and all my plans of this morning seemed thoughtless and foolish.
I fished just long enough to catch three bass, about half an hour. Fortunately they were biting. Then I went back.
He did seem better again, and even got up and sat at the table for lunch, though I noticed that he moved slowly and rather cautiously, and after he had eaten he lay down again immediately. When I looked into the bedroom a little later he was asleep. I put a fresh glass of water by his bed.
I kept thinking about the stove. So while he slept I went down to the barn, got from my father’s workshop a wrench, pliers, a screwdriver and a hammer, and went to work. To my surprise it came apart fairly easily—the oil I had put on the bolts last winter had done the trick. Even so I broke a couple of fingernails; but by sunset I had it lying in pieces on the barn floor. I found I could lift all of the pieces but one—the big cast-iron firebox; even with the grates and door removed that was too heavy. However, I could turn it end over end, and by doing that I got it on to a sheet of masonite I found in my father’s workshop. Since the masonite is slick on one side, I discovered I could drag it, using the masonite as a sled. It was slow and hard, but I thought if I backed our cart right up to the barn door I could get it aboard. If not, I would just have to wait until Mr Loomis was well, and could help. I did not actually try it, because by the time I had it ready it was time to milk the cow, then wash, and start the dinner.
In spite of everything, it was festive, with the bass, the fresh-cooked greens and the salad. It is incredible how good fresh green things can taste when you have not had any for months—or, in Mr Loomis’s case, more than a year. I set the table with the “good” china that my mother saved for Sundays, Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays. I did forget one thing—candles. I had some in the house but took them to the cave. There are more at the store, but I did not think of it until too late. However, the oil lamps gave a pleasant light. They just did not look as romantic. We ate all of the bass and all of the greens and salad, though there was enough for four.
After dinner, it being still cool, I built up the fire again. I had found Mr Loomis some books that interested him. They were a set of books called
Chapter Nine
The next morning, amazingly enough, I got the tractor running. That was a direct result of
When I had finished cooking breakfast I found Mr Loomis on his bed, up on his elbow, reading one of the volumes, and he showed it to me. It was a set of diagram-drawings of the inside mechanism of a petrol pump— approximately identical to the ones at Mr Klein’s store. When I thought about it, that was not surprising; a great many farms, especially big ones, have their own petrol pumps; I remembered that three or four of the Amish farms did, for example. So it was natural that farmers would need to know how to repair them.
“Look at this,” Mr Loomis said, pointing to one of the drawings. It showed a small electric motor connected by a belt to a larger wheel. “That wheel runs the actual pump,” he said, “and look at this.” In the diagram an arrow pointed to a small circular hole near the rim of the larger wheel. At the non-pointed end of the arrow was the number “7” with a circle around it.
“Now look at number seven in the table.” Below the drawing there were printed instructions, and instruction number seven said: “Attach handle ’H’ here for manual operation in case of power failure or in areas where electricity is unavailable. Remove V belt.”
“What’s ’handle H’?” I said.
He showed me another drawing across the page. “Handle H” turned out to be a knob, rather like a doorknob, with a pin on the end to fit into “Hole 7” in the wheel. It seemed simple enough. That would convert the wheel into a sort of crank.
I said: “And if I turn it, petrol will come out?”
“Say a prayer first. Petrol
“How?”
“Pry it off with a screwdriver.”
“I could just cut it.”
“No.” He sounded most emphatic. “V belts are useful, and we have nowhere to buy any more.”
I went to the store and examined (for the first time!) the petrol pumps that stood in front of it, ordinary red- and-white things I had walked past a thousand times, one Super, one Regular. The front, I now saw, was made like a door, with hinges on one side but screwed shut. I got a screwdriver from the store and took out the screw; I pried a bit and the door came open rather squeakily. Inside all was as the diagram showed—the motor, the belt, the wheel, some pipes leading down. And there, clipped to the door in a spring-clamp, was “Handle H”.
I tried to pry the belt loose from the wheels, but it was made of heavy, stiff rubber, very tight. Finally I had to take out some screws and remove the wheel from the motor. I took off the belt, replaced the wheel and hung the belt on it. It would be there when we needed it.
Quite excited, I took Handle H from its clamp and inserted it into the slot on the big wheel (about fourteen inches in diameter). I unhooked the hose from the petrol pump, and holding the nozzle in one hand and the knob in the other, I was ready to turn it. Which way? An arrow on the wheel pointed counter-clockwise. I turned and in ten seconds liquid was splashing on the gravel at my feet. The smell could not be mistaken—it was petrol.
I stopped pumping and got a five gallon container from the store and filled it. With the can bumping my leg every step, I carried it to the barn and rilled the tractor’s petrol tank. I checked the oil—it was all right. There was a self starter but the battery was dead, of course. That had happened many times before, however, and I knew how to start it with the crank. First I primed the carburettor as my father had showed me (we all used to drive the tractor, starting at about age eight); then, saying the prayer I had forgotten to say at the petrol pump, I cranked hard. The motor started immediately, with a loud sputtering roar, and I felt like patting it on the hood. In fact, I did. The noise seemed incredibly loud. You forget how noisy machines are after a year.
That was partly because it was still in the barn. I climbed up to the seat, put it in reverse, and backed it out. It was a bit less deafening; now the noise filled the whole valley. Though I was sure Mr Loomis had heard it, I wanted him to see it, too, so I drove the tractor to the house and parked it outside his window. I almost laughed, remembering how I had hated to drive it several years ago; the girls who lived in Ogdentown didn’t drive tractors. Now I could rejoice over the time and labour it would save us, and I hurried into the house to share the triumph.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed and was surprisingly matter-of-fact.
“You found Handle H,” he said.
“And the petrol came out on the first turn,” I said. “I think that tank must be full.”
“If it is, we have three thousand gallons. At least that’s what
And in my excitement I had not even tried the other pump. There might be six thousand!
I took the tractor back down to the barn and hitched on the plough. I had already decided what I was going to do. As you head back from the house to the barn, the pasture, the far field, the pond and the brook all lie on your right. To the left there are a few fruit trees and then, further left, another small field of about an acre and a half. This was a field my father used for a few years to grow melons, pumpkins, squash, things like that—to sell in Ogdentown. However, he gave that up, as he said, because it did not make enough money to be worth the time it took. That was about five years ago; since then he had merely kept the field mowed but not planted it.
I had decided, if I got the tractor running, to plough that field and plant it with sweetcorn, with maybe a few rows of soy beans and pea beans. These were all staples which would take up too much room for the small vegetable garden near the house. Sweetcorn could be eaten by us, by the chickens, and, if there was any left over, by the cows—husks and all.
