“Good horse hay?” Harvey asked.
“Good horse hay I could use the most. I usually try to end up at a farm that doesn’t have livestock. They’re much more willing to part with some. You have a lot of livestock here, so I’d understand if you wouldn’t want to part with any.”
“Our hay is valuable,” Harvey responded. “But no more valuable than the load of produce you started out with this morning. How many bales does your wagon hold?”
“About 85.”
“Good enough,” Harvey decided, “I’ll apply the Golden Rule again. And you know your horses will need a night’s rest to pull over two tons of hay home.”
“That settles it then,” Dad said, “you’re staying the night.”
“I guess we are,” Titus agreed.
Fortunately, during the whole conversation, no one had started to unhitch the horses; so we drove the wagon right over to the springhouse to unload and store the fruit and vegetables. “Put one of the watermelons right into the spring water,” Dad instructed. “Should make it cold enough for supper. Tomorrow we’ll send word to Butch. They can use some fresh produce, too. I think he’s particularly fond of hot peppers. I know you and I aren’t, are we Alyssa?”
“No we’re not,” I answered, “but watermelon I can handle.” After letting the horses have a long drink, we drove the wagon to the barn where the hay was that Harvey had traded. On the way we dropped the honey and the sweet corn at the butcher house. Lois was the cook for supper and was quite agreeable to adding the corn to her planned meal, as there’d be two extra for supper.
Titus and Harlan unhitched the wagon next to the pile of hay. We led the horses back to the pasture, where they could spend the whole night eating grass. Dad brought them each five ears of corn.
“That’ll do them fine,” Titus said. The men folk had started milking; supper, of course, wasn’t near ready, so the four of us started loading the hay. My grandfathers joined us, which led to quite a conversation. Trouble was, I only could understand what Dad was saying. The others spoke in the Pennsylvania German dialect. If Dad listened real closely, he could understand, but he had never learned well enough how to speak in German. Of course he often tried. Usually got some laughs, the way he butchered it, generally messing up the grammar. Today was no different – he tried – the others would chuckle. From what I caught from Dad’s percentage of the conversation, they talked about old times and who lived on which farm. Seemed like Poppop and Dad knew everybody. They talked about the improvements to the butcher house, our plan to pump water, how we divided up the cows and our dilemma with using electric motors. It didn’t take long to get 85 bales onto the wagon. We used baler twine to fasten the load. Didn’t need to use the braided rope Dad and I had made. The load of hay wasn’t going to careen down the road at 55 miles per hour; it would stay on. As we tied on the last pieces of twine, the conversation ended with talk of some of the things we were looking for.
I heard Titus sum it up by saying, “Yeah, when I’m on my trading missions I can keep an eye open for you for those things like a wringer washer, a breeding bull, or a smaller generator.
“Thanks a lot,” Poppop said, “and if you would, we’re going to need something else; seed for next year’s crops. Trouble is, so does everyone else.”
“That’s right,” Dad added, “but one thing I think you do have, Titus, that I hope you can spare, is sweet potatoes.”
“I have quite a few growing,” Titus answered. “I’ll keep a share for you.”
“Thanks,” said Dad. “Well, it looks like the rest are heading in for supper. Let’s go wash up and join ‘em. I can almost taste that fresh sweet corn already.”
“And our homemade butter on it,” I added.
It was a fine supper, and after the watermelon was devoured and the supper dishes were finished, we learned a few more things about Titus’s community. “You know our lifestyle hasn’t changed that much since the power went off,” he commented. “We still farm and travel with horses. We milk by hand and fork silage by hand. We have wood fires and butcher our livestock at home. We’re canning like we did before. We go to church every Sunday by buggy or bicycle. Didn’t have televisions, radios or computers; don’t miss them. The women are making homemade baked goods. And our children are going to school.”
“Your schools are open?” Jake asked.
“Sure,” Titus answered, “Monday was the first day at our one room schoolhouses. Our children walk or bike to school. The teacher goes by buggy and brings a cooler of spring water for the students. We don’t need electricity this time of year. When it turns colder, the heat source is a wood stove. We’ll have to come up with some lighting eventually. There’s time to figure some things out yet.”
“If your school’s in session, how come you’re not there, Harlan?” Sandy asked.
“I’m fourteen, and finished eighth grade last year,” he said. “We only go to school eight years.”
“Learned all you need to know, I bet,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ve got a lot to learn yet,” Harlan answered, “Just like you.”
“You’re darn right she does,” Mom said. “You said your women were baking. Are you milling flour?”
“No, not yet,” Titus responded, “we still have a good supply. But with sharing our food with all the townsfolk that are helping us, it won’t last much longer. Some of the boys are trying to build a grinding mill.”
“So are we,” Larry retorted, “but it would sure be nicer if we could find one.”
“You mean one that’s operating?” Grandpop asked.
“I was thinking about an unused one,” Larry replied, “if there was one operating somewhere, then that would be even sweeter.”
“I’ll ask around in my travels,” Titus offered. “Wait a minute. On our way here, we passed an old mill near a golf course. Do you know where I mean?”
“Sure,” answered Harvey, “I know where you mean, and there’s one about three miles north of here, too. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Probably,” Titus said.
“You mean we should investigate them?” Larry wondered. “There could be an old grinding mill in good enough repair for us to use or fix. Or maybe it would work right where it is. They were both run by a waterwheel years ago. We might be able to get them operational.”
“We wouldn’t have to be the operators,” Dennis added. “Someone else could be set up there to handle that chore. Like some of the people migrating from the town or city.”
“Then we’d just have to take some of our wheat there every so often and bring back flour; like my grandparents did,” Poppop said.
“Either way, like Larry said, it’s worth investigating,” Josh said. “It might be easier than building our own from scratch.”
“Something we can do on a rainy day,” Harvey said. “When this weather turns dryer, we’ll be busy here. In your travels, Titus, have you discussed with anyone how they might be planning on putting hay away?”
“Got a couple of ideas,” Titus replied. “First, a few farms north of town have a lot of acreage in hay and only a few livestock to graze it. Been talking with one of them, Amos Adam. We’re already planning to shift our produce workers from town out there when he’s ready to harvest some. He’d also need to borrow a few of our teams to haul the hay to the barn. Last I talked to him he was rounding up scythes, sickles, rakes and forks. When I left him, he was in the shop, sharpening.”
“It’s a shame there aren’t any ground driven mowers around this area,” Harlan added. “Down where my family lived, many of our Amish neighbors still used them. Used teams to pull them, as well as rakes and tedders. If you were lucky, you might find some old ones in a fencerow, in the woods or on a junk pile that you could repair,” he said to Harvey. “Titus, are you going to mention Sam Burke’s idea?”
“That was the second idea I was thinking of,” Titus continued. “Sam Burke’s a neighbor of ours; has a pretty good machine shop. He’s trying to convert some of the power driven mowers we have to ground drive, so they can be operated by horses instead of tractors. It’s quite an undertaking. I’ll let you know how he makes out. If successful, he might be able to convert yours or at least give you the design.”
“Anything like that would be useful,” Harvey said. “You know, Titus, you’re doing a valuable service by gathering and sharing information as you travel about. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks, I’ll try,” he answered.
To be continued… is there more to Titus’ story? Mort
No comments:
Post a Comment