Thirty Acres, page 26
“Take a look at that, Ephrem; they’re working like real Moisans! They’re farmers all right, honest-to-goodness little Canucks!”
“Where did you get that swell watering-can?” Ephrem asked his son Patrick.
But the child looked at him without understanding.
“Hey, sonny! Where did you get that?” he repeated in English.
“He gave it to me.”
“Who?” his father insisted.
The child hesitated and then pointed at his grandfather.
“That man!”
But fortunately Euchariste didn’t understand.
The children’s enthusiasm soon died down; their mother saw to that. After she had scolded them a couple of times for coming into the house with muddy clothes, they stayed away from the yard and went back to their picture papers.
It was the end of May before a letter came from Etienne.
Marie-Louise still had a cough and was getting thin but wasn’t sick enough yet to need the doctor. Napoléon with his wife and two children had come back home from Quebec, where there wasn’t any work to be had. It was hard to find room for them all. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, either, because prices were away down. Still, Etienne was doing his best. He had bought some chemical fertilizer on the advice of the county agronomist.
Chemical fertilizer! As if the good Moisan land needed any of that poisonous stuff that just burned up the topsoil. A lot of good these chemical fertilizers did. He remembered the time Ti-Phonse Gélinas bought some – “patented” stuff at that – to fertilize a field of potatoes. Three years later you couldn’t grow anything in that field but water hemlock.
What else did he have to say?
“A government inspector came round and he said some of our hens was sick. He killed eighteen.”
That would happen! Instead of keeping quiet and sowing his hay Etienne had to call in “agronomists,” ignorant little squirts who think they can learn how to farm out of books. Euchariste remembered now: for the last three years Etienne had kept talking about “the agronomist they ought to get in,” “the agronomist they ought to consult.”
Well, one thing was clear anyway, things had got into a fine mess on the farm since he’d left!
He grumbled away to himself as he went on reading and turned the last page. “Regards to everybody, Etienne.”
And not a word about his money, his pension!
He looked up from the letter. Seated in an armchair near him was Elsie, darning socks and looking as if she had been reading over his shoulder.
For once he was glad she didn’t know enough French to question him. He got up, hesitated a moment, and then said: “Guess I’ll go and take a little walk before supper.”
She looked at him without answering.
He went up Jefferson Street from force of habit. In half an hour he was outside the town and on the other side of a knoll, which hid the place from him almost completely, so that only the factory chimneys showed like bare posts sticking up out of the ground. For once he had gone beyond the little maple wood without stopping. The country here was rather bare and sloped gently down towards a creek, invisible in the hollow below. On one side of the road rose a bank overgrown with bushes that had sprung up the year before and that May was just beginning to touch with green. On the other side, where the ground fell away, a score of junked car bodies lay piled together in a heap.
Obviously the news he had got from the farm wasn’t very good. Now he was away they weren’t doing any of the things they should have done and Etienne, egged on by that little runt of an agronomist who had never ploughed a furrow in his life, was doing all kinds of crazy things. Hadn’t he once suggested to him, Euchariste Moisan, who had been farming for fifty years, that he ought to give up raising hay, which is an easy crop because it just grows of its own accord, and go in for imported seed all the way from Europe, or some place like that? But as soon as he got home he’d straighten it all out….
Yes, but he’d “given” himself! From now on what could he do or say, supposing Etienne decided to put his own notions into effect? What if one fine day he made up his mind to harness the land and boss it instead of allowing it to lead him along to a comfortable and restful old age?
The mewing cry of a catbird from close at hand brought him back to earth. The road had led him into unknown territory, beyond the places he usually visited on his walks. Without noticing it he had crossed over into another valley.
The creek had broadened out and was almost beginning to look like a river; its banks were overgrown with reeds which caught and held long rainbow streaks of oil. There was a field over on the left and in the field a man harrowing. He happened to be down at the other end and was coming towards Euchariste, with his horse pulling sideways on his collar.
Euchariste stopped dead. The furrows stretched out in front of him in parallel rows.
“There’s a fellow don’t know much about ploughing,” he said to himself.
To begin with, the furrows weren’t straight and they ran slanting across the sloping of this low-lying, badly drained patch of ground. Besides, the sets of furrows were too wide. All this annoyed him.
The man was quite close now and was just about to turn; he stopped a moment and Euchariste felt sure he was going to say something to him, something like: “Well, you look as if you knew a thing or two about farming!”
But the man merely yelled something at his horse, turned his back, and set off in the other direction.
Euchariste looked at the harrow. It wasn’t like the ones they used in Quebec; the teeth slanted backward. Why should that be?
A horn tooted and there was a screech of brakes. A car pulled up just beside him.
“For God’s sake! If it ain’t old man Moisan. What are you doing out this way? Did you get lost?”
“Why no, not exactly. I was taking a walk.”
“Well, well. Hop in. I’ll drive you back.”
Euchariste hesitated a moment and then got in beside Mr. Dagenais.
When he got home he found Ephrem was already there, though it wasn’t yet five o’clock.
“You’re through early today. You don’t seem to have to work so very hard in that shop of yours.”
He was quite proud of knowing and being able to use an English word like “shop.”
But Ephrem looked rather preoccupied.
“They told us today orders was a bit slack; we’re going to have to loaf two days a week for a while. They’ve even fired a few.”
“There’s no danger that you … that you’ll …,” Euchariste asked anxiously.
“Hell, no! No danger at all. I’ve been working for that outfit for six years. Besides, things won’t be this way long.”
The following Tuesday, which was one of his days off, Ephrem was very insistent on their going for a drive together.
“Shall we take the kids along too?”
“Not today. I’ve got to go to North Burma; it’s twenty miles from here. Won’t take long.”
They started off. Ephrem obviously had something he wanted to say to his father, sitting there beside him, and found it hard to get it out. Finally he made up his mind.
“Had any news from Canada, Pa?”
Euchariste braced himself against the back of the seat but said nothing.
“What … what did they have to say for themselves?”
Euchariste began to reel off the list of petty local happenings. He spoke slowly and made the most of each bit of news, pausing every now and then to give full details about people and places.
“Sure, sure, I know,” Ephrem interrupted. “Anything else?”
At last Euchariste found he had nothing more to say. He sat waiting for the questions he knew were bound to come.
Ephrem showed his nervous tension by driving along at sixty miles an hour.
“So they wrote you a letter, did they?”
“Why, yes. Didn’t I tell you?”
“No, you didn’t…. Listen, Pa …”
He couldn’t finish what he was going to say, as they had to thread their way through a block in the traffic. There was an automobile toppled over on its side in the ditch and the stream of cars eddied round it like water that had suddenly been dammed up.
“Looks like a real accident,” said Euchariste.
“Oh! That’s nothing … Listen, Pa, you’ve been with us for pretty near three months now. I’m glad to have you, but you know I’m not getting much work right now. They’ve cut our pay.”
Euchariste tried to change the subject again.
“Why? Ain’t things going so well in the States?”
“Hell! That’s not it. The country’s too darn well organized for that. Best in the world. But some of those other countries are jealous and they don’t pay their debts and it seems they want to put their tariffs up. Anyway, we’re kind of hard up right now.”
“Yeah! … Would you sooner … I went home?”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’d like you to stay on a while. But …”
There was no need for him to be more specific, Euchariste understood.
They had left White Falls and its outskirts far behind them. But every seven or eight miles the highway they were following ran through a smaller replica of the place they had come from. First there would be a wide street lined with fine-looking elms and houses set pleasantly in their own grounds. Then suddenly the trees and lawns and houses disappeared; lines of shops closed in on either side. There was first one, then two, then four, then ten filling-stations with garishly painted roofs.
Then came the detached houses again, surrounded by lawns. And the road plunged back into the country until it got to the next town.
But Euchariste didn’t see anything of this. He kept his mouth tightly closed and said nothing. He wanted, at all costs, to keep from pouring out the tale of his misfortunes and his humiliation. If he once started to talk and to explain that he hadn’t received his pension money, he would be swept along and would have to tell the whole story: all about his lawsuit and Phydime and the fire and the absconding notary and his own surrender to his eldest son.
And as they drove along through scattered villages, up hill and down dale, his mind followed along the road that ran through his own life and paused at its stations of the cross. He tried to imagine what going home would be like, home to Etienne, now lord and master of the farm, with Phydime cock of the walk and all those who had respected him when he was rich and who would despise him now he was so no longer. It would mean going home to a farm that didn’t belong to him any more and where he would count for nothing.
It made him forget the gentle friendliness of the earth and the skies of his homeland, its soothing peacefulness for those who are born there.
And he suddenly felt he hadn’t the courage to face it.
Later perhaps, in a few weeks, or a month or two, but not now.
“Do you know, Ephrem, I’d just as soon stay down here a while longer. Maybe you could find me a job. It would give Etienne time to get things straightened out.”
“Yeah, Pa, it ain’t much fun sitting around doing nothing.”
Ephrem was referring to himself, for, though it was a weekday afternoon, the factory was closed. But his father thought the remark was meant for him.
“Yeah! … It ain’t much fun.”
And when Ephrem didn’t answer he went on: “It ain’t that I don’t want to work. The land round here don’t look so bad. I’ve noticed that when I was out walking. I’m pretty sure a fellow like me who knows how to farm could get some kind of work to do. It wouldn’t be so lonesome … and it would keep me busy till I go back home.”
The two were sitting on the front steps, the old man smoking his pipe and his son a cigarette, as they enjoyed the soft fragrant air of early summer.
“Anyway, what I’d earn would be mostly for you folks. I don’t need it.”
That’s what Ephrem thought too. His father must have quite a little pile salted away, up in Canada.
It might be worth their while to have the old man stay on with them. Yes, indeed: the farm for Etienne and the money for him. Share and share alike. All he’d have to do would be to make Elsie understand …
“Well, Pa, it ain’t that I don’t want you to stay on. But it costs plenty to keep the house going. Money! Money! There’s the kids too. It ain’t like on a farm. On a farm, if you want vegetables you can just go out and dig them in the garden. If you want meat, you can do your own butchering. And for clothes you can wear the same coat for years. The boys can go round bare-foot too; they like it better that way.”
“Well, I’ll be darned! Ti-Phrem, I bet you’d be glad to get back to the farm. You can’t get the old Moisan place out of your system.”
“Me? Hell, no!”
But he went on in a gentler tone of voice and tried not to show his feeling of superiority too much.
“I belong down here now; I’m an American citizen. You can have a swell time in the States: If I was up in Canada now, I wouldn’t get a job where I could have a house like this and a car.”
A robin with puffed-up breast and watchful eye, looking as pompous as a notary, was hopping about on the new grass on the lawn.
Ephrem threw a piece of twig at him.
“Maybe I could speak to John Corrigan about you.”
“John … who?”
“Corrigan. He’s the big Democratic boss. A pal of mine.”
“Fine!”
It was about this time that Euchariste, to his surprise, noticed that Elsie was becoming gentler and rather more amiable towards him. She even managed to recall a few words of French and condescended to ask him to do little favours for her. He was only too pleased to run her errands.
One Wednesday afternoon, when Ephrem was at the factory and the children had gone out with Grandfather Phillimore, Elsie came and asked him quite nicely to take back some knitting that one of her friends had forgotten.
“It’s quite a ways,” she said apologetically.
“That don’t matter. I’ll be glad to, Mrs. Moisan.”
He could never bring himself to call her anything else.
She gave him a scrap of paper with the address: 428 Revere Street. It would take him the whole afternoon to get there and back. It was at the other end of town, near the Catholic cemetery which he had visited on one or two occasions.
But it was nice weather. The sun, which was climbing higher and higher every day, bathed his skin in a warm balm and went right to the marrow of his bones to dispel the last shivers of winter. Euchariste walked along slowly, a little troubled by that sluggish feeling which, for some time past, he had felt after his mid-day meal.
As usual, Jefferson Street took him to Central Square. When he got there he wanted to take his bearings and put his hand in his pocket for the scrap of paper. It was gone. The darn thing must have fallen out a little way back when he took out his pipe. The only thing to do was to go back to the house, which fortunately wasn’t far. He rang the bell.
For quite a time there was no answer. Perhaps Elsie had gone out! Then came the sound of muffled footsteps. Then silence again. He was beginning to give up hope when Elsie opened the door cautiously; she seemed out of breath and rather cross.
“Well! What is it?”
He explained with rather a hang-dog air.
“All right. Wait a second. I’ll give you another.”
She went to the desk in the living-room and without saying a word, started scribbling rapidly. Then, just as she was getting up, came the sound of a man’s voice.
“Is he gone, honey?”
“Hullo, you’ve got company, have you?”
Just then a broad-shouldered man in shirt sleeves, who seemed very much at home, strode into the room.
Moisan was too surprised to notice Elsie’s dismay. And before he had time to turn and look at her she pulled herself together.
“Of course, this is … it’s Mr. Corrigan. He just dropped in about that job for you…. Mr. Corrigan, meet my father-in-law.”
The big man, quite unperturbed, almost wrenched Euchariste’s arm from its socket and then exchanged a few remarks in English with Elsie.
“Well, Mr. Moisan, Mr. Corrigan just came to say he had a job for you.”
Euchariste felt self-conscious and, after struggling in vain for words to thank him, took himself off.
That evening Elsie watched for her husband’s return to tell him the news. She explained things to Ephrem at some length until he finally exclaimed: “You’re real lucky, Pa. Corrigan took the trouble to come here and tell us he had a job for you. He wouldn’t do that for just anybody.”
Probably because old Moisan was at last going to work Elsie was quite affectionate to her father-in-law in the days that followed. Whenever she saw him settle down to have a talk with Ephrem she came and sat between them.
A week went by and then another and finally one day – “Good news, Pa. I seen Corrigan today. You’ll be starting work soon. He’s found you a job.”
“Is that so?”
But Euchariste’s voice was lacking in enthusiasm.
“Sure, a soft job; a dandy.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to be night watchman in the city garage.”
“Oh! In the garage?”
“Why, sure. All you’ll have to do will be to loaf around and smoke your pipe.”
Euchariste didn’t answer right away.
Now that it was to happen so soon, almost at once, Euchariste felt frightened rather than pleased. When he had talked about working he hadn’t really been serious; and, in any case, working, as far as he was concerned, meant farming – working the land. It meant guiding the horses across the sun-drenched fields with a train of birds swooping down onto the freshly turned furrows to look for worms.
And now he was beginning to feel very alarmed. It seemed to him that his fate hung in the balance and that the scales were weighted inexorably against his future happiness.
He had never belonged to anybody or anything except the land and even then it was to a restricted thirty-acre strip, which had been his whole world and his whole existence, and now he was to take orders from another man, from a boss, just like a clerk in a store. An ill-advised trip had brought him to this foreign country; a rash word had delivered him over, bound hand and foot, to a lot of foreigners and, worse, to people who had no use for the land, who only knew about business – money, trade, all the city things. A fissure had suddenly opened in the smooth even surface of his life. He was going to betray his calling just like the others.
