pastoral

Let the night air cool you off.
Tilt your head back and try to cough.
Don't say nothing 'bout the things you never saw.
Let the night air cool you off.

The cool shower that patters on the dried and drying leaves leaves my spectacles speckled with the joy which is rain. I wipe my hands on the damp dishtowel, toss aside the specs, and settle in to recount the day.

---

It is definitely autumn in the Ozarks. Along the creek line the hedge trees are turning and the Osage oranges that dropped from their branches lie, rotting and poisonous, on the clay banks of the creek. The pecan trees in the front yard are splashed with patches of rusted branches among those with the leaves still green but about to fade. The fields that were overlooked for the second cutting of hay are golden with drooping, withered leaves of grass and wilted stalks of weeds. Those fields that so recently were trimmed show spikes of grass whose rebirth was cut short and is browning at the tip, yet still green near the damp earth. Just a ways southeast the farmer has pulled out the hulling machines and is again buying walnuts. The price is high this year, so the school kids pour milk crates of their green and brown orbs into their daddys' trucks, and after a few hours of picking them from the brown stubble wait at the scales to collect their meager earnings in stained hands.

This morning I was in the barn lot with Tom chatting about all things non-teaching when he recounted for me the story of the old John Deere which departed our lives today. The man who now has the hunk of metal encrusted in 70 years worth of oxidation has been after it for the past 20 years and finally convinced Tom to give it up in exchange for a fully restored and bored-out 1948 John Deere. The bright green and yellow tractor we stood next to stood out against the faded grass of the lot. Tom seemed younger with the new beast, but was eager to discuss the old one. I think the parting is bittersweet - which is probably why it took 20 years to get around to it.

Tom was nine years old when he had proved himself as a worker and his father went out and bought him a tractor of his own. The life of the rural poor has never been glamorous, but in the eyes of a boy the paint on the '35 stood out as brightly in 1955 as the fresh coat on the new machine does today. A new Deere back then cost about $1400, so a second-hand model would have to do for the only son. But the old man did get all the necessary accessories - disc, cultivator, plow. In retrospect it is seen as a way to get even more work out of the boy, but at the time it was still new enough to be fun.

He put hundreds of hours on the machine. One late evening he was hauling a load of corn and jackknifed the trailer as he went to ford the creek because he fell asleep. Both trailer and tractor flipped, but being jerked awake, Tom half-leapt and was half-thrown several feet out of the way. His father, who was just behind him with another load, didn't see the narrow escape and driven by pure fear hopped down and ran to find his boy. With the relief of well-being balancing the adrenaline, they righted that portion of the caravan with the larger tractor and progressed to the house with a resolution to clear the rest of the field the next day.

The tractor stayed at the old man's farm when Tom went to the university in the county seat. There he met Nancy, they graduated, got married, and started teaching. When he was finally able to buy some land of his own in the '70s, he took the John Deere to the new acreage and started work again. Several years ago, early in the days when I came into the picture, he had just rebuilt the mag and had it running fairly smoothly for its age, but its useful life within the family ended a few years later and it has since sat, at times it seemed forgotten, behind the old, also unused, chicken house. Until today. We watched it leave, looking small on the large trailer behind the shiny Ford truck. Since the morning it has had a absent presence with much talk falling back to memories of youth and work and related sweetness.

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Autumn is a time of longing. I'm not sure what I am longing for, though.

I ain't livin' like I should.
A little rest might do me good.
Got to sinkin' in the place where I once stood.
I ain't livin' like I should.