies competing for food that they’d take anything tossed into the water—a few times even baitless hooks. My father caught fifteen crappies while he was calling the cows home (about a crappie a minute). Then my sister Helen and my brother John took turns with the same bamboo pole and continued to catch fish on the same fly, until it finally wore out.

  We always complied with the state-imposed limit. Of course, the total limit was large because there were a lot of us, but, as with all wildlife, we caught only what we could eat.

  Minutes after we’d taken them from the water, my mother pan-fried our catches in a little butter. She’d stay in the kitchen and continue frying, replenishing the platter, until all of us had our fill of the succulent fish.

  Of course, news of this bounty spread fast, and town residents of all ages took advantage of it—the adults driving, children biking or walking, down to our farm. No fancy equipment was needed: kids caught fish using only strings attached to sticks. Our family welcomed them, until, that is, there were so many cars parked in our driveway and yard that my father couldn’t maneuver the machinery he needed to continue with the spring planting. He barked at the fishermen from town only once, but word of his displeasure spread quickly. Thereafter they parked to the side, making ribbons of cars along the edges of our driveway.

  In an attempt to make our dwelling pleasant and welcoming, John tilled the hard dirt surrounding our house. Together our family sowed grass seed and took care to keep the sprouts well watered. A neighbor gave us some climbing rose saplings. Helen and Patt planted them in front of the porch. The fragrant yellow blossoms attracted pollinators, including bees, which, for a time, built a nascent hive below the roof of our house. Patt planted peonies—white, pink, magenta—at the edge of the garden. Our lilac bushes had survived those dry years as spindly spikes. Now they grew and flowered.

  The opening of the peony and lilac blossoms was timely. Large bouquets of those flowers were picked from our yard and placed in buckets to frame the stage of our school auditorium every graduation season. My siblings and I each passed by them as we strode off with our high school diplomas. In the last of those years, it was my turn to take that walk, and, once again, I wasn’t concerned about the reception my father would give me as he, the chairman of the school board, handed me, the class valedictorian, a diploma.

  After our father gave the go-ahead, Patt and John drove to Ortonville and bought several gallons of white paint. Patt painted the house first and then tackled the barn—a monumental task for one person. I was very ill that summer with a recurring case of strep throat and therefore was mostly unaware of her endeavor. But I’ve learned that the project went on for weeks and that Patt had to add an extension to the ladder so she could reach the topmost board of the siding.

  In a letter to her sister, Mabel, in 1947, my mother reports that Patt got up at 4:30 a.m. to “beat the heat.” In that same letter, my mother relates that she got up twice a night to give me antibiotics. My mother and Patt would almost certainly have passed each other in the kitchen. I assume that when they saw one another, when all else was still, each was encouraged as she set about her chores.

  A few years later, my father ordered saplings of fruit trees—apple, pear, and apricot—which he planted at the north side of the garden. They joined an old crabapple tree and rhubarb plants; both had survived the long years without rain. The new trees grew and bore fruit, if only intermittently. The pear tree produced glorious clouds of white blossoms and perfume, but the emergent fruit never matured, remaining only as small red berries.

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sp; The blossoms were a gift signaling the end of a long winter of toting wood and coal into the house and carrying yesterday’s ashes out, the last of shoveling snow to make a path from house to barn, only for another six or eight inches of snow to erase all that effort.

  As the rain returned, the natural vegetation revived. With that, birds and wild animals became plentiful again. Pheasants began roosting for the night in trees close to our house. Early one evening my father, leaving the dogs at home, took ten shells and his double-barreled shotgun, and set out. John tagged along. My father bagged eight pheasants in rapid succession after walking only a few hundred yards. Then he spotted another one, sitting on a nearby branch, but he’d already used his last shell. He’d missed only two times.

  “We should have brought more shells,” John said.

  “No,” my father replied, “we have enough birds for a few days now.”

  And then there was our garden. Not large, about a quarter of an acre, it was set by the side of our drive, only a few yards from our house. We saw it each time we stepped out the door; it was a constant reminder that there was always more work to be done. No matter what the weather offered, unlike the vegetables we planted, the weeds thrived. Rain or shine, hail or high winds, our weeds grew.

  We could smell the wild onions when they began to bloom, and we tried to keep the cows from grazing in areas of the pastures where the plants grew, but often we didn’t succeed, and then we’d be reminded of our failure at mealtimes. The milk in our glasses would taste bitter and unpleasant.

  Ever-expanding strawberry plants, with their creeping runners, could not be hoed but had to be weeded by hand. I had to place my feet just so, making sure I didn’t step on the plants or the berries. Kneeling was impossible. I had to lean over the entire time. The plants must be in full sun for the fruit to ripen well. It was slow, tedious, hot work. But when I spied one particular weed, purslane, my heart would lift. As that weed grows, it spreads out in a wide circle that eventually resembles a large, misshapen crocheted doily. I’d run my fingers on the ground under the plant’s springy tendrils until I located its center. With a firm grip on that main stem and with one hard pull, I’d end up with the entire plant in my hand. Then I’d disentangle it from the strawberry vines and give it a heave-ho off to the side. I’d straighten up, look down, and admire the result. Only black earth showed beneath the dark green strawberry leaves.

  For a few years we raised strawberries, not only for our own use, but also to sell. My father and brothers planted them in a low field about a quarter mile from the house. Other family members must have picked berries in that location, but I remember only lonely hours in that field, the sun baking my back. When I went to bed on those nights and closed my eyes, red berry after red berry floated behind my eyelids. Only when my exhausted body took over and I fell asleep did the berries disappear.

  Perhaps my mother dreamed of strawberries as well. For after she’d prepared and served supper and the dishes had been washed, small baskets and flat pans heaped with those ripe berries were waiting for her. The berries had to be hulled and washed, then made into jam or canned for sauce before they would spoil, which meant that night before she went to bed.

  The strawberries and rhubarb, lettuce and cabbage, beans and peas, tomatoes and potatoes from our garden all ended up in my mother’s small and modest kitchen. No fancy appliances, no gleaming gadgets. Just the essentials: range, refrigerator, sink, and coffee percolator, always burping gently in the background.

  My father and our neighbor Heinie remodeled the kitchen in 1952, when I was in the eighth grade, installing windows on two sides. One of those looked south, to the river a few yards away; the other faced west, designed to catch the sun’s last glow as it set behind the hills.

  My mother always carefully brushed the little heaps of flour off the breadboard back into the flour bin after finishing a baking project. She knew the price in sweat and prayers of planting and tilling and harvesting even one bushel of wheat. And with that same frugality she always used the last yellow smear of butter in a dish to coat the crisp tops of loaves of bread just taken from the oven. Butter was precious. She was keenly aware of the work it had taken to feed the cows, milk them twice daily, and separate the milk into its two useful parts.

  Without saying a word, my mother taught. I observed her as she consistently used every food item, never giving in to the easier route by just throwing something away. When she made an angel food cake that used only egg whites, she made mayonnaise with the remaining yolks. Bread that was no longer fresh was an essential ingredient in her wild plum cobbler. And, of course, she cooked and served all parts of a butchered animal. I remember my revulsion upon seeing a cooked cow’s tongue on the cutting board before it was sliced.

  But rather than being made stingy by the necessity of frugality, she was consistently generous. If anyone stopped by close to mealtime, my parents invited them to join us at the table. Then I’d notice my mother as she served herself extra small portions. One day, someone arrived just as we were sitting down for our noon meal. Of course, that stranger to me was asked to eat with us. My father told me to get another place setting from the kitchen. The pie had been cut earlier.

  “But now I won’t get a piece,” I complained to my mother.

  “Don’t worry. You can have mine,” she said.

  In every season the kitchen was warm with cooking and baking, but in late summer and early autumn it was alive with color as well. Then each surface was crowded with containers holding my mother’s works in progress.

  In early September, in anticipation of the first killing frost, slightly green tomatoes were lined up on a windowsill to catch the sun that would perfect their color and flavor. In the corner on the floor sat two crocks containing cucumbers on their way to becoming pickles. The contents of one, just sliced and put in brine that morning, were ivory white. The contents of the other crock, which were about to be canned, were now a vibrant green. The aromas of dill and allspice mingled in the air when I passed by them.

  An aluminum cake pan on the counter held a heap of red strawberries, their stems still attached. Nearby rested a saucer filled with a pinkish foam, the top fluff skimmed from yesterday’s jam making. It would be gone before evening, spread on slices of freshly baked bread. The jars of red jam, with their neat caps of bubbly paraffin, were lined up close by.

  A marigold blossom, accidentally broken from its stem, floated in water in a small dish. My mother wasted nothing.

  Without our having to expend any energy, the woods and river produced. We had only to gather what was offered there, though that was never easy.

  Wild asparagus grew in a few places on the banks of the river. That plant is not a native; rather, it was brought by Europeans who settled in New England in the 1700s. Red berries on the female plants contain black seeds, and some of those seeds and their progeny after escaping, garden by garden, eventually made their way to our farm in South Dakota. As a teenager, Bob plucked the stalks when they first emerged. At our meals those evenings, we savored the taste of spring. The flavors awakened our taste buds after months of eating canned food.

  The tiresome gathering of wild berries fell to my sisters and me—and Bob when he was little. Wild raspberries, gooseberries, Juneberries, chokecherries, and ground cherries. They needed to be picked at just the right time. Too early, they’d be sour; too late, they would turn to mush between our fingers. And, of course, the birds were watching those berries just as carefully as we were.

  Patt cast herself in the role of taskmaster, and she took to it naturally. Each day she’d prioritize the chores that needed to be accomplished and in crisp no-nonsense sentences tell Bob and me what to do. Almost always what we were told to do was hard work and boring. Complaining wasn’t an option. Whom would we complain to? Our mother? We could see that she never stopped working. Our father? Absolutely not. He didn’t tolerate laziness or excuses. Two things leavened our discontent: Patt was working hard also, even harder than
we were. And her energy and enthusiasm, even if they weren’t contagious, made the time go a little faster.

  “The gooseberries are big enough now to be picked,” Patt called out.

  Bob and I knew she was talking to us. After breakfast we gathered the pails—tin cans with shoelaces knotted through holes that had been punched near the top. We put on old, longsleeved shirts and followed Patt through the pasture gate.

  Already it was hot, but as we waded through the shallows of the river the water cooled us, first our ankles; then, slowly, the cold moved up our legs and on up through our bodies. As we walked along, Patt made our endeavor into a contest. Whoever worked the hardest and gathered the most berries would get a handful of chocolate chips the next time she baked cookies.

  The bushes were in a clearing, right in the hot sun. We tied the pails to our belt loops so we could use both hands, one to hold up the spiny branches, the other to pick, berry by berry. Mosquitoes found us in no time, and our fingers were soon sore from the thorns that guarded the fruit. We picked all morning, swatting mosquitoes, wiping sweat from our faces with our sleeves, sometimes sucking our fingers when they hurt too much.

  When we stopped for dinner at noon, we dumped the contents of our pails into the steel bucket Patt had brought along. All our little berries, some green, a few pink, each with a tiny whisker on top, didn’t even fill the bucket halfway.

  Patt told us that Mother would use the green ones for sauce, the pink, in a few days when they turned red, for jam. When we got back to the house, Patt surprised Bob and me. We had done a good job, she said. Both of us got a handful of chocolate chips!

  Once in a while, the gathering of these fruits wasn’t so much a chore as an adventure.

  In a good year, the limbs of the wild plum tree in the pasture hung down, heavy with fruit. By mid-August, the fruit was usually ripe. Gathering an old blanket and a large tin tub, my brothers and I set out. We slipped through the barbed-wire fence and headed, single file, for the old tree, led by an erratic corps of grasshopper majorettes and surrounded by the sweet smell of warm clover.