Lost Without the River Read online

  In the morning, Bill went to town to do an errand but returned almost immediately.

  “They say the dam is going to give way!” he yelled before he was even out of the car. “We have to start sandbagging.”

  Helen was in Minneapolis, Patt and John away at college. My father hurriedly began to gather gunny sacks from the barn. Bill and Bob hitched a trailer to the tractor and drove across the bridge to our small gravel pit. The three worked together to sandbag the cellar entrance and the foundation of the house nearest to the river.

  Mother and I began to carry the silver, china, and crystal stemware to the upstairs hallway, the same place where Bob and I had played with baby chicks a few years earlier.

  While we were doing those chores, the rushing water was at work, also. We hurried about, unaware that its force had loosened a huge ice cake from its hole at the site of the original bridge. The torrents carried that chunk of ice downstream as far as our bridge, where it became wedged.

  Late in the afternoon, after my mother and I had carried everything that we could upstairs, I walked out of the house and into the yard. Outside, I could not ignore the cacophony of sounds as branches snapped, ice cakes hit trees, and water roared when it was forced through the narrow opening below the edge of the lawn. The huge ice cake that had worked its way under the bridge was forced violently upward by the rushing water. Then there was an explosion. A terrifying sound bounced off the low hills and returned, hitting my eardrums in waves. The bridge splintered into pieces.

  Rocks and tangled branches caught a portion of the bridge. Bill and my father managed to secure it to a tree. Later, my family made good use of its lumber.

  Days after the flood, town residents found pieces of our bridge at the edges of Big Stone Lake, eight miles downstream. The wood was salvaged and reused, perhaps to fix a garden fence, mend a door, build a doghouse. Our bridge was no more.

  THE NEXT MORNING

  The morning after the flood, everyone was grumbling. The water had gone down, and with it our fear, but there was a deadness in our voices and everyone moved more slowly.

  The work to be done weighed all of us down. Two miles of fence in the South Field to be fixed; the corner posts realigned, other posts replaced; wire pulled from piles of debris, untangled, and restrung; forty gunny sacks of gravel that were used to sandbag our house to be emptied and piled for future use; at least three fallen trees in the feedlot to be cut and hauled off; and whole, long, low hills of misplaced earth and sand to be leveled out in the fields where they now rested.

  And, of course, there was the house. The first floor, where muddy feet tracked back and forth, to be scrubbed; at least eight loads of laundry to be done, each pair of pants dense with dried mud, the socks turned brown; and the sheets, dreary with dirt tossed off from bodies too tired to wash up, to be soaked and bleached before being laundered.

  Even though it was only midmorning, my mother moved slowly as she picked up the coffeepot and went to the table to pour coffee for my father. I didn’t need to be told to pour milk and put out cookies for my brothers. It seemed as though they had just left the house, but now here they were, back again, with their big bodies and loud voices. I liked it when my mother and I were in the house without them, listening to the radio as we worked together.

  Bill began, “I’ll go to town and get wire and posts. If we start right after dinner, we should be able to get ten or so in the higher ground before dark.”

  I listened. Sometimes it seemed as if Bill really liked to work.

  “Okay,” my father said. “I’ll take Bob out to the West Field, see if we can level some of that dirt before it dries out too hard. I wonder what damn weeds the river has given us this year.”

  I knew the reason Father said “damn,” not “dang,” was that he hated weeds. He hated them the way some folks hated sin.

  Russian thistle, Canadian thistle, sow thistle, bull thistle. Dandelions and false dandelions. Slowpoke and creeping Jenny. Horseweed and lamb’s-quarter. Sandburs, cockleburs, poison ivy, and purslane. Milkweed, wild hemp, wild oats, wild mustard. And, the most hated of all, leafy spurge.

  Each time my father said “leafy spurge” he almost spat the “s.” His tone reminded me of the time when a visiting priest gave a sermon on the sixth commandment, the one that said, “Thou shall not commit adultery.”

  Weeds. Weeds producing seeds. Seeds with silk wings that floated on breezes. Seeds, rough and barbed, that rode as passengers on the hides of my father’s cows, in the dog’s fur, and on the family’s clothes. Blackbirds, crows, hawks, even robins, meadowlarks, and orioles, carried the seeds in their guts, carried them long distances, from pastures in other townships, other counties, other states.

  All came to rest in my father’s fields. And this year the floodwaters had added even more. The next summer, and summers years from then, my father would still be waging war against the weeds that year’s flood brought—persistent, unwelcome memorials to our fear, hard work, and survival.

  SAME CHORE DAY AFTER DAY

  As a small child, I longed to have my mother’s undivided attention, and each day there was one special time when I had her all to myself.

  Every day, even Sundays, even Easter and Christmas, my mother had her chore that she had to do. John or Bill brought in the water, but from there on, the chore was hers.

  She dipped the hot water out of the box on the side of the stove in the kitchen, poured it into a large tin kettle with a lid, and carried it to the barn.

  I went with her. It was the only time I had her all to myself. In the house, she was always busy, busy, busy, and even at the quietest times of day, Dorothy was always there.

  My mother called, “Barbara, I’m going to the barn.”

  I loved setting out, just the two of us going on a journey, even though the barn was only a little way off. I skipped along by her side. When we reached the barn, she opened the door and I held it with my whole body as she walked through.

  My mother’s chore was to wash all the shiny, silvery parts of the separator. That machine divided the milk into two—the milk we drank and the cream that on some days Mother turned into fluffy whipped cream. She told me the separator must be kept absolutely, perfectly clean, or when we sold our cream in town, it might turn sour.

  I called, “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” slowly the first time, then faster and faster. The cats twined around my legs, showing how much they liked me. They were afraid of my father. Once, when he was milking the cows, Stony couldn’t wait for his supper and kept running under Father’s feet. Before I had time to call him back to me, my father kicked him. Hard. Up and up Stony flew, almost to the top of the barn, it seemed. Then he started falling down. When he landed, thur-ump, I ran to him. I was afraid Stony was broken, maybe dead, but he only staggered a bit as I rushed to pick him up.

  I brought the old, bumpy tin pan to Mother, and she filled it with milk. The cats rubbed against my legs so that I almost couldn’t walk, but I made them wait until I reached the straw next to the feed box. When I put the pan down, I watched their happy tails as they drank. When they finished, all of us snuggled in the spiky straw.

  One time when my mother called for me, I didn’t immediately join her. It was on a summer day, a few weeks before my fourth birthday.

  My sister Dorothy was in her crib in my parents’ bedroom. The late afternoon’s light shone softly on that corner, and the window was open just enough that the lace curtains moved gently with the breeze. I was jumping on the bed, carelessly defying the rules. Each time I jumped, Dorothy wiggled her legs. I’d not seen her respond that way before; usually she just lay there quietly. My ability to entertain her felt important. Nobody else had done that. The only time anyone noticed me was when I did something wrong. I jumped again, higher, and then higher still, as Dorothy continued to kick.

  “Barbara! I’m going now.”

  I’ve tried hard to remember: Did I go with my mother and leave Dorothy disappointed and deflated? Or did I stay and
keep jumping, the two of us laughing, until I ran out of breath?

  A little more than a year after that, I did do the right thing.

  The winter sun hit the frost that had collected on the inside of the windowpanes and set off tiny explosions of diamonds. Above the floor where the light streamed in, bits of dust dangled and danced. I felt virtuous. I hesitated and then stepped into the light.

  I carefully carried the dish with Dorothy’s meal. For once, I was happy that I was too young to be in school with my brothers and sisters. I was the only one my mother could ask to help her. She had sprained her ankle the day before and was in bed. She had gone down on the ice with a cry of pain. My mother never shouted, never even talked loudly, so the shock of that sound was worse than the sight of her on the ground. She hadn’t asked to be taken to a doctor but instead took a chair from the dining room and, resting her knee on its seat, hobbled around the house.

  The dust bits disappeared as the light shifted. I walked slowly into the bedroom. The dish was not cut glass, shiny bright, like the special dishes my brothers were allowed to carry on the altar at church, but I carried it just as carefully as they did, with both hands directly in front of me. The spoon rested upon the darkening fruit.

  I’d followed my mother’s instructions exactly, mashing and mashing the banana so that there wouldn’t be any chunks that Dorothy might choke on. The banana had slipped away again and again, but I’d patiently pursued it up and down the sides of the dish.

  As I entered the small bedroom, I was all business. I didn’t even glance toward my mother, lying on the bed, for her smile of approval, but went right to the crib and began to feed my seventeen-year-old sister.

  ALWAYS THERE

  As a young child assumes her parents will always be there for her, my siblings and I took for granted that the barn, silo, and bridge would always be there, serving the needs of our family. But structures that we take for granted can also pose unexpected dangers. By the time Bob and I began to roam our farm, discovering nature’s surprises, the silo had already been the location of a tragedy narrowly averted. And, not that many years later, the barn also could have been the site of a disaster.

  I never really believed Patt when she told me about the silo incident. After all, she was the sister who, in her early teens, had sworn she’d seen a whale in our river. But in 2015, John told me about the incident. The solemnity with which he told about that day wiped away all my doubts.

  John tells his story:

  On an autumn day when I was four and Patt was six, he began, we were bored and Patt thought she had a great idea. She said, “Let’s go into the silo.”

  Patt went first. She climbed up the steps on the outside of the silo, opened a small door, and dropped down inside. I followed her and jumped through the open door. The silage was warm and squishy under our bare feet, and we began to dance around.

  After we’d danced for a time, we sat down for a bit, when Patt said, “I feel dizzy. Let’s get out of here.”

  But when we tried to leave, we found that neither of us could reach the lowest sill of the opened door.

  “John! Help me get up higher.”

  I pushed hard on the soles of her feet, and she stretched her arms up high. She was just able to reach the lowest place to grab and, with that, able to open another door. The deadly gas produced by the fermenting silage flowed out and we were able to breathe good air again. We had gotten out just before it overcame us. A few minutes more, and we would have died.

  When I think of that, the real miracle of my life, I don’t thank God so much for my or Patt’s benefit, but I think of our mother, and I thank Him with her in mind. After Dorothy, she never would have survived the loss of two healthy children.

  As John finishes the story, he reaches for his handkerchief and brushes tears from his eyes.

  A SUMMER AFTERNOON

  “Barbara. Barbara! Where are you?”

  My name seemed to come from far away, disrupting my four-year-old dreams. It had been so hot that afternoon, and everyone else had been busy, so I’d slipped off to the secret hideout. Only my brother Bob and I knew about it. No one could find us. Even we had to stoop to get under the tangle of wild grapevines. There, where the exposed roots of an old oak tree made steps, it was cool and shadowy. Bob and I had lined up rocks that we’d collected from the low spot in the river. I’d been trying to decide which was the prettiest, when I’d fallen asleep.

  “Barbara! Dad says to hurry. He thinks a tornado is close by.”

  Bob grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

  “What’s a tornado?”

  “It’s a terrible, horrible, giant windstorm.”

  His voice grew louder with each word.

  We ran across the yard. When we reached the kitchen door, our mother was waiting with a flashlight and a pile of blankets in her arms.

  “Bob, take this light, and the two of you go open the cellar door.”

  The air was still, but the leaves on the old basswood tree moved gently. Working together, Bob and I swung each side of the double-hinged door up. Then we descended a few rough steps to a small landing. There, we opened another door.

  The light Bob carried struck the jars, rows and rows of canned vegetables and fruit. Jars of jellies and jams sat on the shelves like enormous jewels, red, purple, orange.

  In the back, beyond the jars, there was a large hole hollowed out of the dirt wall. The previous fall, Bob and I had carried carrots, beets, and potatoes from the garden to the cellar. I’d stayed outside the black hole and handed the vegetables to Bob so he could place them in the back. I didn’t have the courage to go any farther.

  On the summer afternoon of the storm, I told Bob I was scared.

  “I’m not,” he told me. “This is fun!”

  Mother came down then. She still held the blankets to her chest.

  “Bob. Shine the light to the door.”

  My father started down the stairs. He couldn’t see over the burden in his arms. I watched as he carefully checked each step before putting his weight down. The wavering light shone on my father and Dorothy. I’d never seen her out of the crib, even though she was much older than I—even older than my big sister, Helen. He supported her head, but her arms flopped loosely.

  “Make a bed with those blankets in that corner, Mother.”

  He dropped to his knees, and together they laid Dorothy on the blankets. Mother covered her with another blanket. She then sat down and nestled Dorothy’s head in her lap. I huddled close by.

  The tornado skipped over the five of us sheltering in the cellar that June day in 1944.

  My father couldn’t have seen the tornado. The small hills that ringed our farmstead didn’t allow for a wide view of the sky, but he had a keen sense of the atmosphere, which he’d honed through years and years of practice. His nose could detect subtle changes in the weather. And that afternoon he’d smelled impending danger.

  That same afternoon, my brother John, who was twelve, was cultivating corn in the open fields northwest of town. He was alone, concentrating on keeping the teeth of the disc in the dirt path between the rows. The machine was uprooting weeds, and if John veered just a little off course, he’d damage the young corn plants.

  The noise of the tractor’s engine blotted out any other sounds, but John felt a shift in the wind and looked up. A large funnel was racing across the sky, directly toward him. There was nowhere to seek shelter, only a small, open-sided corncrib off to the side of the field. The building offered no shelter. Corncribs are designed to maximize air flow; their walls are composed as much of air as of boards. He cut the tractor’s engine, hopped down, and ran toward it. Below the crib, a slot in the earth had been dug out, each side secured by two-by-four planks. The construction allowed enough space for a truck box to be tilted up to dump a load of corn. John didn’t look back, just ran as fast as he could. He managed to shimmy into that shallow slot, where he lay facedown and prayed.

  The tornado passed over him.


  When writing this story, I called John in Indiana to query him about details of that long-ago afternoon. As he was describing his hiding place, the tone of his voice shifted from animated storytelling to gravely philosophical.

  I was so surprised by the timing of what he said next that I stopped taking notes and had to ask him to repeat himself.

  “What was that, John?”

  “Tornadoes are like love,” he said, “When you see it, you don’t have to ask if it’s real.”

  FALLING DOWN

  Holy Saturday, the day before Easter 1945, was cold and dreary, no sign of spring. But Lent, with all of its restrictions, was almost over. Aunt Marian had arrived a few days earlier, bringing an array of special foods and abundant love. And! I had a new coat to wear to church on Easter morning. It was a beautiful spring-sky blue. Periodically I’d run upstairs, go to the small bedroom my sisters shared, and open the box to make sure it was still there.

  Because no spring field work was yet possible, John, Bill, and Bob decided to play basketball in the hayloft. Hay was piled high along the east end of the large, open space. When we moved about up there, crunching the scattered remnants of the dried alfalfa with our feet, a sweet, spicy smell was released—a fragrant memento from last summer. On the north side, there was an opening in the floor so that hay could be pitched down to the cows. Earlier, my brothers had nailed a metal hoop to a stud on the west wall at approximately regulation height.

  Mother and Aunt Marian were in the kitchen. They were talking and laughing as they made bread and rolls for the following day. Feeling left out, I put on my old coat and went to the barn. I heard the thump of the ball and my brothers shouting above me. I climbed up the wooden rungs and asked if I could join them. They were in a generous mood. I couldn’t play, they told me, but if I stood near the wall, they’d let me retrieve the ball when it went out of bounds.