Stewart
18th Sep 2006, 14:25
I know a few members of the Palimp have seen this before, as I was canvassing opinions prior to sending it off for competition. As expected, I didn't win, but I'm going to post the story here. I was going to continue reworking it but I suppose I've got to learn when to stop and move onto the next story, rather than rehashing the same tale over and over again. No wonder I get nothing done. So, here it is; for those that like to read this forum but haven't yet seen it.
A Harvest Prayer
Were it possible, my wife and I would have had two sons called Jack. By naming the boys after myself we thought it would show plans were made for their future, that the farm would remain in the family. But there had never been two brothers in the family bearing the same name, and I was never one to change things. No matter what happened, the farm would still be divided between them.
The youngest – James, we decided – stirs unease in me, a concern for which my wife considers me quite foolish. His seventh is fast approaching and, despite my many efforts, he harbours no interest in the upcoming harvest. Indeed, he shows none of the passion for fields and crops that I had shown when his age. And given the poor yield in recent years, I need every available body eager to help.
Yesterday morn, for example, the clouds were budding in the plum sky as my sons and I led two oxen out to an unfurrowed field. They were no longer common, the oxen - the ploughshare had seen to that. Other farmers I knew preferred strong horses pulling those lumps of metal, but I just kept doing it the way my father taught me; just like his father had no doubt shown him. Even a beaten plough carried a hefty price.
I wheeled my small plough alongside the oxen, the ropes I used to secure it to them slung over my shoulder. A yoke held the animals’ heads together, ensuring they kept to the same path. Jack, the oldest by two years, ran ahead; James trudged along behind me, his head held low.
‘Is this the spot?’
‘Not yet, Jack,’ I said. ‘There’s a wee bit to go yet.’
Jack scurried on, looking back every now and then. When he was in a good spot I raised my hand to signal that he should stop. ‘Come on, James,’ I said, smiling at him, ‘we’re almost there.’
James did not look up.
The day had broken, the sky already lightened to milky blue when I told my boys about the plough. Jack was keen to learn, his russet eyes studying the old ropes in my hands. ‘And then I take the ropes and I lash it to the oxen.’
‘Then you pull it tight,’ Jack said. He could probably have instructed me in its use given that I had shown it many times to him now.
James stood beside his brother, keeping quiet. Even the oxen appeared to be paying more attention, their sad faces turned to me as best they could.
‘Do you want to tie the ropes on, James?’
He shook his head; our eyes did not meet.
‘See,’ I said, winding the straps around my wrist for grip. ‘I pull these and the plough is ready.’ The ropes slapped against the wooden frame. The nearest ox turned to see what the fuss was, his unhappy eyes black and empty. The other sounded his disdain with a wistful snort.
James stood there, a world away, patting the nearest ox’s coarse head. ‘Can we go back now?’
It was probably a vain effort on my part that I did not let him scamper back to the house. I suggested he walk alongside me as the oxen lumbered back and forth along the field. ‘See how the dirt crumbles?’ Jack said to him, pointing a dirty hand at the rough blade tilling the earth. But, when I turned round to see him, James was finding more to marvel in a magpie rasping atop a nearby stile, something glinting in its beak. ‘James,’ I said, ‘you will never be a farmer if you do not watch.’
He turned to face me, the breeze gently tugging his straw coloured hair, and said, ‘But I do not want to be a farmer.’
It broke my heart, I admit, to hear him say it. I just stood there looking at him, at his innocent face as he stared off to the distance. Son, I wanted to say, there is nothing else but farming.
‘James is still young,’ my wife said, after the boys had been put to bed. She poured me a generous dram as I relaxed in my chair and considered the sunset through the window.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but he just does not seem to care.’
She passed me the drink then lit a short tallow. ‘He just needs time to be a child. He will take an interest in time.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Why not take him down the Toll tomorrow?’
‘To the Toll?’
She drew the curtains then sat next to me. ‘You are going, are you not?’
‘The farmhand is. I have things to do here.’
‘Give him something else to do. Make him muck out the stables, or something, and take the horse yourself. James would enjoy the trip. Other than church, it’s rare for him to leave the farm.’
One of my horses, a sturdy black mare, was being shod in the morning. James had never seen a smithy’s forge before, and, as I preferred my farmhands to oversee the horses’ care, it had been a fair time since I had set foot in one. I never was keen on all that noise, on all that metal.
‘You may be right,’ I said, and swallowed the dram.
The sun above the trees cast a fine gleam the next morning and the whispering leaves shimmered like a brook. I roused the boy, a few gentle shakes, and we dressed for the journey. Not our Sunday best, but enough to stay the tongues of the gossips in the village.
The farmhand, up before dawn, had prepared the mare and led her out, snorting and shuffling, to the yard. ‘She seems in good spirits,’ he said, stroking her mane. ‘Should be no trouble at all.’
My wife and Jack stood by the door, waving us off. Jack had been to the smithy’s before. ‘No, boring,’ he said, when asked to come along, ‘I want to stay on the farm.’
James said nothing. He was sulking, and that told me everything. I would have let him stay, but there was nothing he could do. Well, nothing he was willing to. The journey led downhill past fields rich in summer promise. The road was easy on the feet, having been hardened by years of passage, and the mare clopped along at an even pace. James, disinterested as usual, held my hand and I in turn held the reins as we ambled alongside.
Little traffic blocked the road. A few early carts staggered along, carrying milk and grain into the city. But the day had not begun for most. The road meandered down through a leafy copse of trees. James cooed and pointed at the things capturing his imagination: a fox darting from view; thrushes shuffling in the thickets.
Half an hour, or so, and we came to the Toll. The forge was a small white building of stone and timber topped with a gabled roof. The smithy’s home was joined to its side. James, awkward boy that he is, took one look at the forge and a frown wrinkled his face.
‘See the smoke?’ I said. Dark puffs billowed from the thin chimney and disappeared into the burgeoning sky.
‘I’ve seen smoke before.’
‘Do you hear that?’ I cupped my hand to my ear, feigning excitement. I was never one for the knock of hammer on metal; the echo lasted too long on the ears. The crack of wood being chopped is more to my liking.
James covered his ears. ‘No.’
I led the horse over to the smithy’s door and James followed, peering round the entrance. He had a curious smile on his face as he absently mumbled something under his breath. I think the forge was to his liking.
Two shapes, despite the early hour, toiled in the humid workshop. The smithy, a burly man with hammer in hand, battered a strip of heated iron over the head of his anvil. His apprentice, a lean boy of maybe fifteen years, tossed coal bricks into the hearth with measured lobs.
What a wonderful appetite, the furnace, as its flames licked the dusty coal to a warm, chalky white, and the apprentice, brow dripping with sweat, teased the crackling mass with a long poker, steady, precise, determined.
But the fire was not for me. James had a grin on his face, the sputtering coal and changing colours drawing him in. I flashed him a frown but he took no heed.
‘Give her some air,’ the smithy said, hands clapping, demonstrating. ‘She’s not ready yet.’
The novice nodded, swapped the rod for worn bellows, pressed them, released, pressed, released, and swept over the coal with cool gusts. Sparks wafted into the air and, falling, flickered out like a spent tallow.
James moved forward but I placed my hand on his shoulder as he entered the forge. ‘Careful, son.’
The smithy had not yet seen us, so I coughed - a rasp not throaty enough to be believable. He looked up and smiled before submerging the strip of metal into his slack tub. The metal cooled and hissed, a wisp of steam fizzed up and faded away.
‘Morning,’ said the smithy, wiping his hands on his leather smock. ‘Must be something important going on if Jack Johnson’s coming down to see me.’
‘The wife thought I should bring the boy.’
The smithy waved at James. Somewhere in his sweaty beard there was a smile. ‘Hello, son. Come to see a real day’s work?’
James looked at me as if asking whether he should respond. I nodded, but he was still too shy to say anything. He hid behind my legs.
The smithy turned from James, back to me. ‘I gather the horse will be needing shod for the summer?’
‘Aye,’ I said, ‘she’ll be no use for the farm with her feet as worn as they are.’
‘How long since she was last done?’ He kneeled down and inspected the mare’s hooves.
‘A few months, I think.’
‘I should say so,’ he said, nodding. ‘Her winter hooves are worn away.’ He stood up and patted the horse, a few friendly slaps. ‘I know,’ he whispered to the mare, ‘he works you too hard.’
James smiled, almost laughed.
‘Bring her through and we’ll get those shoes off.’
I led the mare through the forge and guided her into the stocks, where the smithy secured her. He sauntered over to his workbench and selected a couple of tools.
James tottered into the forge, forgetting his shyness, and over to the bench. He pointed at the tools hanging from makeshift hooks. ‘What’s that one for?’
The smithy followed his hand. ‘That’s a fuller. I use it to spread the iron.’
‘And that?’
‘It’s just a chisel.’
‘James,’ I said, ‘let the man do his job.’
‘Oh, he’s alright,’ the smithy protested.
James looked back at me, saw the scowl on my face, and returned to my side. ‘I was only asking.’
The smithy shuffled over to the horse standing in the stocks. She snorted, her tail swooshed back and forth. ‘Easy,’ he patted her rump, ‘easy now.’
James watched rapt as one by one the smithy lifted her legs. She remained calm as he pulled the nails from her hooves and the shoes clattered off the hay-strewn floor when their purchase was lost. When James seemed most intrigued, I held him back from getting too near. He peered in close, trying to get a good peek at the space where the shoe had once been secured. He sighed, a breath that conveyed both curiosity and wonder.
The smithy took a rule to the hooves and dipped his pen into an inkblot as he recorded the measurements. Drips of black ink smeared across the page were quick to dry in the heat: numbers, letters, nonsense. With each observation he lifted the mare’s legs and trimmed the hooves, filing them down so that each was suitably level.
And then, with occasional glances at his smudged notes, he took a bar of wrought iron, clasped it in his tongs, thrust it into the flames and, with startling haste, it developed a lustre – black, then orange, then yellow, until the whole bar seethed fiery white. Then to the anvil, and as he clasped the metal over its edge, he battered the block with his hammer and with each clang the iron shifted shape, curving over the anvil, to an arc, through which he punched holes with ease. I had to cover my ears, close my eyes; each clatter echoed through my mind.
The forge filled with the smell of burning hoof, a sickening tang riding on the smoke as each steaming shoe was fixed into place with nails hammered deep into the softening foot. The mare barely moved, the occasional shuffle for comfort perhaps, but she had been there so many times as to be used to those fittings.
James imitated the smithy as he hammered the nails into the shoe. ‘Bang, bang!’ His arm swung at an imaginary hoof while his other held it in place.
‘That should do her,’ said the smithy, tossing his hammer onto the workbench. Just over an hour had passed.
‘She looks happy.’
‘So would you if you just got new shoes.’
James sniggered. He got down on his knees and got a close look at the smithy’s work. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Not at all. She won’t have felt a thing.’ The smithy rubbed the horse behind her ear. ‘Isn’t that right?’ She turned her head to him, her eyes conveying a degree of cheer.
We bantered for a bit, the smithy and I, before he named a price and I, a few shillings in hand, counted out the cost and handed it to him. ‘So, I’ll see you on Sunday?’ He dropped the coins into a battered iron tray.
I led the horse from the stocks to the road outside the forge, her even steps rapping off the stone floor. James followed, his curious head still studying the shelves of worked iron.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ I asked, sitting him atop the mare.
James nodded. ‘Wait till I tell Jack all about it.’
We started back to the farm, the smithy’s forge shrinking in the distance until it vanished behind a grove of trees. Only the wisp of smoke from the chimney twisting into the air could be seen. Even the faint pounding of the hammer troubled me little.
‘Father, do the oxen get shod too?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘only horses.’
‘Maybe they can. Can we go and get them?’
I did not answer, preferring to let his little mind wander. It went from oxen, through other animals, and even the ragged scarecrow standing in the fields. He wanted to shoe them all. His eagerness did not stop there, either, and he babbled on about all manner of things he could do with metal. My mind drifted off as he talked, carried away by sad thoughts of the farm, of its future, until he said,
‘And then maybe I can make a plough?’
Rather than wait for Sunday, I smiled and said a prayer for my harvest.
A Harvest Prayer
Were it possible, my wife and I would have had two sons called Jack. By naming the boys after myself we thought it would show plans were made for their future, that the farm would remain in the family. But there had never been two brothers in the family bearing the same name, and I was never one to change things. No matter what happened, the farm would still be divided between them.
The youngest – James, we decided – stirs unease in me, a concern for which my wife considers me quite foolish. His seventh is fast approaching and, despite my many efforts, he harbours no interest in the upcoming harvest. Indeed, he shows none of the passion for fields and crops that I had shown when his age. And given the poor yield in recent years, I need every available body eager to help.
Yesterday morn, for example, the clouds were budding in the plum sky as my sons and I led two oxen out to an unfurrowed field. They were no longer common, the oxen - the ploughshare had seen to that. Other farmers I knew preferred strong horses pulling those lumps of metal, but I just kept doing it the way my father taught me; just like his father had no doubt shown him. Even a beaten plough carried a hefty price.
I wheeled my small plough alongside the oxen, the ropes I used to secure it to them slung over my shoulder. A yoke held the animals’ heads together, ensuring they kept to the same path. Jack, the oldest by two years, ran ahead; James trudged along behind me, his head held low.
‘Is this the spot?’
‘Not yet, Jack,’ I said. ‘There’s a wee bit to go yet.’
Jack scurried on, looking back every now and then. When he was in a good spot I raised my hand to signal that he should stop. ‘Come on, James,’ I said, smiling at him, ‘we’re almost there.’
James did not look up.
The day had broken, the sky already lightened to milky blue when I told my boys about the plough. Jack was keen to learn, his russet eyes studying the old ropes in my hands. ‘And then I take the ropes and I lash it to the oxen.’
‘Then you pull it tight,’ Jack said. He could probably have instructed me in its use given that I had shown it many times to him now.
James stood beside his brother, keeping quiet. Even the oxen appeared to be paying more attention, their sad faces turned to me as best they could.
‘Do you want to tie the ropes on, James?’
He shook his head; our eyes did not meet.
‘See,’ I said, winding the straps around my wrist for grip. ‘I pull these and the plough is ready.’ The ropes slapped against the wooden frame. The nearest ox turned to see what the fuss was, his unhappy eyes black and empty. The other sounded his disdain with a wistful snort.
James stood there, a world away, patting the nearest ox’s coarse head. ‘Can we go back now?’
It was probably a vain effort on my part that I did not let him scamper back to the house. I suggested he walk alongside me as the oxen lumbered back and forth along the field. ‘See how the dirt crumbles?’ Jack said to him, pointing a dirty hand at the rough blade tilling the earth. But, when I turned round to see him, James was finding more to marvel in a magpie rasping atop a nearby stile, something glinting in its beak. ‘James,’ I said, ‘you will never be a farmer if you do not watch.’
He turned to face me, the breeze gently tugging his straw coloured hair, and said, ‘But I do not want to be a farmer.’
It broke my heart, I admit, to hear him say it. I just stood there looking at him, at his innocent face as he stared off to the distance. Son, I wanted to say, there is nothing else but farming.
‘James is still young,’ my wife said, after the boys had been put to bed. She poured me a generous dram as I relaxed in my chair and considered the sunset through the window.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but he just does not seem to care.’
She passed me the drink then lit a short tallow. ‘He just needs time to be a child. He will take an interest in time.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Why not take him down the Toll tomorrow?’
‘To the Toll?’
She drew the curtains then sat next to me. ‘You are going, are you not?’
‘The farmhand is. I have things to do here.’
‘Give him something else to do. Make him muck out the stables, or something, and take the horse yourself. James would enjoy the trip. Other than church, it’s rare for him to leave the farm.’
One of my horses, a sturdy black mare, was being shod in the morning. James had never seen a smithy’s forge before, and, as I preferred my farmhands to oversee the horses’ care, it had been a fair time since I had set foot in one. I never was keen on all that noise, on all that metal.
‘You may be right,’ I said, and swallowed the dram.
The sun above the trees cast a fine gleam the next morning and the whispering leaves shimmered like a brook. I roused the boy, a few gentle shakes, and we dressed for the journey. Not our Sunday best, but enough to stay the tongues of the gossips in the village.
The farmhand, up before dawn, had prepared the mare and led her out, snorting and shuffling, to the yard. ‘She seems in good spirits,’ he said, stroking her mane. ‘Should be no trouble at all.’
My wife and Jack stood by the door, waving us off. Jack had been to the smithy’s before. ‘No, boring,’ he said, when asked to come along, ‘I want to stay on the farm.’
James said nothing. He was sulking, and that told me everything. I would have let him stay, but there was nothing he could do. Well, nothing he was willing to. The journey led downhill past fields rich in summer promise. The road was easy on the feet, having been hardened by years of passage, and the mare clopped along at an even pace. James, disinterested as usual, held my hand and I in turn held the reins as we ambled alongside.
Little traffic blocked the road. A few early carts staggered along, carrying milk and grain into the city. But the day had not begun for most. The road meandered down through a leafy copse of trees. James cooed and pointed at the things capturing his imagination: a fox darting from view; thrushes shuffling in the thickets.
Half an hour, or so, and we came to the Toll. The forge was a small white building of stone and timber topped with a gabled roof. The smithy’s home was joined to its side. James, awkward boy that he is, took one look at the forge and a frown wrinkled his face.
‘See the smoke?’ I said. Dark puffs billowed from the thin chimney and disappeared into the burgeoning sky.
‘I’ve seen smoke before.’
‘Do you hear that?’ I cupped my hand to my ear, feigning excitement. I was never one for the knock of hammer on metal; the echo lasted too long on the ears. The crack of wood being chopped is more to my liking.
James covered his ears. ‘No.’
I led the horse over to the smithy’s door and James followed, peering round the entrance. He had a curious smile on his face as he absently mumbled something under his breath. I think the forge was to his liking.
Two shapes, despite the early hour, toiled in the humid workshop. The smithy, a burly man with hammer in hand, battered a strip of heated iron over the head of his anvil. His apprentice, a lean boy of maybe fifteen years, tossed coal bricks into the hearth with measured lobs.
What a wonderful appetite, the furnace, as its flames licked the dusty coal to a warm, chalky white, and the apprentice, brow dripping with sweat, teased the crackling mass with a long poker, steady, precise, determined.
But the fire was not for me. James had a grin on his face, the sputtering coal and changing colours drawing him in. I flashed him a frown but he took no heed.
‘Give her some air,’ the smithy said, hands clapping, demonstrating. ‘She’s not ready yet.’
The novice nodded, swapped the rod for worn bellows, pressed them, released, pressed, released, and swept over the coal with cool gusts. Sparks wafted into the air and, falling, flickered out like a spent tallow.
James moved forward but I placed my hand on his shoulder as he entered the forge. ‘Careful, son.’
The smithy had not yet seen us, so I coughed - a rasp not throaty enough to be believable. He looked up and smiled before submerging the strip of metal into his slack tub. The metal cooled and hissed, a wisp of steam fizzed up and faded away.
‘Morning,’ said the smithy, wiping his hands on his leather smock. ‘Must be something important going on if Jack Johnson’s coming down to see me.’
‘The wife thought I should bring the boy.’
The smithy waved at James. Somewhere in his sweaty beard there was a smile. ‘Hello, son. Come to see a real day’s work?’
James looked at me as if asking whether he should respond. I nodded, but he was still too shy to say anything. He hid behind my legs.
The smithy turned from James, back to me. ‘I gather the horse will be needing shod for the summer?’
‘Aye,’ I said, ‘she’ll be no use for the farm with her feet as worn as they are.’
‘How long since she was last done?’ He kneeled down and inspected the mare’s hooves.
‘A few months, I think.’
‘I should say so,’ he said, nodding. ‘Her winter hooves are worn away.’ He stood up and patted the horse, a few friendly slaps. ‘I know,’ he whispered to the mare, ‘he works you too hard.’
James smiled, almost laughed.
‘Bring her through and we’ll get those shoes off.’
I led the mare through the forge and guided her into the stocks, where the smithy secured her. He sauntered over to his workbench and selected a couple of tools.
James tottered into the forge, forgetting his shyness, and over to the bench. He pointed at the tools hanging from makeshift hooks. ‘What’s that one for?’
The smithy followed his hand. ‘That’s a fuller. I use it to spread the iron.’
‘And that?’
‘It’s just a chisel.’
‘James,’ I said, ‘let the man do his job.’
‘Oh, he’s alright,’ the smithy protested.
James looked back at me, saw the scowl on my face, and returned to my side. ‘I was only asking.’
The smithy shuffled over to the horse standing in the stocks. She snorted, her tail swooshed back and forth. ‘Easy,’ he patted her rump, ‘easy now.’
James watched rapt as one by one the smithy lifted her legs. She remained calm as he pulled the nails from her hooves and the shoes clattered off the hay-strewn floor when their purchase was lost. When James seemed most intrigued, I held him back from getting too near. He peered in close, trying to get a good peek at the space where the shoe had once been secured. He sighed, a breath that conveyed both curiosity and wonder.
The smithy took a rule to the hooves and dipped his pen into an inkblot as he recorded the measurements. Drips of black ink smeared across the page were quick to dry in the heat: numbers, letters, nonsense. With each observation he lifted the mare’s legs and trimmed the hooves, filing them down so that each was suitably level.
And then, with occasional glances at his smudged notes, he took a bar of wrought iron, clasped it in his tongs, thrust it into the flames and, with startling haste, it developed a lustre – black, then orange, then yellow, until the whole bar seethed fiery white. Then to the anvil, and as he clasped the metal over its edge, he battered the block with his hammer and with each clang the iron shifted shape, curving over the anvil, to an arc, through which he punched holes with ease. I had to cover my ears, close my eyes; each clatter echoed through my mind.
The forge filled with the smell of burning hoof, a sickening tang riding on the smoke as each steaming shoe was fixed into place with nails hammered deep into the softening foot. The mare barely moved, the occasional shuffle for comfort perhaps, but she had been there so many times as to be used to those fittings.
James imitated the smithy as he hammered the nails into the shoe. ‘Bang, bang!’ His arm swung at an imaginary hoof while his other held it in place.
‘That should do her,’ said the smithy, tossing his hammer onto the workbench. Just over an hour had passed.
‘She looks happy.’
‘So would you if you just got new shoes.’
James sniggered. He got down on his knees and got a close look at the smithy’s work. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Not at all. She won’t have felt a thing.’ The smithy rubbed the horse behind her ear. ‘Isn’t that right?’ She turned her head to him, her eyes conveying a degree of cheer.
We bantered for a bit, the smithy and I, before he named a price and I, a few shillings in hand, counted out the cost and handed it to him. ‘So, I’ll see you on Sunday?’ He dropped the coins into a battered iron tray.
I led the horse from the stocks to the road outside the forge, her even steps rapping off the stone floor. James followed, his curious head still studying the shelves of worked iron.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ I asked, sitting him atop the mare.
James nodded. ‘Wait till I tell Jack all about it.’
We started back to the farm, the smithy’s forge shrinking in the distance until it vanished behind a grove of trees. Only the wisp of smoke from the chimney twisting into the air could be seen. Even the faint pounding of the hammer troubled me little.
‘Father, do the oxen get shod too?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘only horses.’
‘Maybe they can. Can we go and get them?’
I did not answer, preferring to let his little mind wander. It went from oxen, through other animals, and even the ragged scarecrow standing in the fields. He wanted to shoe them all. His eagerness did not stop there, either, and he babbled on about all manner of things he could do with metal. My mind drifted off as he talked, carried away by sad thoughts of the farm, of its future, until he said,
‘And then maybe I can make a plough?’
Rather than wait for Sunday, I smiled and said a prayer for my harvest.