THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER

Photo: Daddy and his mules
(Believe me, the stubborn one is in the middle!)

 


THEN:



The Farmer's Daughter


    My daddy was a farmer, not the kind of farmer that sat on a tractor and fed America, but the kind that walked behind a plow horse and fed his family. When I was a little, my mother was often ill, so Daddy would take me with him as he worked around our home. There we would go, a hard working man and his small blond shadow.The day might find us out in the forests or fields cutting down tall green trees, at the saw mill coated in saw dust, driving down the road together on some errand, loading wood or coal into the back of his beat up pick up, or with our hands deep in the rich dirt of the garden. He would work all day with me close by his side. Often he amused me by giving me "important" chores to do. One of those chores was to walk along behind him and step on the quartered potatoes that he dropped in the furrow. Then Crit, my adopted uncle, would use his foot to cover those spuds up with the black Virginia soil that they taught me to love nearly as a family member. We walked along in a line. Daddy dropping, me stepping on every potato piece with my bare feet, and Crit raking the dirt over the top.

    Many years passed before I questioned the necessity of my part in this chore. Did my stepping on those taters really help them grow? I gave it some thought, but in the end I supposed it was irrelevant. I participated. I stayed busy and out of trouble. I felt like I had a purpose in the potato planting world and in my family. I made memories I can share today, and to this day I can proudly tell you that I am the best potato-stepper in the county!

    Before those gardening days, when I was yet too little for such important work, I was usually carried from one spot to another and told to "play right there" and I minded my Daddy. I played right there,wherever there was. My favorite activity when I was that small was when Pop sat me on the back of s mule or plow horse and I rode along while they and my dad worked in sweet unison to rip arrow straight rows in the earth.

    At that age, I didn't quite understand gardening. I had not yet made the important connection between spring seeds and the juicy vegetables of summer and the long days of canning in the fall. But even then, I had a feeling that this was the beginning of something wonderful, something that I couldn't quite put my two year old finger on.

    The image of the dirt tumbling up around the plow looked so beguiling that it inspired me to twist on the horses back to watch the dark earth tumble up and over the plow share. The garden smell was fresh, like an earthen ambrosia. It permeated the morning air around us and spoke of new beginnings and a million magical things that I did not yet understand. The horses grew to love me. I think they knew that it was either tolerate this squirmy two year old or be sold to the glue factory. But I loved them honestly. I can still remember sitting on their gentle backs, swaying with their motions, taking in the bright new world.

    This was an enchanting time in my life. In perfect safety, I was guarded by my pop, whom I knew to be a fellow that could never be bested by man nor beast. I sat atop steeds of magnificence and I watched wonder popping up all around me, seemingly of it's own accord, or being coaxed and drawn up to the light of day by my daddy. Still, no matter how magical an act seems, sooner or later a young lady will begin to look for new ways to entertain herself. I remember thinking one spring morning, just before I turned three years old, that I needed something more to do. I wondered if the horse I rode might be tired from carrying my weight. (I was not quite aware of how very little I was.) I also thought that perhaps the other horse would decide that I didn't like riding on his back. I worried that maybe his horsey feelings would be hurt. So, I devised a very democratic plan to make them share the burden or honor of carrying me and to give myself a bit more to do. At the end of each row I would switch from one horse to the other! This I planned to do without pestering my father who was so busy he was perspiring even more heavily than the horses were. It should be easy enough to accomplish. I had already mastered riding the plow horses and my very own blind-as-a-bat pony. (No small feat that!) I decided it was time I learned a new trick.

    When Daddy reached the end of one furrow he would always look down and reposition the blade of the plow in the dark earth before heading back in the other direction. This pause in his concentration from the back of my head was all it took for me to switch from one horse to the other. I traded horses several times before my dad called out his familiar "Whoa!" The horses obediently stopped and Pop came over to stand beside me. He swiped his ragged hat off his head and mopped his face with his kerchief. He was scowling in my direction, not an angry scowl, more of a "What the heck is going on here," scowl.

    He spat in the dirt beside the horse before asking me, "Dee Dee, weren't you riding on Goliath just a minute ago?"

    I nodded, "Yep."

    "Then how come you're on Gideon now?" He shook his head. "How'd you do that?"

    "Like this," I leaned on the harness that dangled between both horses, grabbed Goliath's mane and slipped over to the other horse. I was a pro at it by that point.

    It was years later before I understood why Dad broke into laughter like he did. He started the horses moving once more and asked me to do it again. Several times I went from Goliath to Gideon and back again at his urging. This was great fun, and daddy seemed to be enjoying it as much as I was. He called Crit from some other chore and made him watch. Then he brought my mother out of the house and started plowing again and told me to show her what I could do. I did, but being more of a worrisome sort, she didn't delight in this trick quite as much as he did. She was afraid I would fall and get stepped on by the horses, but I did not think my horses would ever step on me, and I felt sure I could be careful enough not to fall and take the chance.

    From that day on I spent many a happy hour learning new "tricks" on the backs of our horses. I rode bareback. I rode backwards. I stood in the saddle. I hung from the side like the cowboys and Indians did on television. "Like a wild Indian," my dad said proudly. When I decided to try to ride sitting cross legged on a horse's rump, however, the horse did not appreciate that trick and he told me so with a high bucking motion! I went sailing through the air and knocked my own front tooth out with my knee when I landed on the ground with a bone rattling jar. Craziest way to lose your first baby tooth, but I was six years old by then and, as Pop often put it, "tough as a corncob!" In true farm girl style, I was back on the horse in a matter of minutes. I took a break long enough to complain to my dad, "That horse has lost his blamed mind!" and to spit out the tooth and the blood while my father laughed at my indignation. I was not angry or sad long. I loved every horse on the planet, and I practically lived on horseback for as long as I could. Eventually we didn't have many horses around, and then we moved to town, not much of a town, but a town nevertheless. It has been many years since I sat on the back of a horse, and I've resigned myself that I'll never stop missing it, but the memory of those days that I trailed my daddy are mine to keep. I remember the garden, the woods, the rattle and hum of the pick up with both windows down, and I remember being on horseback. As long as this ol' brain of mine functions normally I'll be able to close my eyes and feel those horses swaying beneath me, smell the fresh turned earth, and hear my daddy laughing.