An American Harvest Page 5

  Dad thought we had better take half of them up and then come back for the others, for there was snow on the ground and it was pretty icy under the leaves. But it was already getting late—towards sundown—so we put all the spokes in the wagon. Then he took the reins and called to the horses to pull it out.

  As the horse on the upper side felt the load, he gave a jerk and threw the other horse off balance. Soon the wagon was skidding down backwards through the loose, wet, icy leaves toward a ten-foot-deep ravine, dragging the horses with it. All of a sudden, the wagon slammed up against a dogwood tree on the very edge of the ravine.

  Dad caught his breath, looked the situation over, and said, “Now, Arthur, that’s providence.” I said, “What’s providence?” He said, “Why that dogwood tree there, being exactly where it was needed.” I inquired whether it had been there all the time. He looked at it carefully, and then, with a glance toward me, said, “Oh, about thirty-five or forty years, I would guess.”

  JOHN:

  If I might point it out here, there are other types of providences. I think that Howard can recall being with me when we had three horses tied up in a yellow jackets’ nest once. That too was providence.

  ARTHUR:

  Go ahead: what happened?

  HOWARD:

  I hadn’t thought of that in a long time.

  JOHN:

  Well, I forget the details, but somehow or other we got a wagon wheel in the wrong place with reference to a tree, and so the wagon and the lead horse couldn’t go anywhere. Besides, there were two horses and another wagon behind it. Howard had gone out in the woods to cut a sapling to use for leverage and stepped into a yellow jackets’ nest. We had to stand there in this whirling bunch of jackets and unhitch the horses and get them out. It was great fun; I remember it well.

  LUTHER:

  Oh ho, glad I never came upon a mess like that; a heap of bee stings would make me sick on my stomach.

  CHAPTER 5

  Leave Evil Companions

  ARTHUR:

  Overall, religion had its conflicting influences on each of us. Its effect upon the community was also contradictory. It united the people into two opposing groups: the Moravians and the Methodists, who competed with one another for parishioners.

  The Moravians had their roots in a richer culture because of their ties to nearby Salem. They inherited a longstanding tradition of superior musical services and also were relatively innovative: they were the first to build Sunday School rooms, hold Bible Classes for the young, establish Ladies’ Aid Societies, and install heating and lighting systems in the church.

  The Methodists, more rural-minded, belatedly followed the Moravian lead in these matters and did so reluctantly, mainly for the purpose of attracting their share of the churchgoers. Methodists resented the ill-concealed feeling of superiority held by Moravians, and it was perhaps because of that resentment more than for any other factor that they grouped together in self-defense to develop greater solidarity.

  During our childhood, the people in the community lined up on opposing sides largely according to their church affiliation. Yet work exchange between families within a neighborhood, and often of different religious persuasion, brought folks together, fostered interdependence, and, by and large, moderated religious differences.

  HOWARD:

  Yes, and our parents, Mother being Moravian and Father being Methodist, helped in trying to bridge that gap. They provided us with the inspiration that I think has paid off many times over and over.

  LUTHER:

  I go along with that. They tried to live by those mottos we were made to copy down and commit to memory in the high school over at Enterprise. I have them in an old notebook here somewhere. They are sayings our parents set great store by, especially Mama. She’d recite some of ’em to us every once in a while when it seemed appropriate.

  Oh yes, here’s the list. Let me just run through ’em; children now-a-days don’t have to memorize such things:

  Hearken to Good Advice.

  Learn to Do Well.

  Be Always Learning.

  Do Wrong to None.

  Beware of Evil.

  Never Give Up.

  Always Be Prompt.

  Knowledge Is Power.

  Wisdom Is Strength.

  Idleness Leads to Vice.

  Be Cheerful.

  Do Your Best.

  You Can if You Will.

  Speak the Truth.

  No Lie Thrives.

  Dare to Do Right.

  Never Be Late.

  Obey Orders.

  Strive to Please.

  Time Is Money.

  Trust Is Noble.

  Learn to Wait.

  Be Polite.

  Never Be Idle.

  Don’t Be Proud.

  Strive to Do Right.

  Leave Evil Companions.

  Obey the Conscience.

  Now, I believe these sayings, not all, but some, maybe rubbed off on us. Anyway, these are the kinds of attitudes that reflect our parents’ belief in moral and ethical matters. For the most part they lived by them and tried to teach us to do the same.

  BLANCHE:

  I remember that list well. I think Mamma used it on me more than on the rest of you put together!

  Such aphorisms had not died out by the time I was born. To this day I remember, and sometimes repeat a motto or two my mom tried to live by—not as short and sweet as those listed by Luther, but meaningful nonetheless:

  If You Can’t Think of Anything Nice To Say About Somebody, Don’t Say Anything At All.

  Everybody’s Different—You Have To Accept Them As They Are.

  If You Have Something To Do, Just Do It.

  When You’re Done With It, Put It Away.

  Save Not Want Not.

  A Stitch In Time Saves Nine.

  ARTHUR:

  You remember that story our mother told about the missing hams? It says something about the ethics passed down to her.

  Her father Harrison Crouse noticed his hams were being taken from the smokehouse faster than he was putting them in. He knew somebody was stealing them, but he didn’t know who it was—until one night he saw a familiar wagon backed up to the smokehouse door.

  He ambled down and said, “Well, neighbor, thee appear to need these more than do I; now let me help thee load.” That took care of the stealing. In due time, that neighbor paid up the price of the meat and also made very sure that nobody else ever stole anything from Harrison Crouse again, for a man who would act that way—it’s hard to tell just what he’d do if he got mad.

  JOHN:

  There’s one time I got caught in the act I haven’t forgotten: As a teenager, I went out seeking adventure with some other boys who had a car. We drove considerably out of the neighborhood to someone’s patch of watermelons that was reputed to be exceptionally fine with succulent, just-ripe melons.

  We stopped and stole a few, and just as we were driving off we saw the owner standing by the side of the road with a shotgun under his arm. The other boys ducked their heads, but I didn’t have sense enough to. The farmer waited ‘til we’d driven down the road some distance and then let loose with his gun; some pellets struck the back of the car, but we were far enough away by then for them not to penetrate. The next day, word was all over our neighborhood that some boys were seen stealing watermelons. The victim didn’t know who they all were but one of them was one of Frank Raper’ s boys.

  They called me the “veteran” for some time thereafter.

  ARTHUR:

  I stole watermelons one night. Upon very insistent urging, I went with two other, much older boys who I’ll not name. We were on our way home from choir practice at Enterprise church. They insisted we get one of Frank Raper’s watermelons, that they were about ripe. I said, “Oh, no,” but I was a little fellow in my early teens, and they were grown men, so I went along.

  When we reached the patch they thumped around and found a watermelon, broke it open, and we ate it. Just t
hen one of the men, who was a very heavy drinker, pulled a bottle from his pocket. He sat there a little while, and he went into a harangue about Frank Raper, what kind of a man he was, and the things he was doing. Naturally enough Frank Raper’s standards and that man’s standards didn’t match at many a point.

  So by the time that evening was over—and I got away soon as I could—I learned another lesson: I didn’t want to be stealing watermelons, and, particularly, I didn’t want to be stealing them with the kind of people who did steal watermelons.

  Now such shenanigans seemed not particularly shocking to me. My brothers and I all knew about the money dish up on the second cupboard shelf next to the peanut butter jar. It had nickels, dimes, and quarters for paying the milkman who delivered every other day. I had a sweet tooth never satisfied by the measly earnings I made from serving at the occasional dinner parties my mom hosted. The dish tempted.

  I once stole ten cents, peddled to Lapham’s grocery store, one block down, two blocks over, and bought ten tootsie pops of all different flavors—orange, cherry, lemon, lime, grape— unwrapped the lime one, sniffed, and started sucking. As I bicycled home, a strong sense of guilt ascended at the corner of Couch and Broad Streets. I quickly unwrapped two or three more just to taste, then threw all ten away in the roadside gutter.

  A later confession made Mom laugh. She dismissed my sin by saying oldest brother Paul, at my age, had stolen a whole dollar’s worth of change, bought one hundred tootsie rolls, treated all his friends and, of course, got caught from the reports of other mothers. Our mom forgave us both.

  Blanche’s husband, Aubrey, who grew up near the Raper homestead, breaks in to tell of far more shocking happenings in Welcome at that time.

  AUBREY:

  I’ve been sittin’ here listenin’ to you folks for a right long spell, and right much of what you been talkin’ about is familiar to me since I grew up with y’all close by; but I’ll tell you folk what’s the truth: there were much worse things went on in some parts of that community than stealin’ watermelons. Why, you folks sound like the worst that could ‘a happened was snitchin’ peanuts and gettin’ pelted in your back-sides with shotgun fire. Hell, John, Arthur, don’t y’all remember those bully boys, the Bowles brothers?

  ARTHUR:

  Indeed I do, had a couple of near run-ins with them myself. Once when I was about eight, I saw one of ’em pick up a plank and stick it out crossways in front of a young boy coming down a steep icy hillside on a sled at lightening speed. I helped the boy who was hurt—not badly to his good fortune—but I was too little to dare do more than glare at the much bigger Bowles boy.

  Then another time when I was much older, about fifteen, I guess, I walked a girl home from a box supper at the schoolhouse. When we left the school, I saw a whole gang of boys, including the Bowles boys, who seemed suspiciously up to something.

  At any rate, when I left the girl—her name was Lona—at her house I did not follow the road but rather cut off across a field and an hour later walked into our house some three miles away. I later learned that the boys, about a half dozen of them, stayed at a bend of the road below Lona’s house until toward morning waiting to “rock me,”—yes, throw rocks at me—as I passed.

  I expected some retaliation, but none came, nor did I see Lona home alone at night again.

  AUBREY:

  Hell, man, they did much worse than that and caught hell for it too—got fifteen years in the penitentiary with damn little time off for good behavior. For a fact, my mother was a witness who helped convict them and their father too.

  ARTHUR:

  Is that so. I didn’t know that. Of course they lived over nearer to you. Well, tell us about it. What happened?

  AUBREY:

  I expect the crime happened after you’d gone away to college, Arthur.

  As I recollect it, it started when the two Bowles boys and their father went to go hunting on the Cramer land; the Cramers were near neighbors of ours. Old man Cramer heard them, saw them with their guns and all. The Bowles were much taken up with their guns and their hunting, usually on somebody else’s land. Cramer, who had little use for the Bowles anyway, ordered them off his land. There was a heap of argument and right much foul-mouthing with the upshot of it being that the Bowles left in a fair huff, with a real grudge on, you might say.

  A little later on, they bullied Cramer’s boy who was about thirteen or fourteen at the time, I’d guess. Cramer then, in retaliation, put out a “Peace Bond” on the Bowles boys.

  What’s a Peace Bond? someone asked. Aubrey explained: It’s a court order demanding deposit of a sum of money as guarantee that the perpetrator will not threaten another person. A violation would result in giving up the bond money and could lead to arrest.

  Well, the boys got so mad back at him they grabbed Cramer’s boy one day on his way home from school, dragged him into the woods, held him down, and castrated him with a pocket knife. They only got but one testicle, but that was bad enough.

  Of course the Bowles denied they’d done it, said they’d never been near the place where it happened. Even the father lied for them, said they’d been clear out of the neighborhood that day. Cramer took them all to court, and it was my mother’s testimony that helped convict them . . . She’d seen the older Bowles boy, Harold, driving by our house that day soon after the incident took place. The two boys got fifteen years apiece and the father, ten.

  LUTHER:

  That’s a right gory story, Aubrey. I’d heard something about it, second-, third-hand, so to speak, but I didn’t have the details as intimately as you. The Cramer boy recovered, I believe, grew up to father a family.

  AUBREY:

  He did, as I recall.

  Some of you Rapers must remember an even grimmer incident that took place a few years later on. Leastwise you ought to have heard tell about it from your daddy ’cause he did jury duty for this one. Of course Frank Raper was a man of few words, so he might not of spoken more’n a few words on it, but y’all must have heard snitches anyway.

  It was a damn bloody murder; Jake Schwartz got it in the head, not with an axe but a mattock. Jake was another neighbor of ours, and I’ll tell you what’s the truth, I saw him dead soon after the murder. I saw him, ‘cause I happened by the Schwartz’s farm that afternoon and saw a heap of wagons parked outside, along the road, over in the barn, around the house and all. I thought they were havin’ a picnic, so I crossed over into the yard thinking maybe I’d get invited in on it.

  I peeked through a front window, and nearly keeled over at the sight I saw. There was old man Schwartz prostrate in a pool of blood, stretched out peculiar like, with a mattock in his head, right by the fireplace in the parlor there—blood ran all the way across the fireplace and along the wall.

  They determined that his own son Joe had done it. It seems Joe wanted money to go to some special show that’d come to town. He didn’t have any himself. He asked his daddy for it—he knew his daddy had $200 stashed away. His daddy wouldn’t give him any. I guess the boy needed only about two bits, or four, maybe; might have wanted to take a girl to the show, I don’t know.

  Well then, the story goes Joe took a near brand new shovel from the tool shed and went over to the neighbor’s house to try and sell it and maybe get the money that way. The neighbor, Sid Moss, said he’d pay four dollars for it but didn’t have the money right then. So Joe went back home— must have stopped by the shed—put back the shovel, picked up the mattock, then went after his daddy with it in the parlor there. He found the money. Whether he ever went to the show or not, I can’t say. The fact is, they did catch up with him, sent him up to the state penitentiary for a thirty-year stretch, but he got out in ten.

  I’d known Aubrey for over fifteen years and never heard him tell a story like this before. I suppose equal horrors occurred in my hometown, but if they did, our parents never told us about it. The only thing this brings to mind is the time when (going back to the dish on the second cupboard shelf) I stole
four quarters to go to the carnival in town with the neighbors.

  I ran across the street to ask Mom if I could go and could she give me the money for it, but she wasn’t there, and this was a rare opportunity—the carnival would pack up and leave early next morning. Well, big brother Paul caught me at it. It’s the only time anyone laid a hand on me. He turned me over his knee and gave me the only spanking I ever experienced. I didn’t get to the carnival; I put the quarters back.

  As for death by violence, brother Luther told me he found blood on the front seat of our Franklin car one morning when he was a boy of eight. He asked Dad about it, and Dad said it came from an acquaintance, a merchant in town, who shot himself in the woods up the street when he learned he’d lost everything in the big stock market crash of 1929. Dad found him, tried to rescue him, but it was too late.

  ARTHUR:

  These are things, Aubrey, we didn’t know much about—very little in fact—but they did happen to take place along about the time we were growing up. And they were, unfortunately, a part of our community. As you say, I expect our father knew all about these events, but he more than likely didn’t want to let on to us children about them.

  How about some pleasanter thoughts. Ralph, can we depend on you to change the subject?

  CHAPTER 6

  Do Wrong to None

  RALPH:

  I remember the cool fresh water from the Cool Spur Spring

  Down in the woods about a quarter of a mile away

  And, on occasions

  When we could not rely on the well for water

  We went to the Spring

  And got the most delectable water I have ever tasted

  Dipping it right out of the Spring

  In which you could invariably see a frog, tadpole, salamander, or something.

  I remember the tree down in the draw by the barn