Runaway

For Father's Day

"A man is the origin of his actions."
                                       Aristotle

Steve didn't talk much at first, but as time went on and we spent more time in class and shop sessions together, he began to open up and I began to learn more. 

He was somewhat overweight, 185 on a 5' 6" frame, wanted to play football, but said his mother wouldn't hear of it.  Practice was after school and the bus left promptly at the end of the school day and, besides he was needed at home to help with the crops and the evening chores.  End of discussion.

Good student, but not an overachiever.  His closest sibling, a brother, had evidently been a star student in the same school some ten years earlier.  Most of the current teachers had been there much longer and they all remembered.."'You as smart as your brother?" was a common question, to which there seemed to be no good answer, he seemed to feel that A's were possible, B's were OK, and C's were dangerous ground.  He seemed to always be looking for the simplest and easiest way to handle any problem, and could clear up for me almost any math problem that I might be hung up on.  Good in shop, but obviously unfamiliar with any of the larger pieces of equipment like table saws, planers and edgers, welders, etc.

Steve's parents owned a small farm three or four miles west of town and still used horses or mules when most farmers in the area were more mechanized, with one or more tractors.  His father, had grown up in a large family back in the hills, worked as a farm hand in Missouri, and, after military service in WWI and marriage, sharecropped in the fertile land of the Missouri bootheel cotton country.  His grandfather, Frank, had been an accomplished carpenter and bricklayer who spent a lot of time away from home. There were indications that he had lived and worked on the river in his early years. The mother had died before age 30, after bearing nine or ten children, only six of whom survived to adulthood.  The only remaining clue to the great-grandfather's skills was found in the tombstones of a family graveyard in southern Illinois, where all the names and dates of the younger children are neatly and carefully carved on the stones.  Except Levi's, which has crude characters and irregular spelling.

Steve's mother, Lela Mae, or just Lee, was in her mid thirties when Steve was born in the middle of the Great Depression.  His maternal grandfather had gone west in the late 1800's into Oklahoma, married a Texas  girl and fathered nine children, of whom Lela was the last, and, although her mother had died shortly after her birth, amazingly for the times, none of the children perished.  Unable to manage his large family on his own, their dad brought the family back to his home state of Missouri in the early 1900"s, where the older ones married, found work of some kind or joined the military.  Friction between the teenage girls and their stepmother led to their being placed in the more affluent homes in town as live-in domestic help.  Steve's mother was one of these, where she learned a little of household management and began to earn spending money.  Unfortunately, schooling was not an important item; she only went as far as the fourth grade.  In this context, she met a handsome young farm hand, five years her senior and just back from France, who knew there was money to be made in the cotton fields.  They were married, scrounged up some essential furniture items and found a place further south in the bootheel where they could start.  The house was cramped and fatigued, but it was good land and profitable even after the owner took his share.

The crops were good in spite of the sandstorms, their first child was soon born, followed by two more in the quick succession.  Cotton was high and times were good.  Special things were added to their possessions.  New farming equipment, plows and cultivators, a radio and phonograph for the house, and after an exceptional harvest, a brand new Ford Model T.

Things began to change.  The oldest, a girl, contracted some childhood disease and died, just short of her second birthday, bringing on depression for both parents.  Henry occasionally came home late from taking a load of cotton to be ginned and sold.  He complained of a long line at the gin, and the smell of alcohol lurked somewhere behind the mask of his Old North State hand rolled cigarettes.  On at least one occasion, which he could not remember, he had unsuccessfully taken on a man who stood a foot taller and outweighed him by at least 50 pounds. The honeymoon was over.  Lela decided it was time to take a hand in things. The blood of her Puritan and Huguenot ancestors (whom she never knew about) came to the fore.  She began her crusade.

She encouraged her husband's vague dreams of owning his own place, she argued that the good times would not last, that they should quit the sharecropping scene while they were at the top of their game and they should have a place of their own that could not be taken away suddenly as could the land they now farmed. They needed more living space for the bigger family.  She was persistent, she was strong and she was vocal, so they located an eighty acre farm in the Arkansas hills.  It was time to move. 

They contracted for the place, trading their new car in the bargain, took a mortgage and moved.  They would not own another motorcar for almost twenty years. The fact that the new home was located in a community dominated by a small, fundamentalist Baptist congregation, was an added bonus.  Playing cards, dancing, etc. were forbidden, and, the consumption of alcohol in any form was heartily condemned.  The Communion cup held only grape juice.  It was a dry county.  Praise be! 

It worked.  There is no evidence that Henry ever had another drink as long as he lived there.  They fit in well and were quickly accepted.  The land, only about half of which was tillable, was reasonable fertile.  They struggled with the mortgage, able to pay only the interest during the worst years of the Great Depression, but with her encouragement, he joined and helped raise the church from the brush arbor in which it began and rose to become a Deacon in the church and a member of the School Board. 

Church meetings were held for preaching on Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Wednesday evening prayer service and Sunday morning "Sunday School" completed the agenda, subject, of course to the availability of ministers and funds with which to pay them.  Meetins were held, with or without preaching.  It was a bonus for the adults if there was preaching,and a bonus for the kids if there was not. Revivals were held every summer when the crops were "laid by" with morning and evening preaching for two solid weeks.  In the interests of saving their young souls, the children were marched from the one-room school next door to every morning service during revivals.  (School was two months in the summer and five in the winter, coinciding with the slack farming seasons, and the children were needed in the fields.)  There was not much time for other entertainment, had it even been available.  There were movie theaters in town, but movies were sinful.  It was rumored that there were bootleggers in town also, but they never came to Cache Valley.  (no business there).  The nearest bar/saloon/liquor store was thirty or forty miles away.  Few were prosperous enough to own an automobile until the effects of the Depression began to recede and those who did were occasionally involved in late night accidents on the two-lane country roads up near the state line.  Clay county was quite dry.

Revival meetings were held at neighboring churches, established and/or formative, all hoping to draw the faithful from neighboring congregations to bolster attendance.  There always seemed to be a considerable backlog of sinners to be saved, and the number of the converted and the contents of the collection plate, would hopefully grow as the membership rolls increased.  It was a time of labor intensive farming and large families that provided a new crop of children in their teens each summer.  The reputation of most of the visiting revivalists was known, and, if not known was advertised and perhaps slanted in an effort to draw more attendees.  All this by word of mouth.

During the summer hiatus, word came that the revival being held at a one-room school house well back in the hills to the South, was in session with a fantastic preacher and many souls were being saved.  The meeting was sponsored by a very young congregation that had not, as yet, any fixed meeting place.  There being nowhere else  that could accomodate the expected crowd, the one-room schoolhouse often served as community centers.  Separation of church and state was an issue that was yet to be raised, and prayer and scripture readings were a part of every school day, as was the Pledge of Allegiance.  At the regular Sunday church services in the valley, it was decided to eliminate the regular Wednesday evening prayer meeting, and, to the extent possible, all should attend the revival in support of the newly organized group in the hills.

So, early Wednesday evening, Steve's dad, with the help of the eldest son, now a teenager, completed the evening chores earlier than usual and hitched up the pair of mares for the trip.  Small mares they were, as teams go, but well suited for the wide variety of duties of a multi crop operation.  Dixie on the left, solid black and quite spirited, and Star on the right, a somewhat more calm roan with the forehead markings that gave her the name, composed the team.  Both were well rested from the lack of field work for the past few days and seemed to relish the break in the boredom of inactivity.  Harness is an abbreviated version of the full dress version, the little used portions such as the breeching having long since discarded, being useful only as a rather ineffective means of keeping the wagon or other load from riding up on the heels of the team on a downward slope.  Only a free rolling wagon or similar vehicle would benefit from this; it was rarely used.  The harness showed the wear and tear of many summers, the aging leather straps were stiff and cracked from sweat and the buckles were bent and straining at worn adjusting holes.  Chains either worn or rusted in the inactive portions.  Back bands and belly bands were sweat stained and fragile.  Likewise the reins, one inch leather straps used to enforce the driver's voice commands to the team, were, like the rest of the gear, showing the results of many summers under the relentless Southern sun.  Each rein splits near the horses' shoulders then passes through steel rings on the hames and to each horse so that they turned and stopped at the same time; a team.

The wagon is mostly wood. Wheels have steel hub centers which turn on the steel spindles of the axle, but the remainder, hub, spokes and rim, save for a steel band in contact with the earth, is wood.  Wood that must be kept moist in order to stay together.  Dried out wheels disintegrate, so moisture is provided by several means, parking the wagon in the creek being a common one.  Wagon frame is also mostly wood,  Fixed rear axle and a front carriage frame, wheel on either side pivoting in the center with the long tongue, perhaps four inches square and slightly tapered, reaching forward between the team to the neck yoke, the crosspiece that is attached at either end by chain to the bottom of hames on each horses collar, and at the center to the wagon tongue by means of a ring or short piece of chain..  This is the steering mechanism; the wagon tongue moves left and right following the team's movements.  Wagon itself has no brakes; only the resistance transferred to the neck yoke by the team's moving slower than the wagon can reduce the speed.  Not exactly a great safety system for use in hill country.  Ralph Nader would have cringed.  Wagon cargo box, ten or twelve feet long and maybe five feet wide is of wood, sideboards and endgates maybe twelve inches high with a seat and footboard across the front of the box for driver and one or two passengers. With time the seat may have been reduced to merely a wide board across the sides, with the footboard long since gone.   Passenger seating would be occupied by a brakemen, if, indeed there were any brakes.  Additional sideboards were available if needed to accommodate more cargo.

Wagon is ready, family is scrubbed and cleanly dressed.  At this time the family consists of the teenage older children, two others of about the same age, a niece and a nephew, children of an older brother who had been rescued from an unhealthy environment resulting from an ugly divorce.  Steve, is maybe two years of age.  A couple of quilts for the wagon bed cushion and to double as a pallet for the youngest during the expected long sermon are loaded, and a bag of snacks included to help keep the young one quiet, the teenagers filled and maybe some left for the long ride home. 

Mother and Steve are on the seat beside Dad .  Meeting house is perhaps four or five miles of gravel road away. This is excitement for all.  Mom and Dad are anxious to hear a good sermon and join in the singing and listen to the individual testimony of the believers, ofttimes revealing past experiences and touting the changes and benefits brought about by salvation and baptism.  The teenagers are not so much interested in listening to a sermon lasting of hour or more, as they are in the meeting of new friends of the opposite sex and perhaps finding that special person for a "boyfriend" or "'girlfriend."  They live in hope, but typically their youth and lack of social skills dooms them to find safety in groups of the same sex;  single-person cross gender friendships are still a few years away, but the hormones are beginning their work.  Concern for their "conversion" and the cleansing of their sinful souls by their salvation is not primary in their minds.

It will be brought pointedly to their attention as the sermon draws to a close, the invitation hymn is sung and the sinners invited to come to the altar to kneel and be prayed over by the faithful..  Appropriate mentions of the rewards of salvation are repeated until an acceptable response is attained.  A sinner is deemed to have been saved when he can stand and confess his feeling of the spirit having moved within him or her, lifting the burdens of sin and replacing it with the love of Jesus.  Some shout the glory of the change while others speak softly with the preacher or one of his helpers, awed by the experience.  Salvation of a sinner is the occasion for celebration by the faithful; the bigger sinner he or she may be, the bigger the celebration.

The "mourner's bench" is eventually cleared by either salvation or failure, the saved given the appropriate celebratory acknowledgement and presented to the congregation, accepted as candidates for baptism and members of the church.  The failures slink quietly back to their seats, or out the back door, unnoticed. With another long prayer for the perseverance of the converted, and a plea for the breakdown of the resistance of the remaining unrepentant, this night's meeting is over.

The team is reattached to the wagon, children rounded up and loaded and the journey begins, Mom and Dad on the seat, teenagers sprawled on quilts in the wagon bed and the two-year at mom's feet, already soundly asleep.  Due to the midsummer long days, it is now the changing hour between daylight and dark, just enough light to see the road, but not enough for one to distinguish details.  Clouds gather in the west and a dim flash of light in the distance illuminates the horizon.  "Cloud comin' up," Dad says to no one in particular, "could be a good one;  really hot today, 100 or better, just the thing to bring on a storm."  No one responds; kids are quiet, some already asleep.  More lightning flashes, now with low rumbles of thunder following.

Dad counts the seconds between the flash and the rumble and mentally compares it to the preceding one.  The cloud is coming closer, from the West-Southwest as usual. Evidently some much earlier experiences had heightened his fear and respect for the summer thunderstorms that frequent the country's midsection; he watched every storm that came within his sight or hearing, carefully noting their formation and direction at the cost of losing most of his night's sleep, and frequently rousing the family and herding them to the dirt floored and log roofed cellar beneath one of the farm's outbuildings. It was a scary place, frequented by bugs, mice and sometimes a blacksnake.

"Storm's coming up fast," he says.  Mom nods and takes a quick inventory of the family, finds all of them asleep in spite of the bumping of the solid wheels on the infrequently graded gravel road.  The storm cloud has now blotted out all of the remaining light so that they are now travelling in almost total darkness, guided mostly by the instincts of the team and driver;  Flashlights are weak and used only to verify turn points.  Lightning flashes are near and frequent, the times between the flash and the rumble is down under five counts, meaning the strike is less than a mile away.

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light and the simultaneous ear-splitting sound reminiscent of an exploding artillery shell.  Dad had a instant of flashback of the trenches; he instinctively flinched and ducked.  He caught himself before diving to the floorboards, sat up and tried to steady the team.   A few seconds later came the roar of a million hailstones, pelting the wagon and its contents.  Kids scramble to get under the quilts, Mom joins them, protecting the two-year old, who is now the only one not awake.  The rest are silent, dumbstruck and terrified, not moving. The adults have their glimpse of the huge dead oak tree splitting apart in the center of the blinding light burned into their retinas as well as their memories.

Horses are terrified, Dixie rears and bolts, Star follows her lead.  Dad braces his feet on the endgate, grips the reins tightly, one in each hand, and leans back and pulls with all his might in an effort to control the team which is now hitting full stride, with the bits in their teeth.  His shouted commands and his pulls on the reins are being ignored by the terrified horses.  The right rein suddenly goes slack in his hand;  the aging and worn leather has separated somewhere up front.  Muttering under his breath with phrases probably not appropriate for church, he tossed the useless rein into the wagon bed and loosed the tension on the remaining strap.  Horses are now running free.

"Lee, git up here, I need your help." he shouts.   She came,clinging to the side board, sat backwards on the seat  then swung her legs over the seat to sit by his side.  Without waiting for her unspoken questions, he shouted, " 'got to get a'holt of them reins. 'only way to stop 'em",  She nodded.

"Here, you take this good rein; now, don't pull, just hold it, if I slip, you pull hard and turn 'em left into the ditch"
She gasped, realizing what he was about to do.  This was not a committee meeting, discussion was for later, if at all 
"Be careful"

He handed her the rein, turned his back to the team, took a firm grip on the endgate, and stepped backward over the gate and on to the doubletree near its center pivot on the wagon tongue.  Carefully attempting to keep his balance, and feeling for the tongue with his feet, he turned to face forward, and taking what balance he could from the backs of the galloping horses, worked his way forward 'till he was just behind their shoulders.

Then, in another flash of lightening, not nearly so close, he saw that the break was just to the rear of the point before the guide ring before it split to each horse's bridle.  Finally, a bit of luck; the rein was still on the animal's back, not hanging loose to the ground, and therefore reachable.   He reached, in the dark, found the top of the collar and felt for the rein, found it and slid his hand back to the point where it split away to each bridle.  He took a firm grip on it, then repeating the procedure, grabbed the left rein at the same place.  The reins now have to provide his only balance supports.  He set his feet and hauled back with all his might, feet slipping slightly on the wet wagon tongue.
"Dixie, Star, WHOA!, " He commanded.
"WHOA!,"  they slowed, their training and recognition of his voice beginning to overcome their terror.
"Whoa, whoa, now,"  Speaking softly now, as the team slowed to a walk and then stopped.

Dixie is trembling, nostrils flaring.  Star is panting wildly.  Flecks of foam are showing at the corners of their mouths, and being washed from their flanks by the now slacking rain.  Steam is rising from their bodies through the now steady but lessening rain.  Lightning flashes are now to the East and diminishing.
"Hand me that other rein, there by your feet." "I think I can splice it." Still standing on the tongue, he made a quick tie in the two parts and climbed back into the wagon.

"Everybody OK?", he asked quietly.

Heads nodded, but made not a sound.  He slapped the reins on the horses' butts, "Lets go girls,"

Later, after the rain finally stopped, the team was cared for and put away. the family dried and put to bed, they lay down for a few hours sleep, he turned to her,
" ' you scared, back there?" 
"Yes; you?
"Oh yes. Scared don't quite cover it."
"We were lucky."  "Know what's funny?"
"What?"
"Stevie, he never woke up."
"Really?" "Guess I didn't notice."
"You were kind 'a busy"

Silence, then a snore.