Tobacco Tins, Summer Snoozes

When I remember Kenneth Ketcham, I remember his horses. But for some reason, I always remember his cigarette tobacco in a can.

I remember those slim red cans that I suppose are collectors’ items now, in piles by the milk house door. I think it was Union Leader, though it may have been Prince Albert. A phone prank of that period was to call a store; "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”  "Yes, we do.”  "Well, let him out!”  Kenneth would hold a cigarette paper between the fingers of one hand and tap the tobacco out of the tin onto the paper.

Beside the pile of empty tins was an old iron bathtub. When Kenneth drove the horses into the yard, he would pull up to the tub where the horses would drink their fill and then stand patiently as long as required. Kenneth would go have dinner, the Vermont farmer’s noon meal, maybe watch "Across the Fence,” the local farm program, and take a short nap. Later he’d come back out, roll a cigarette, climb on the wagon and head back to the hayfield for the afternoon.

When we were little my mother had one unbendable rule. Instead of the Ten Commandments we had The Commandment –– thou shalt not cross the road without an adult. Pretty much everything else was negotiable. Kenneth rented our farm land when I was very young. The rent was 200 a year and all the milk we could drink. I loved the trip for milk because those big old horses were apt to be standing outside the milk room waiting to be petted while Kenneth drew off a couple of gallons of milk from the bulk tank.

I was probably four when I looked out and saw him pull into the field across the road with his team. "Kenneth’s here! I want to go see him!”

"No, it’s nap time.” I begged and pleaded but no luck. Probably because the little sisters were already down and Mom wouldn’t leave them to chaperone me across the road. So when the house was quiet I snuck out and ran across. "Kenneth! Kenneth!”

"Hi Ted. Wanna ride?”

"Yeah,Yeah!” He put me on his lap and commenced harrowing, preparing the piece for corn. I was in my glory riding behind those big brown horses. Until he said "Uh oh, Ted. Here comes Marge.” Sixty four years later I can see her like it was yesterday. My always gentle mother was marching down across the field with a look like the angel of death. And carrying a weapon. Ironically enough, she had a length of driving line. Doubled and swinging from her right hand. I don’t remember anything after that minute of panic. I may have passed out. I don’t recall if she hit me with that strap. If she did it may have been the only time ever, but to this day I’m a wimp about crossing the road.

When I was about ten Kenneth offered me a "job” helping with haying. It's only recently that I have realized that some of these opportunities I was given almost certainly had to do with not having a father around. Kenneth loved using the horses and I was fascinated by them. So I spent a June day trying to help or at least not get in the way. Kenneth was a good, gentle soul but he came from a world I hadn't experienced. One that used language and talked in a way I hadn't heard. By the end of the day I was bewildered and I guess you could say grossed out. Who knows, maybe he was afraid without a man around I wouldn’t learn how to cuss properly. So I told Mom I didn't want to go back. The next morning Kenneth drove in our yard. I ran for my room yelling for Mom to tell him I was sick. After the quiet talk downstairs ended she came upstairs. I said "Is he gone?"

"Yes.”

"What did he say?"

"He said he hopes you feel better and he wanted to make sure you got paid." And she handed me four one dollar bills. I was shocked. I had no idea we were talking big money like that. I decided for that kind of money I could ignore a little rough talk. I worked for him the rest of haying season.

Tongue in cheek, he always referred to the horses as "the Big Team” and would make sure he did something with them nearly every day. When he was haying our fields west of the village, our "North Lot”, it was too far to come home for dinner. Most of the hay got put up in "the rick”, an old hay barn set on the edge of a pine grove. There was a spring in the field that was ice cold, even in August. It had a high mineral content that we all thought gave it a great, unique taste, and turned everything around the spring orange. The horses drank their water from an old trough filled by a pipe and then stood under the pines chewing hay while we ate sandwiches and drank spring water out of a mayonnaise jar. There was an old sofa next to the barn and Kenneth would take his after-dinner snooze, listening to the breeze in the pines and the horses chewing.

When we went back to work, the horses would pull the wagon through the field with the lines tied up on the ladder that rose from the front. Kenneth grew up pitching loose hay and when the baler came along, he stayed with his fork. He would stab a 40-pound bale and swing it up over his head, flipping it up on the load. If a boy was about, he placed it. If not, Kenneth could pretty much place an entire load from the ground by the use of his five-foot arm extension.

The horses knew the drill perfectly and responded to his voice commands. If circumstances required an extended halt, he would stop them so their noses were directly over a windrow of unbaled hay and there they would stay until he came back.

When the day was done, he usually brought a load home and we rode on top, looking down on the horses’ backs. While they clip clopped their way home Kenneth would tell stories. One I remember was about docked tails. At some time in the past the legislature made it illegal to dock horses tails. Probably not many farm horses got their tails docked but it was fashionable in some circles and fairly common. Ollie Farnham was a horse dealer who would have as many as 100 head at his farm. He got a letter from the state vet that he had reports about docked tails and he was coming to inspect. Ollie was given a time and day to pick the vet up at the train station in Shoreham. Most of my dear readers probably know when a mare is in heat she will "squirt” –– You know what I'm saying? And switch her tail which, if you are directly behind and she is enthusiastic can be unpleasant in a damp sort of way. The story went that Ollie picked a pair of flagrantly enthusiastic mares and hitched them nice and close to an open buggy and that when the state vet had completed the round trip he said "Those mares should have their tails docked. Right behind their ears.” I’m leaving out some of that rough language I was talking about.

Often as not Kenneth would finish his story just as we turned west at the stone schoolhouse. His farm was halfway down Schoolhouse Hill and the horses would have to hold back for all they were worth. The neck yokes would ride up right under their chins and their hind legs would be way up under their bellies. The blacktop was soft with the heat and their corked shoes would dig and scrape as they let the load slowly and carefully down the hill. It seemed they were in danger of falling and starting an unimaginable wreck. Kenneth said one had fallen once, but that he got back up and they regained control and made the turn into his driveway safely.

My last job every day was to go get the cows who Kenneth always referred to as "the Big Dairy.” The day pasture sprawled a half mile back to our farm with scattered patches of woods so finding the "Big Dairy,” gathering them up and driving them back to the barn may have been the most helpful thing I did all day. Every day as the last cow filed through the barn door Kenneth would hand me a candy bar to eat on my walk home and say "Thanks Ted. See you tomorrow?”

Kenneth gave me my first experience with draft horses. He’s long since gone, but I think it would make him happy to know I still share his enjoyment of a good horse and a good story.

Circle of Life post script:

If you read my “Letter to Lianne” post, I tell the story of my great grandfather Clyde making an anonymous gift of a pony to some down on their luck neighbor children. Those children were Kenneth and his siblings.