A Bridge Named Susan Read online

  Chapter 28

  The Market Came Tumbling Down

  October 24, 1929, the stock market crashed. That seemed a million miles away, too far to affect us. We heard on the radio about people jumping out windows, diving off bridges, committing suicide. Seemed unreal to us. These people must have worshiped their money, expecting it to save them.

  Being poor was a blessing. We’d been poor most of our lives. Every penny was important. We relied on the resources God gave us to supply our needs. We were farmers who knew how to grow, how to save, how to do without. “How to get by in a pinch,” as Mama would say.

  The Lame place was not successful. It gave us shelter, a garden, a horse, cow, chickens, and a way to earn some money by selling milk, eggs, and vegetables. Mr. and Mrs. Lame, in their eighties, had moved to Lewiston to live with their daughter. We were the caretakers until the family decided what to do with the farm. They didn’t want us to plant and harvest.

  In May of 1930, the oldest boy decided he would take over. We were again without a home or a livelihood.

  “Do you have a plan, Tom?” I carefully worded my question.

  “Heard ’bout a new government program in town last week. I wanna find out more. I’m gonna go to town.” He climbed on Blacky. “Be back tomorrow evening. Keep the soup hot.”

  I had learned in our year and half of marriage that Tom was fiercely independent and proud, to the point of being the most stubborn person I’d ever met. Since he was the middle child of seven, Tom’s father saw no use for him to go to school because he was slow. He was pulled out of school after the third grade to work on the Chase farm. When he didn’t work hard enough or fast enough, his father beat him.

  One day his mother was coming from the garden with an apron full of corn. She heard yelling and crying in the barn. Stepping to the doorway, she saw Albert beating Tom with a chain. She grabbed an ear of corn, took aim, and hit her husband square in the temple, knocking him out. Without a word, she led Tom to the house, cleaned him up, and put ointment on his back. It surprised no one that Tom began at the early age of twelve to work for other farmers in the area more than for his father. He earned his own way, dependent on no one. His hard work and reliability made him in demand as a farmhand.

  I knew Tom would do his best to take care of me. One month to find a home and a job? I trusted my husband, but not like I trusted my Jesus. I spent the night talking to Him. “Jesus, we’re needing a lot of help right now. We don’t ask much. We need shelter and food. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  The next day dragged. Rain forced me inside most of the time. I fed the Lames’ animals, built a fire, and set to putting our few belongings into the wooden boxes given us as a wedding present.

  The setting sun was leaving long shadows across the yard when I spied Tom coming up the dirt road on Blacky. He rode bent over, soaked to the skin, cold, tired, and hungry. It’s too bad we didn’t have gas for the car. His feeble smile wasn’t reassuring. He led Blacky to the barn. I rushed inside to dip up supper.

  “Here’s the deal,” he began as he slurped down the watery soup. “The government’s lookin’ fer people to cut down and clear Indian land. We can live on the land for five years if we cut down fifteen acres of lodgepole pine. We can do whatever we want with the trees, but in the end it’s got to be ready to plant crops on.”

  I was speechless. Is this the answer to my prayer? Seemed a bit harsh. No shelter, no food, just fifteen acres covered with trees.

  “How are we going to do that?” I asked. “How do you cut down trees?” The area where I’d grown up was prairie. The trees we had, we cherished. They were fruit trees the folks planted when they first married. I began to giggle.

  “What’re ya laughin’ at?”

  “I was just thinking about George Washington. I can see Thomas Albert Chase out there with his mighty hatchet, chopping down trees.”

  Tom smiled. “Well, nice to be compared to our first president instead of Paul Bunyan. Might be able to live up ’ta that picture. George was just a kid.”

  Then he became serious. “I’m gonna trade the car for some tools. We’re needin’ a pick, shovel, axe, hatchet, chisel, measuring stick, and a crosscut saw. Oh, and a stove.”

  I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and responded, “You know what’s best, Tom. I’m your wife. I trust you.”

  “Not sure I like those words. Not sure I can live up to the responsibility. Not sure at all.” Tom shook his mop of black hair.

  “Hey, kiddo. We can do it. We can do anything.” I tried my best to cheer him up, but inside I was saying, Oh, God. What have we gotten ourselves into?

  Chapter 29

  The Stick Ranch

  We moved to our fifteen acres, which we affectionately called “the Stick Ranch” on June 3. It sat on the hill halfway between Culdesac and Reubens, east of the dirt road. A smelly, brown canvas tent, borrowed from Tom’s brother, Stanley, became our home. A twenty-four-inch round potbelly stove sat in the middle with a stove pipe reaching up through the carefully planned hole in the center to keep the tent from catching fire. It had two purposes—cooking and warmth. Tom built a tent frame from small trees while I was visiting the folks. He framed a bed, stuffed a tic full of dry grass for a mattress, and built a small table and sat our oil lamp in the middle of it. No chairs yet. Our wooden packing boxes became shelves stacked against the other side of the tent. There was barely enough room to turn around. I would not complain. It was a place to live, and we could improve it. After all, we’d be staying here five years.

  At the ages of almost twenty and twenty-five, we tackled our first project, a log cabin. The goal was to have it built before winter set in. “Eat up,” I commanded as I handed Tom a large bowl of oatmeal. “We need all the energy we can get.”

  Dishes were quickly done, and we marched off to begin our house. Neither of us had building experience, but I could tell Tom had been thinking a lot. “Now look at that tree right over there,” he pointed to the closest tree. “See, it’s ’bout two feet across. The way I figure, it’ll take six logs, two for the foundation and four high on each wall. What da ya think?”

  I gulped and my heart flip-flopped as my eyes followed the tree to the top. “Tall, really tall,” was all I could reply.

  “Yep, round seventy feet they tell me. There’s scads of trees. We can make a big house.” I glanced at his face shining with anticipation and realized this was a great adventure for him. To me, it was more like a nightmare.

  Tom had asked around Culdesac how to go about this. The old men sitting in front of the general store were happy to share all their building knowledge, even if they’d never built anything bigger than a chicken coup.

  “We got ’ta dig ditches for the foundation.” He handed me the shovel and took up the pick and a big ball of string. “Gonna mark it with string where to dig.” He began to unravel the string in the clearing next to the dirt road.

  “How are you going to know the lines are straight or if they’ll come together at the right place?” I was doubtful already.

  Tom whistled as he measured a long piece of string, cut it, and used it to cut five more. I sat on a grassy spot and watched. The sounds of bees, birds, and wind in the treetops blended with Tom’s tune, filling my heart with peace. Yes, we can do this.

  So with pick and shovel, we dug. It was slow going. The ground was hard and rocky. Tom loosened the rocks with the pick. I stacked them beside the ditch; Tom scooped out the dirt. By noon we had finished around four feet of the first trench.

  “I’d better get some dinner.” I looked at my filthy hands. We’d brought two cream cans of water with us. I hated to wash with it, but I must. I stoked the fire and put some water on to boil for soup. I must be careful with supplies. There were some canned vegetables left from the Lame place, but who knew how long it would be before there was any more. It was too late to prepare land for planting.r />
  My hands ached from rock picking. I could hear Tom brushing off his clothes and hands outside the open flap. He ducked in, smiled weakly, and gave me a hug. “This ain’t gonna to be easy. Who knew rocks was part of the deal.” We both laughed. We had no idea how hard it was going to get.

  By the end of June, the ditches were dug. Tom borrowed a level from the Zhalbers, our nearest neighbor, to make sure they were the same depth all the way around. July 3, we cut down our first tree. Tom cut a notch on the side of the tree in the direction we wanted it to fall.

  “Okay, Susie. Grab the handle on that end, one hand above the other. When you push, push the blade into the tree.” I’d never used a crosscut saw before. It was six feet long with large handles on each end. Definitely a two-man saw, or in this case, a man and woman saw. It looked daunting. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Our rhythm was awkward and jerky, complicated by the fact Tom was left handed and I was right. Aching arms, legs, and backs. At the end of the day the first lodgepole pine came crashing down. We whooped and hollered at our success, gave each other a hug and kiss, then looked at our first conquest.

  There was a huge problem; about halfway up, the tree tapered. The second half was much smaller around than the first half. “Well,” Tom shrugged. “Got two choices. If we wanna build it as big as the ditches, we have ta cut twice as many trees or we can dig more ditches across and make a smaller cabin. What do ya think?”

  I was so tired of picking and piling rocks. “Cut more trees!”

  “I was hope’n ya’d say that.”

  The next morning we measured our tree, cut it, stripped the bark, and painted it with hot tar to help preserve the wood underground. We hitched Blacky to the thirty-five-foot log and moved it into the first ditch. Tom chiseled out a notch to fit the next log into. We packed the rocks back around the edges to make it stable. We were on our way. We only finished one tree every two days. The top half, we cut into eight-foot lengths and make fence posts to build a pen for Blacky.

  Tom built a pole-sled, piled ten fence posts on it, hooked up Blacky, and hauled them to Culdesac to sell for two pennies apiece. “Don’t forget the water,” I’d call as Tom mounted Blacky for the hour’s trip to town. Ten poles was Blacky’s limit for pulling, so a round trip would gain twenty cents and cost two hours of time. Tom stopped at the spring just off the dirt road to get fresh water in the milk cans.

  What would we do without our faithful horse who’d been given to us by the Lames for taking care of their place? By day, we tied him to a tree where he could eat grass. By night, he went in the pen with a little shelter on one end. How would we feed him in the winter? I began to worry about how I would feed us.

  We did take out time to go to the Winchester’s Fourth of July picnic. Even though most of the young people had grown up and left the area, they came back for the Fourth celebration every year—except last year. Edna had come down with chickenpox, and Johnny had caught smallpox while working at the Stephens’ place. He was mighty sick. Mrs. Stephens was nursing him and her husband back from the brink of death after three weeks of high fevers. Both of these diseases were making the rounds on the Camas Prairie. Fear dominated events. No big celebration for America in 1929.

  There was a horrible tragedy came out of that smallpox round. Mr. Lowe and Mr. Virgil had been having a heated argument over water rights on their farms. Each thought the other’s well was drawing too much water, and they weren’t getting their fair share. It got so bad between them, everyone thought they were going to have an outright duel. It turned worse than that. Mr. Lowe’s wife came down with smallpox. She nearly died but survived with huge scabs all over her body. Mr. Lowe took some of those scabs and mailed them to Mr. Virgil in an envelope, hoping he would get the pox. It would serve him right for being so stubborn. Mr. Virgil’s curious three-year-old daughter opened the envelope and played with the strange things she found inside. Can you imagine her mother’s horror when she discovered what her little girl had in her hands? Yes, she contracted smallpox. Yes, she died. It brought unbelievable grief to the community. Mr. Lowe had such remorse over what had resulted from his anger, he committed suicide. Mr. and Mrs. Virgil left the area and never farmed again. It left a dark cloud over the whole area.

  It was time to move on after the whole, sad affair. There had to be a great celebration in the year 1930 in spite of the Depression.

  Chapter 30

  Friends, Old and New

  Visitors stopped by now and then to check on our progress and give us pointers. Two regulars from Culdesac were Delmar and Charlie when they made deliveries to the general store in Reubens. They sometimes brought us flour, coffee, or a bit of salt or sugar, which we paid for with our precious “two-pence-a-pole” money. With the Depression still going on, a bag of flour was twenty-five cents, sugar, ten cents. We counted the cost in labor and poles. Our one luxury was coffee, twenty-cents a can. Tom had to have his coffee each morning. I never developed the taste. We used the grounds over and over until it no longer tasted like coffee. Generally one-fourth cup of boiled grounds lasted a week depending on how many visitors we had. It was always the polite thing to offer a cup of coffee.

  Early on we discovered the property we were clearing was on a hunting trail. Members of the Nez Perce tribe often followed it to their favorite hunting ground. My first Indian visitor gave me quite a start one day when Tom was in town. I was packing rocks into the trench when I had the odd feeling I was being watched. I stood and spotted a very large native watching me. How could he and his horse creep up so silently on me? I froze in fear. Then I remembered Grandma’s wise, simple advice, “If you are kind and treat people nice, they will be nice to you.”

  “Hello,” I said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I had no idea if he even knew what coffee was or if he understood me. We stood there eyeing each other for a long time. Finally he grunted. I took that as a yes, walked confidently into the tent, poured a shaky cup of coffee, and brought it out, extending it toward him. I thought he’d never respond. He nodded, then warily walked over and took the cup. Never a word was spoken as he sat on a log outside our tent and drank. It was the first of his unannounced visits to our tent home. Eventually he brought friends to share our hospitality.

  As we sat on our tree-stump stools by our table one late August morning, I watched Tom pour the coffee from his cup into his saucer and loudly slurp it. Is this really going to work, I thought. God, I’m so tired, I hurt so bad, I’m hungry. I miss my family and friends. I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.

  God in His usual reassuring way answered, I am with you.

  Tom and I, with Blacky’s help, managed to stack one row of logs on top of the foundation by the end of August. Our pride couldn’t show through the disappointment of slow progress. We had only the possibility of one more good month before snow in these mountains. We would never make it by ourselves, let alone the impossible task of getting the logs on the higher rows.

  It was a Sunday morning. We always allowed ourselves to sleep in until seven o’clock on Sunday. When I woke up, Tom was up and gone. He left a note: Gone to town to see if we can get some help. I knew that hurt his pride something fierce.

  I began to chink between the logs. At least that was something I could do by myself. The other thing I could do was talk to God. “God, this seems impossible. Can’t see us getting this done before winter. I’ve just got to believe all things are possible. That’s what you said. I’ve just got to trust you. Sorry for not understanding how you’re going to work this out. Help me not to complain. Help me not to make Tom feel bad. This is what we’ve got and it’s better than nothing so I thank you for it …”

  I chinked, cried, and talked the whole day. I never let Tom see me cry. It would upset him. Besides, I had my pride too. If he could do this, so could I.

  At almost nightfall, I heard Blacky plodding up to the lodgepole pen. Tom talked to him as he cu
rried him down and put water and food out for him. Sometimes he would stop on the way home and pick apples from the wild trees along the road. He always shared with Blacky. The ones he’d been bringing were green. Maybe they were getting ripe. I stepped outside, anticipating good news. After all I’d been praying all day. God was going to take care of us. Right?

  Tom glanced over at me but didn’t say a word. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Was it a yes or a no? Help or not? He put away the curry comb, shut the gate, and waded through the tall grass. This was strange behavior, even for Tom. I couldn’t stand it any longer, “Well?” I finally asked.

  Tom sighed, looked me in the eyes, then broke out in a big grin. “We’ve got men!” he shouted.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe it. “When? How many? How long?” questions poured out of my mouth.

  “Got anything to eat? I’m starved.” Tom headed into the tent.

  I ran after him. “Of course, of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought …” I quickly sliced up some flat bread that I made that morning and poured him a thick, black cup of coffee that sat on the stove since Friday.

  “Now, please tell me?” I sat down on the other stump. “Ouch,” I winced. Stumps aren’t easy sitting when you’ve been chinking all day.

  “All right,” Tom started after he stuffed another piece of bread in. “Charlie says he can get twelve to fourteen men up here to have a wall-raisin’ party in about two weeks when harvest is over. They can only spare a day, but he thinks they can set all the logs if they work from sunup to sundown.”