Curtis, part six

Following a breakfast of eggs and coffee, Mr. Curtis took the new Mrs. Curtis on a walking tour of his farm. First, he showed her the outhouse on the far corner of the back yard. While he continued his narration, he made her wait outside the door while he used it. Then he showed her the cornfields that were sprouting rows of new stalks. He was pleased to let her know that they grew much of their own feed. The silo was near the cow barn. He encouraged her to climb the ladder, so she could see how much grain he actually had stored. More than enough to last until the current crop came in, he boasted. Her stomach full and the warm sun making everything look fresh and new, Leta’s spirits had lifted after a particularly frustrating morning. She climbed the ladder with her husband right behind her.

She liked the feel of him behind her, and how he felt proud of his farm. He opened a small latch, and she peered in. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see the corn piled fairly high inside. But she didn’t want to look too long for fear of what else she might see.

“Looks good, don’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, “that’s a good amount of corn in there.”

“Sometimes I have enough that I can sell a bit to the neighbors,” he boasted.

Nearby was a garden of sorts. While it was late in the spring, the vegetables seemed to be having trouble starting.

“Needs weeded is all,” Curtis said. “But we got beans, tomaters, cabbages, carrots, ‘taters, squash and whatnot. There’s a strawberry patch right over there and raspberry bushes near the coop.”

As she had already been in the barn to milk the two cows, he didn’t take her there. It was just as well. Earlier she had defensively kicked a ferocious barn cat and believed she killed it. While she felt badly, she was only learning how precious the dozen or so feral cats that lived on the farm were to her husband. Before long, she would learn that each one had a name.

The coop, as he called it, was his pride and joy. It was a series of six sheds, each one large enough for a small person to comfortably fit inside. Each had a small door and a ramp into a yard. The yard was enclosed by a large wire fence, held up by wooden posts every eight feet or so. On one side was a small gate for persons to enter and exit. Wandering in and out of the coops and around the yard was a flock of chickens, cackling, clucking and scratching at the dirt.

“Got about 200 here,” Curtis said, sticking out his chest with his face beaming, “and they lay about 125 eggs a day. Over there in that corner is Grouser, the rooster. He helps me keep the cluckers in line.”

The rooster was standing proud and tall. From Leta’s view, it looked little rough around the edges, but if the hens laid 125 eggs a day, then it was doing its job.

“I’ve been meaning to add a second yard,” Curtis continued, “but ever since my Maddie died, it’s been pretty tough going for us.”

Leta already knew the story. Curtis’s first wife Madeline died six months earlier from a long battle with cancer. Losing her distressed him, and in Leta’s estimation, resulted in the state of disrepair of his home. But now she was here.

For the first time, Leta married to take care of someone else. This was a revised outlook on life for her, and once she finally decided to pursue it, she dedicated herself to it. She set a personal goal to lift the sadness that coated Curtis’s every move. She had no intention of replacing his wife. She realized that was something beyond her capability. But she could make her new husband’s life pleasant and lively, perhaps happy. She would neither overestimate nor underestimate her capability in this matter.

She put her arm around him.

During the few moments of her reverie, the hens had realized they were there and began to charge the fence, cluttering that corner of the yard with the volume of their clucking increasing anxiously.

“Grab a basket, Mrs. Curtis,” he said, pulling himself free of her near-embrace. “These birds are hungry.”

To be continued.

Curtis, part five

The barn was little more than an oversized shed, even more dilapidated than the shack of a house that was Leta’s new home. Her new husband had just walked her across the back yard, such as it was, opened the door and led her inside. She nearly gagged at the stench, a combination of cow manure and cat urine. A plethora of cats immediately greeted them, whining for food.

Leta hated cats. When she was a little girl spending time on her uncle John’s farm, one of her responsibilities was to guard the newly retrieved milk from the eager felines, while her aunt and cousins continued with the milking. Armed with a stick, she would have to continually keep the animals at bay, and more often than not, ended up being jumped on, scratched and even bitten. But she persevered and almost entirely kept the cats from getting their share off the top. The worst part for her was that once the milk had been separated, her aunt Betsy would send her back to the barn with a partial pail to pour into several saucers on a shelf. Again, the cats would charge her, and one in particular would run up her back, over her head and then leap into the fray, scattering the others to get first dibs of the treat. Just the thought of that horrible chore made Leta’s eyes fill with tears.

Years later, a fellow that was courting her older sister Nellie tried to give her a newly weaned kitten, and the offer sent the ten-year-old screaming from the room.

Now, in her husband’s barn, the memory grabbed hold of her, and she reflexively kicked at the cats.

“Don’t you feed these animals?” she demanded.

“Relax, Mrs. Curtis,” her husband said, as if he were teaching her something she didn’t know, “they’re just old barn cats. They won’t hurt you. They eat plenty.”

“Really?”

“They just know we’re here for the milking is all.”

The cows were definitely aching. Leta could hear their moaning in the small stalls. But just then one of the cats, a large tabby, dug into her leg viciously. Leta screamed in pain, raised her foot and kicked the cruel animal into the wall. It hit with a loud thunk and fell onto the ground. Both Leta and her husband looked to see if the creature would revive, but it failed to move.

“Oh dear,” Leta gasped. “Curtis, I—“

“—Come on,” he snapped, “we have milking to do. I’ll take care of that old rascal later.”

Two pails were hanging from hooks near the cow stalls, and a stool sat nearby. Curtis retrieved one of the pails and the stool and placed the stool near the udders of one of the cows. Then he wiped his hands on his pants and sat on one of the stools.

“Watch me,” he instructed, but Leta was still distracted by the motionless cat. “Watch me!” he snapped. Then he proceeded to demonstrate how to milk a cow, explaining what he did along the way. Leta let him prattle on. Once he had finished, he lifted the pail, patted the beast on her rump and then retrieved the chair.

“Good girl,” he said. “Feeling better?”

Then he turned to Leta and offered her the stool.

“Now, you do it.”

Leta absently accepted the stool, retrieved the second pail and sat beside the second cow. Her husband hovered behind her.

“Now, you just—“ he began, but Leta cut him off tersely.

“I know how to milk a cow, thank you very much.”

And she milked the second cow until the pail was full. Then she stood, lifted the pail with both hands and offered it to her husband.

“I need another pail,” she said.

“No, one pail’s enough,” he said.

“She’s got more in her. Give me another pail, please.”

He looked at her quizzically. “We never milk more than two pails’ worth.

“Well,” Leta said, “all I know is that I could get another pint out of her at least. All I need is a pail.”

“I don’t have another pail,” he admitted.

She looked at him incredulously.

“All right, then,” she said finally. “Take those back to the kitchen, empty one into one of the clean pots and bring the empty pail back.”

Leta waited, gently rubbing the rump of the cow. She realized that her headache had left her, at least temporarily, but she was growing hungry. It was nearly eleven in the morning, and she had not eaten since dinner the previous night.

Her husband returned and handed her the bucket. She sighed with disappointment when he handed it to her; he hadn’t even rinsed it out.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’ll fetch us some eggs while you do this,” he said and then disappeared.

Finishing her cow and returning to her husband’s, Leta was able to fill the bucket once again, and made a mental note to add two milking buckets to her shopping list.

To be continued.

Curtis, part four

"Smells good."

Leta was standing at the kitchen counter her hands in a small pot, scrubbing two coffee cups as much as she could without soap. The cups had been coated with a film of coffee and particles of food. The water was quite hot, which helped, and avoiding any possibility of a dishcloth in the melee of filth that was the kitchen of her new husband’s house, she reluctantly used her handkerchief. The lace had been crocheted by her daughter Vivian, and she felt quite sentimental toward it. Using the handkerchief and the throbbing in her head had soured her mood.

She turned toward the voice of her husband. They had married the previous afternoon, and celebrated well into the night before returning to his dilapidated house. They were both quite inebriated and immediately collapsed into bed. She awoke first and wanted to surprise her husband with breakfast. But the kitchen was mostly empty of food and hadn’t been cleaned in months, it seemed. However, she found coffee and sugar, and at least, that was all she needed.

Once they dressed, she would have him take her to a café for breakfast and then to the market, so she could purchase some groceries, soap and steel wool.

Curtis was standing in the doorway, fully dressed in raggedy work clothes. His shirt was stained and ripped in several places. More than one button was missing, and she could see a grimy undershirt. His pants had three holes that she could notice, and the hem of one leg was unraveling. Mismatched suspenders held together by safety pins kept his pants from falling, although his belly pushed the pants down.

“Good morning, wife!” he said cheerily.

She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. She adored his round, open face.

“Would you like coffee?” she asked. “It’s ready.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “But first, first, we need to milk the cows.”

Leta nearly dropped the coffee cup.

“What?”

“It’s all right,” he continued, “we only have two. And you need to learn how to do it. From now on, the milking will be your responsibility. Come on, though, it’s late. If you know anything about cows, you know they liked to be milked much earlier in the morning. I’m sure they’re fixing to burst.”

Instead of throwing the cup at her husband, she put it on the stove. A moment later, he was standing behind her, holding her by the elbow and guiding the other hand to put the coffee pot back on the stove.

“It’ll only take a few minutes. After breakfast, I’ll give you the full tour of the place, Mrs. Curtis. I’m sure you’re going to like it. You grew up on a farm, right?

She was clenching her teeth. While she had spent a lot of time on farms, she did not grow up on one, and she needed to make that very clear to her new husband.

To be continued.

Curtis, part three

Although she saw a well on a far corner of what appeared to be a kind of back yard, the kitchen sink did have its own pump. Once she cleared away far too many food encrusted, moldy dishes, Leta ran some water into the sink. It started brown and grew clearer as it rose from deep in the earth. She wet her hands and wiped her face, but mostly she was terribly thirsty. She cupped her hands and drank. The water tasted sweet with only a hint of iron and sulfur.

When she finished, she wiped away the drops and then looked into the cupboard. Her objective was coffee. A slight headache had begun, and she wanted to prevent it from increasing in intensity. She looked into the cabinets: two of five had doors missing, one had a door hanging by one small hinge, another was broken in half lengthwise, and two actually seemed to have fully functioning doors. The open cabinets were stacked with dirty dishes and glasses, and several serving bowls with used silverware was strewn everywhere. There was a couple of what appeared to be clean glasses, two bowls and one saucer in one of the closed cupboards. The other held a several cans of beans, two jars of home preserves, a tin of sugar, a half-full bottle of milk that she could smell from an arm’s length away and a brown bag of coffee. She found the coffee pot amidst several used pots and pans on the wood stove.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said aloud.

She transferred the pots, pans, utensils and dishes that had been left on the stove to the large tabletop. The table was large, looked hand-made and took up a large portion of the floor space in the kitchen. She loaded wood and kindling into the stove, and lit it with the match. The matches were easy to find amidst the haphazardly stacked wood, although the box had been slightly crushed. Once she was convinced that the fire would grow, she went back to the kitchen, ran the pump, rinsed the pot, which, surprisingly seemed clean, filled it with water and coffee, and put it on the now heating stove.

The kitchen was roughly the size of the living room, perhaps a little larger. The small assortment of broken cabinets was on the far wall with the stove alone on the wall to the left, the same side of the house as the living room fireplace. The door to the back was on that side of the house, as well. Rather than a modern refrigerator, the kitchen had an old icebox that was leaning against the opposite wall. At some point, the walls had been whitewashed, but where the paint hadn’t faded, it peeled, leaving large strips of wall exposed. The floor was cracked and stained wood subflooring that had several sticky spots and was littered with crumbs and other debris. An assortment of dirty dishes, pots and pans were scattered haphazardly everywhere.

“Yuck,” she said softly.

Still, she wanted her coffee, so she retrieved one of the larger pots from the large table with long benches on each side that was the centerpiece of the room, filled the pot with water, scrubbed it as well as she could with her hand, refilled it, and then put the full pot on the stove. While the coffee perked and the water in the pot heated, she cleaned a smaller pot the same way. Then she found two coffee cups and a couple of spoons among the dishes and soaked them in the water.

With all of the preparations underway, she sat on a bench at the table with her head in her hands. The encroaching headache had arrived in full, so she massaged her temples lightly while she waited for her coffee.

To be continued.