1
On a steel-cold January morning with the frozen lake booming and
the wind whining along the telephone wires--a morning so cold
that the pump in the kitchen was frozen and three inches of ice
capped the stock tanks--the Brailsfords rolled out at four to begin
butchering. They left the deep warmth of their feather-beds, came
down the narrow, precipitous back stairs worn in hollows by years
of weary feet.
Early Ann thawed the pump with hot water from the tea kettle; Sarah
started the oatmeal, ham and eggs, toast and coffee. Gus scratched
a peep-hole in the hoar frost on the window pane and looked out
into the ten-below moonlight.
"It's a cold day to butcher," Sarah said. "Mightn't we wait a few
days, Stanley?"
"Hank Vetter says he ain't got a pork chop left in his shop."
"I suppose if we must, we must."
The men pulled on arctics, wrapped red mufflers about their necks,
drew on their worn dogskin coats and fur caps, and taking milk
pails and lanterns went out to the barns. They had no time this
morning to carry water for the stock. They chopped holes in the ice
on the tanks; drove the animals out to drink. The water froze as it
streamed from the beasts' lips. Breath froze in white clouds about
the horses' nostrils. The great bull, led by the nose, bellowed and
snorted in the lantern light. The horses' hooves rang on the frozen
mud of the barnyard.
"It's a rip snorter today," said Stud, coming in from the barns. He
warmed his hands over the roaring stove.
Sarah dipped him hot water from the reservoir and poured it into
the wash basin. She hung his coat toward the fire to keep it warm,
and hastened to serve the breakfast. While they ate they argued
the all-important problem of which animals were to die; and by
five-thirty they were ready to begin the day's work.
Sarah, steeling herself for the ordeal; Early Ann, who pretended
she did not mind slaughtering; Gus, who had a sentimental fondness
for every animal on the place; and Stud, for whom this day was the
climax of the hog-raising season, trooped down the hill to the
slaughter house, started a fire in the stove, and carried water to
fill the great iron kettle just outside the slaughter house door.
Stud began whetting his knives on his butcher's steel, making a
sound which cut through Sarah's flesh like a blade. He liked to
whet knives. And he could not deny it, he liked to slaughter.
He had the finest butchering equipment of any farmer on Lake
Koshkonong. Sticking, boning, and skinning knives in their
rack--the steel blades and brass studs in the rosewood handles
gleaming in the lantern light; the biggest butchering kettle in the
township; the best pair of hand-wrought gambrels, hung from the
finest reel on the strongest hickory axle.
Some farmers still carried away the blood in buckets, but
Brailsford had built himself a slanting trough. His heavy cleavers
with their hickory handles, his meat saws, hog hooks, scrapers,
chopping block and sausage machine were the best that money could
buy.
As always, Sarah felt an agony which she would not show. She
could not understand that quality in Stanley which made him enjoy
killing,--enjoy going out at night to knock the sparrows out of
their nests in the straw to wring the necks of the drowsy, blinded
birds. At haying time, too, he was careless of the rabbits and
half-grown quail as he drove his mower through the timothy and
clover. Sometimes when she lay beside him at night she thought of
his God-like power to give life and to take it away.
Sarah's job on the farm was to feed, nurse and tenderly raise. She
supposed that Stud must kill. And yet it frightened her to think
that she and her family were no more secure from death than these
animals. When the time came God would take them all as easily and
with as little ceremony.
"Go get the hogs," Stud shouted to Gus. "And, Early Ann, you start
the fire under the kettle."
Out of their warm hog house the pigs and sows were driven by
the hired man's boots. They were herded across the pig yard,
littered with thousands of corn cobs from the tons of corn they
had eaten. They went in a complaining, squealing drove past the
soul-satisfying mudholes (now frozen) where they had wallowed
during the summer. They grunted and clambered over one another as
they were shunted into the slaughter house.
Early Ann, meanwhile, was starting the great fire of hickory and
oak under the black iron kettle mounted on its tripod. The red
and yellow flames licked up around the kettle, made a scene in the
darkness which might have accompanied an early witchburning on
the wind-swept New England shore. Sarah was singing a hymn as she
cleaned the sausage machine:
"_Sweet the Sabbath morning,
Cool and bright returning...._"
Then:
"_The lovely spring has come at last;
The rain is o'er, the winter past...._"
"Bring them on," cried Stud. He stripped off his mittens, picked up
the big sledge, spit on his hands and rubbed them on the smooth,
yellow hickory handle. He tested his strength with a couple of
preparatory swings, striking the sledge against the base of the
twelve-by-twelve hickory upright in the center of the building. His
blows shook the roof.
"Send me a big one, Gus."
The squealing of the pigs had by this time become terrific. The
crackle of the flames in the fire under the kettle, the thud of
Stanley's sledge, the shouts of Gus herding the pigs, the sweet,
clear notes of Sarah's singing filled the great, old building.
"Send me a big one, Gus. We'd better get going. It's lighting up in
the east."
Just as the edge of the sun appeared, sparkling like red fire
across five miles of frozen lake, Gus lifted the narrow sliding
door and booted a sow through the opening. "Crack, crack" went the
big sledge on the sow's skull. The pigs screamed and plunged about
in their pens. Quickly, now, they hooked the gambrels through the
tenons of her hind legs, heaved and sweat on the big pulley, lifted
the sow clear of the floor and snubbed the rope around a post. Stud
reached for his sticking knife, slit the sow's throat; the blood
poured into the trough beneath. There were horrid sounds of breath
gurgling through the slit throat.
All day they labored. They slaughtered six hogs and two young
steers, cleaned sausage casings, ground and stuffed sausage, coiled
it in tubs carefully. They scalded pigs and scraped them white and
smooth, then hung them up to freeze. They set aside a pail of blood
for blood pudding and blood gravy.
Stud sweat like a draft horse despite the chill of the building.
His big muscles worked like fine, heavy machinery. He was as happy
as a lark until they drove Ulysses S. Grant into the slaughtering
pen. Then his heart misgave him.
Ulysses, whom he had raised and tended so carefully. Ulysses whom
he had displayed so proudly at fair after fair. The great boar
whom he loved and hated, pampered and fought. But it could not be
helped. His breeding days were over. He was fierce and dangerous. A
menace to have about the farm. Ulysses Jr. would have to take his
place.
The boar's eyes gleamed wickedly as he stood with feet apart,
waiting. He smelled the blood, but he did not scream. He was ready
for his last fight and unafraid.
Stud trembled as he spit on his hands and picked up the heavy mall.
"Let him come, Gus. Get out of the way, girls."
He raised the sledge high above his head and brought it down with
every ounce of his strength squarely between the animal's eyes.
Then he dropped the sledge to the ground and cried like a baby.
2
Stud Brailsford paced the house like a caged bear. The family was
snowbound, and the enforced idleness made the big man restless and
moody.
For three days the snow had fallen burdening the trees, drifting
three feet deep against the parlor windows, making it necessary
to light the lamps at two each afternoon. Day and night the wind
and snow poured in torrents down the Rock River valley, lifted in
hissing spirals to strike against the house.
Stud had tried reading. He had mended and oiled harness, shucked
corn, shoveled snow for hours every day. He had played a dozen
games of checkers with the hired man. Still he was restless.
Coming upon Early Ann in the back pantry he pulled her roughly to
him and kissed her full on the mouth. She broke away but she did
not cry out. She looked at him bewildered, hurt, and tearful.
Stud was ashamed. He hung his head and went through into the
kitchen where Sarah helped him off with his boots and put on his
slippers. He knew now what was troubling him. He lay on the sofa
with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, but in reality thinking
of Early Ann.
What a picture the girl was, her eyes bright and cheeks glowing!
Stud liked to watch her churning the cream (which they could not
deliver because of the blizzard). He liked to watch her poring over
the geography book to learn the state capitals and the principal
rivers of the United States. Her fingers flew deftly as she tatted
a yoke for a fancy nightgown. Stud wished he were still in his
twenties.
As Stud lay brooding on the sofa, Gus burst in with the exciting
news that the mailman had broken through and had brought the new
mail-order catalogue. Nothing short of this miracle could have
brightened the sad day for Stanley.
The new Sears Roebuck catalogue! It was a gala event. Let the snow
drift, stars fall, or nations vanish. The Brailsfords did not care.
They gathered around Stud who hastily tore the wrapping from "The
Farmer's Bible" and opened it on the kitchen table.
Stanley, as always, turned to the buggies, wagons and harnesses.
He had a Ford, it was true, but his first love had been the buggy.
He sighed deeply as he viewed the spanking new surreys, phaëtons,
runabouts, Concords and buckboards. He especially coveted buggy
number 11R720, a veritable dream in buggy manufacture illustrated
in full color. This swank creation, which the catalogue disclosed
had been especially designed for eastern customers, had drop axles,
green cloth cushions, triple-braced shaft, and flashing red wheels.
Even as steamboat captains must sometimes dream of smart clipper
ships, so Stud Brailsford, owner of a Ford, exclaimed aloud over
this beautiful mail order buggy--1914 model.
He decided that his stallion, who had recently had a touch of
colic, needed more exercise, and within ten minutes had filled out
an order for a skeleton road cart of sturdy design. He lingered
over the new cream separators, bright red gasoline engines,
ornamental fences, milk cans, lanterns, and one of the most
inspiring manure spreaders which ever spread manure. The 1914
catalogue was epochal in the life of this big farmer.
When Sarah and Early Ann were given a chance to look between
the covers they devoured the sections on clothes, jewelry,
silverware and kitchen equipment. With dreaming eyes they
caressed the lavallières engraved with roses, doves, and hearts;
the real diamond rings flashing blue fire; the Parisian toilet
sets elaborately hand-painted, monogrammed, and including two
sizes of what were politely known as combinets. Perfumes, soaps,
conch shells, and "high-class, hand-painted pictures inset with
mother-of-pearl" transported them to fairy land.
Their senses starved with drab reality, they viewed with hungry
eyes hats dangling red cherries, grapes, stuffed birds and ostrich
plumes. They lusted for the dainty nightgowns, embroidered
underwear, stylish coats and dresses, rococo silver, and exotic
wall paper they might never own.
"I sure do wish I had one of them blue enamel coal-oil stoves,"
said Sarah. "It'd be a real blessing in hot weather."
"I'll make out the order right now," Stanley said, remembering
guiltily how he had kissed Early Ann in the back pantry.
"You're too good to me, Stanley, I don't deserve it."
Early Ann said she was going to buy herself a pair of navy blue
high-button velvet shoes with flexible cushion soles. They could be
had for two dollars and twenty-five cents, only a quarter more than
it would cost to buy a sensible pair.
"And I'm going to get the family a sugarbowl-with-teaspoon-rack for
the center of the table, and some new sheet music for the organ."
"You save your money, young lady," Stanley warned.
Personally Gus wished he had a bulldog so that he might buy dog
collar 6R6268, ablaze with brass and imitation topaz. Then with a
college-shaped meerschaum pipe, a cane, a green suit and yellow
gloves he would go calling upon the new school teacher. If that
didn't impress her he didn't know what would.
When no one else was around he hastily turned to the section
displaying corsets and women's underwear. He had never seen
anything like it. Montgomery Ward's didn't have half as many big,
blooming girls in lace-trimmed drawers, union suits, princess
slips, corsets, and corset covers. He had never seen so many
stylish stouts with blossoming cheeks and magnificent buttocks. The
moment he dared he would carefully cut out whole pages of those
colorful girls, particularly the smiling matron whose union suit
was described as "snug fitting with flaring umbrella bottom."
"Gee," said Gus, "I'd like to have one of everything in this
catalogue."
Life could be lived in those days, as it can now, without stepping
off the farm for so much as a length of ribbon. You could "laugh
yourself to death" for fourteen cents by perusing "On a Slow Train
Through Arkansas," "Through New Hampshire on a Buckboard," or
"I'm From Texas, You Can't Steer Me." You could buy--and still
can--hay forks, Wilton carpets adorned with large red roses, slide
trombones, butter paddles, post card albums, cylinder records, or
magic lanterns for a relatively trifling sum.
And never before in the history of civilization was seen such a
display of hammocks, guns, cuckoo clocks, home remedies, feather
dusters, folding tubs, bust forms, pacifiers, bed pans, trusses,
windmills, lard presses, hornless talking machines and morris
chairs. Ben Hur's famous chariot race enlivened a full page in
color, while the devout could purchase the Bible for as little as
sixty-three cents.
They did not care if the storm was raging outside. They did not
care that they were snowbound. They were living in the romantic
world of the mail order catalogue where they were all as rich as
kings, where every woman wore a beautiful new dress and every man
was handsome and stylish, where there were bonbons and books and
beautiful buggies.
"Well, now that we've got the new catalogue, we know where we can
put the old one," said Gus, winking at Stud.
Sarah blushed and Early Ann giggled.
On the stairs that night, Stanley again caught Early Ann and kissed
her. The girl fought silently but furiously to free herself, and it
was during the struggle that Sarah came upon them.
Stud's wife was suddenly overborne with her age, her fragility,
and her helplessness. For a moment she was jealous, angry with
them both, and bitter. The following moment she was thinking of
Stanley and wondering if he weren't entitled to be faithless just
once in his life. Sarah felt that she would be the last person in
the world to keep another from happiness. Then she remembered Early
Ann, and she was afraid for the girl as though she had been her own
daughter. Heartsick, frightened, but determined to face the issue;
lost, bewildered, so in love with Stanley that it hurt her in the
pit of her stomach,--Sarah, in that long moment before she spoke
experienced half a life-time of sorrow, and the despair of millions
of women of her age, standing in lamplight on the worn stairs,
looking a little older.
"You might at least think of Early Ann," she said.