Lost Without the River Read online

  Irene considered herself an authority on certain matters on which my father was an authority. He didn’t like being told he was wrong, especially when he wasn’t. That characteristic of hers probably would have been enough to put her on his bad side, but when she began acquiring land—not acres, just pieces and bits, so that her property now abutted ours in a few places—my father’s remarks became more caustic.

  The final blow was when she bought land on both sides of “our” road to Big Stone City, and with it, in her mind, the road itself. She knew that it was our family’s only way to drive to town.

  The original county road had been washed out some twenty years earlier. “Our” road may not have been registered at the courthouse, but it had been used as such. My father, accompanied by neighbors, met with officials who decided that after all those years of usage, the road was considered in the public domain.

  Without that decision, our family would have been forced to drive up a much steeper hill, and my siblings and I to take a longer, more difficult route when we walked to school.

  Of course, he brought his strong opinions and tenacity with him when he served on the school board, as a member, then president. During his tenure, he oversaw the design and construction of a second school building to accommodate the growing number of students. Meetings often devolved into shouting matches, but my father persisted. An attractive, simple, one-story building was constructed. His name, etched on a granite plaque near the entry, still attests to his perseverance.

  More and more often, as my brothers grew in years and strength, my father found reasons why a trip off the farm and into town was a necessity for him. He’d drive to town, pick up the mail, and walk across the street to the little café. There, he would catch up on the latest news and roll dice with the locals to determine who was to pick up the tab for the five-cents-percup coffee.

  When our cows had once again found a gap in the fences and were out on the highway, in desperation my mother would call the telephone operator in Big Stone. More than once, that patient woman put down her headphones and abandoned her switchboard, dashed across the street to the café, and told my father he was urgently needed at home.

  After the flood destroyed the white wooden bridge, county officials sought a less costly way to replace it. They decided that installing giant, galvanized steel culverts covered with packed dirt would be cheaper. The structure, ugly and utilitarian, would allow my father and brothers to go back and forth to the South Field and all of us to get to neighboring farms to share chores and companionship.

  But those officials underestimated the power of the runoff from the melting snow, even in an ordinary year. Within two years, the packed dirt and the gravel topping were beginning to break away. In three years, all the dirt was gone, leaving us with three ugly, useless culverts. Now we had to resort to fording, just as the pioneers had done long before. I’d jump from gravel at the river’s edge to a large stone to the next large stone as I made my way to visit my friend MaryLee. When my father and brothers set out to tend to the crops, they carefully drove through the shallows below these rocks. If the water was too deep, they had to drive the tractor to the edge of town with a plow, a disc, or a hay mower, depending on the season, hitched behind it, and continue more than a mile on the highway and then on country roads in order to approach the fields from the opposite direction—a frustrating expenditure of time and gas. But even when the river was relatively low, unexpected problems could arise.

  Bob tells the story.

  Dad had been harvesting the last of the corn on that unseasonably warm October day when he came storming into the yard, his work clothes dripping with water and his face, always red from years in the sun, redder than ever.

  “Those damn beavers!” my father yelled.

  Beavers—those storybook creatures with their endearing buckteeth—can cause a lot of damage in a short time. They must have worked especially hard the previous night, because they’d raised their dam high enough that when my father drove the tractor across the river at the usual spot, water splashed into it, short-circuiting the engine.

  “Grab the dynamite!” he yelled to Bob. “We’re going to wipe those bastards out!”

  As Bob tells me about that day, he explains, “We always had dynamite on hand to move really heavy things.”

  Taking a dynamite cap and fuses, they hiked downriver, where they discovered that their enemies had built a dam some four feet high. Dad fused the dynamite sticks; Bob placed them at three-foot intervals along the length of the dam. Then he lit another one, which he tossed toward the end of the string. He covered his ears and waited, as was customary, to make sure it would “take” and thus ignite the other sticks. Nothing happened, so he repeated the process. That time it worked; they were just beginning to walk away when the first mud began to fly.

  “Run!” one—or both—of them yelled.

  They took refuge behind an old elm tree, but just then a strong wind blew in and they were bombarded with stick and stone-laden mud. When the air had settled, they looked at each other. They were covered with the brown stuff but unhurt.

  “Guess we forgot to factor in the wind,” my father said.

  The beavers never rebuilt in that location.

  OTHER BRIDGES

  The white bridge had been vital to our family, but other bridges, too, were an integral part of our life. To get to school, we walked up our drive, along a dirt road for about a mile, and crossed over US Highway 12, after briefly pausing for a semi truck and a car or two to pass by. Then we turned left and crossed a wide-board wooden bridge, taking a minute to peer through the slats of the railing to the tracks below. The smell of creosote-soaked railway ties wafted up.

  After we crossed the bridge, there was a decision to be made: Take the shortcut or not? It would save us fifteen minutes, but we’d have to outwit the nasty dog that belonged to the owner of a nearby house. The dog would begin barking as soon as he caught sight of us, chase after us, and bite our heels if we didn’t run fast enough. The end of the shortcut brought us to the street directly across from school. If my brothers were with me, I braved the dog, but if I was alone, I never tried to go that way but rather continued on the street, passing by a few small houses with small yards, for another quarter of a mile to the red brick schoolhouse.

  The cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway ran under that bridge. A half mile farther along, the bridge that had been rerouted to the edge of our property, the bridge that changed the channel, spanned the river. When that railroad line was completed, a person could climb aboard in Ortonville and travel all the way to Seattle without stepping off.

  When a train passed through our town and crossed country roads, the engineer activated the whistle by pulling a cord. As I lay in bed, those haunting, musical sounds carried through the still night air to our house, reminding me that other people were on the move, traveling through prairies and mountains and forests, all the way to the ocean’s edge.

  CALLING THE COWS HOME

  At various times, my father raised chickens, guinea hens, pigs, and sheep. He kept a couple of horses even after a John Deere tractor had replaced their work, but the other creatures came and went. They would be there for a few years, and then no more, as market prices fluctuated and they were deemed more effort than their worth.

  Labrador retrievers (both black and golden) were treasured as loyal hunting partners, and dogs of indiscriminate breeds earned their way working as herders. My father tolerated, barely, the barn cats because they kept the rodent population in check.

  In turn, oldest to youngest, my siblings and I left the farm. But his herd of Holstein cows remained a constant during all those years. My father appreciated them as he did no other species.

  “We had the best-producing herd in the state of South Dakota one month when testing with the Dairy Herd Improvement Association,” he wrote in a brief self-history.

  Reading this now, I hear his voice when he talked to Bessie, the lead cow—
the boss—of the herd, in an encouraging you-can-do-it tone. And, although at times my brothers must have been the ones to call the cows in from the pasture to be milked, it’s my father’s voice, his cadence, I hear now, drawing out the phrase “c’m boss, ca’ boss …”

  “Go get ’em,” he ordered the current dog. And the dog ran off to locate the herd.

  I waited along with my father. It was beginning to get dark. We could hear the dog yipping.

  “Ca’ boss, ca’ boss.”

  The sound of his voice lingered in the cool air.

  We heard a responding low “mooo,” and then we saw movement beneath the low branches of the oak trees. Slowly, Bessie and her reluctant followers left the pasture and, single file, splashed noisily through the shallows and trudged to the gate. Where my father waited.

  LOOKING FOR COLOR

  Nature doled out color meagerly during the long winter months. The sky at times seemed as dormant as the earth. No rainbows, no northern lights, no slashes of lightning that came with the summer heat.

  The trees were dull and naked. The old, barren cottonwood, with no leaves to add their tinkling melody, stood silent. Wildflowers, grasses, weeds, mosses all lay withered beneath the snow.

  I struggled to keep up with my older brothers on the way to school. We were always hurrying. They’d gotten up at six-thirty to milk our cows before returning to the house to wash up and change clothes. Clomping down the steps, they yelled to me to get my coat on or I’d be left behind.

  As we passed the frozen slough, I’d try to catch a glimpse of the lone kinnikinnick bush. In winter, its bare branches were a resonant red, which stood out amid the dreary reeds at the edge. My mother taught me to appreciate the kinnikinnick bush because of its vivid color. Later I learned that early Native Americans appreciated it, too. Its name is cha-shasha (redwood) in Dakota Sioux. After removing the outer bark, members of the tribe scraped and dried the inner bark. Then they smoked it. Because the bark is especially fragrant, all the tribes coveted it.

  When it was very cold or my brothers were late coming in from the barn, our father would reluctantly concede to drive us to school. I’d climb in and try to hold my place in the backseat, right behind my father. That way, I’d be on the slough side. Too often, that didn’t matter because the car windows would be covered by heavy frost, but when all went well I’d catch glints of red flashing between the tans and browns.

  Our school clothes were drab and colorless, too. Sometimes I wore hand-me-downs, the material being used for the garment’s third incarnation by the time it got to me. Originally the skirts had been cut and sewn from adult clothing for my sisters. When they outgrew them, they were put in a closet and years later brought out for me. In those days, girls didn’t wear slacks; leggings didn’t even exist. So, all through the winter months, I was forced to wear long cotton stockings beneath my skirts. Hours before lunch, the brown garments hung baggy around my knees. My shoes were an almost-matching ugly brown.

  In winter, without the red strawberries and tomatoes and the green beans and peas from our garden, our food, with a few exceptions, was colorless as well. After my father had butchered a steer, my mother made a soup with the hocks. She added potatoes and carrots and, at the very end some cabbage. The carrots were stored in the basement in an old milk can filled with sand so they would remain crisp throughout the winter. Chunks of orange carrots and green strips of cabbage floated in the neutral-colored broth.

  When we attended Mass, I looked forward to its pageantry and music. But during long, incomprehensible sermons, I found ways to entertain myself. Without wiggling, which would have brought a stern rebuke from my father, I’d try to find all the gold surfaces. They brightened as the candle flames flickered.

  The priest wore shiny silk embroidered with more silk, which shimmered when he genuflected. His vestments were colorful, always a hue decreed by the church calendar. I understood none of that, but as my young years crept along I became aware that when the priest donned the purple for Advent, the best days of the year were not far away.

  Christmas brought anticipation and excitement, special food prepared—and consumed—in great quantities, adults playing cards and telling stories, all of us laughing more than at any other time of the year.

  Christmas was color. We trimmed our tree with multicolored lights, small balls, miniature cherubs, and silver cones with delicate openings that we hung point end down over the lights. Then we added crinkled strips of silver tinsel. My sisters and older brothers took the top branches, Bob and I the lower.

  Every Christmas, our dear Aunt Marian battled winter weather on her long drive from Pierre. When she unpacked her suitcase, there’d be gifts for each one of us that she’d chosen with care to reflect our ages and personalities. Wrapping paper printed with snowy scenes, reindeer, and fishing gear fueled our anticipation.

  In preparation for the holiday, our mother labored into the nights, baking fruitcakes and pies, sweet rolls and bread, jelly rolls and cookies. Bob and I were enlisted to set the table. After we’d put the leaves in place and covered the table with the felt protector, we took out the giant white damask tablecloth from the long drawer of the buffet. After ironing it, Mother had carefully rolled it around a very long cardboard tube so there would be no creases. We laid it on the table and struggled to make all the sides even.

  Then Bob would take off out the door to catch up with our brothers, and I was on my own. My mother’s silver was stored in a tarnish-resistant cloth that was rolled and tied. I untied the bow and laid the bundle flat. I took each piece out of its own small compartment, often pausing to admire the delicate patterns in the light, and began to set the table.

  I opened the door at the side of the buffet and, one by one, took out the etched crystal goblets and placed them just so, as my mother had taught me. Later, as we passed the laden serving dishes around the table, the water in the beautiful glasses would jiggle a bit. Then the bright red color of the cranberry sauce and the pickled beets contrasted beautifully with the white cloth.

  When I was fourteen, I found myself alone one day as I was weeding the garden and a traveling salesman pulled up to our house. I was the perfect customer. He didn’t even have to knock on our door, and no one else was there when he made his pitch.

  This was at a time when teenagers my age who lived on farms could obtain a driver’s permit, an exception to the norm, so that they could drive farm equipment on the highways. And with that piece of paper tucked into the glove compartment of my father’s car, I was able to get a job at the drive-in theater, where I worked in the concession stand. I received not just coins but a paycheck—social security withheld and all.

  So the salesman found me at just the right time. I had money to spend. He talked me into a layaway plan for a silverware set. The starter was a one-piece setting in a chest, which I would receive in a few weeks. And there was no charge for the chest!

  I accumulated place setting by place setting until my older brother Bill found out. He was born, it seems, with an acute business sense.

  “Why are you spending money on silverware? At your age. You won’t be using it for years! If you’d invest that money instead, it would accrue interest. Your money would earn money that you can use for college. You’d have that, not some shiny stuff just sitting in a chest!”

  Of course he was right—I didn’t use the silverware, but still I treasured it and enjoyed knowing that I owned something beautiful, as my mother did.

  Many years later, when my parents were about to move into a care facility, my mother handed me her original set of silver, the one I’d loved setting the table with. At that time, I was a mother of only one son.

  “In time you’ll pass this on to Peter, won’t you?” my mother asked.

  “Yes, of course. I promise.”

  When our second son, Stephen, was about to be married, I gave Katee, his bride, the set the salesman had sold me. Before wrapping it with gift paper, I opened the chest and lifted out a spoon.
For the first time, I noticed how closely the pattern of my silver resembled my mother’s.

  A MATTER OF FAITH

  Like the weather, religion was woven through our lives. Each Sunday morning, we got up, got dressed, and without breakfast—an empty stomach was required to receive communion—went to Mass. There were no alternatives. No way to preempt that early hour by attending Mass late Saturday afternoon or early Sunday evening, as is possible today. And the incentive was great. It was a mortal sin to miss Sunday Mass—meaning you were damned to hell if you didn’t manage to make it to confession before your demise.

  The same rule held for Holy Days, which often fell on weekdays. Those mornings, we had to get up even earlier. The time for Mass on Holy Days was set so that businessmen would be able to open their doors at the usual hour and schoolchildren would be on time for roll call. As a young child, I found it exciting and a bit spooky to be awakened in the dark, get dressed, and climb into the car while the stars were still bright in the sky.

  Midway through the liturgy of the Mass, following the Gospel, the priest delivered the weekly sermon. Those that revolved around the Old Testament, especially the stories about Job, with his endless trials and tribulations, seemed to reflect our family’s reality.

  And for any enterprising priest in that area, there was rich sermon material in recounting the plagues of Egypt. Hail, though not fiery, as stated in the Bible, brought destruction to area farms, demolishing a season’s work in a matter of minutes. Then add these: drought, dust storms, high winds, tornadoes, grasshoppers, sleeping-horse disease, blight, early frosts, and, especially for us, living as we were on the banks of the Whetstone River, floods.

  During the growing season, Sunday Mass seemed to drag on and on. The church was stifling hot without air-conditioning. Tall stained-glass windows were spaced evenly along each side of the building. A small panel at the bottom of each beautiful window would be cranked open. Lucky was the person seated at the end of a pew near a window. That person was always an adult. Kids were sandwiched between parents.