Document text
ORIGINAL MSS. OR FIELD NOTES (Check one)
PUB. Living Lore in
New England
TITLE Berkshire Hill Town Farm Wife
Naw Voriboroup
WRITER Wade Van Dore
#1
DATE 2/21/39 MDS. P.P. 12
CHECKER DATE
SOURCES GIVEN Interview
COMMENTS
).P/147
Mrs. Cruickshank Berkshire
Hill Town Farm Wife
Paver One
STATE Massachusetts
NAivE OF WORKER Wade Van Dore
ADDRESS New Marlborough
DAIT, OF INTERVIEW February 21, 1939
SUBJECT Living Lore
NAME OF INFORMANT Mrs. Cruickshank
ADDRESS New Marlborough
The old road winds half-forgotten over
the hills; once it carried good traffic of wagon
going to mill and carriages going to church. A
thriving business went over it a century ago, and
the large frame houses beside it held big families.
One of these old houses, still standing in
good condition and little changed externally at
least, is known as the Chase place. It stands
in dignity and beauty back from the dirt road,
across a smooth green lawn. Nearer the road
practically beside it, in fact and to one side
so that it aoes not obstruct a view of the older
house, stands a smaller, very ordinary red frame
house perhaps sixty years old. In this house
Mrs. Cruickshank was born, the last of the local
line of Chases. 6he was the only child, and to
her came the fine old homestead and farm. Not
so very long ago ten years ago, no more she
and her husband sola the entire place to city
people, who kindly allowed them to stay on and
live as if it were still their own. .tiut when
the new owners were separated by death the farm
had to be sold again, and this time with less
fortunate results.
This explanation is necessary in an account
of Mrs. Cruickshank. Her life and personality
lirs. Cruickshank Berk-
shire Hill Town Farm Wife
Paper One
STATE Massachusetts
NAME OF WORKER Wade Van Dore
ADDRESS New Marlborough
DATE OF INTERVTITN February 21, 1939
SUBJECT Living Lore
IAME OF INFORMANT Mts. Cruickshank
ADDRESS New Marlborough
have been tempered by the spaciousness and
grace of her surroundings. If she lacks the
mannerisms of an aristocrat at least she has
a.true lady's sense of what is seemly, good,
and proper. She speaks maliciously of no one,
though she is interested in all gossip as
country people usually are. She is generous
and kind.
Physically she is slight, not very tall, with
the angularity of a hard-working Yankee farm
woman. She is wiry and quick, and very spry
even at 60 she thinks nothing of a five mile
walk to call on her friends, the young writers,
and their small child whom she admires so much.
Her household is a neat and happy one, and she
is a good mother -in-law to her son's wife and
her daughter's husband, while her home is always
open to "Donal's" fiancee. I?here never seems to
be any bickering or undercurrent of ill will
such as is found in many of the hill homes. The
grown children are all nice -looking and intelligent.
_r. Cruickshank is weather -burned and stocky,
slow -spoken but firm in all ways. The family as
a whole show LMrs. Cruickshank more respect and
consideration than is usual in the district,
although on the other hand she is not pampered.
Sne doesn't milk the cows but she can and
-3- Mrs. Cruickshank Berkshire
Hill Town Farm Wife
Paper One
STATE Massachusetts
.JA;,E 02 WORKER Wade Van Dore
ADDRESS New Marlborough
DATE OF LTERVIEW February 21, 1939
SUBJECT Living Lore
NA_ uC II FORMART Mrs. Cruickshank
ADDRESS New Marlborough
does feed the horses or the chickens ifaeveryone
else is busy or away. On holidays there are
gifts and plants for her; she is taken out to
ride or "to the pictures" (movies) and is taken
shopping for new clothes.
In her speech Mrs. Cruickshank is given to
folk -expressions and colloquialisms but not to
ignorance. She reads and writes but her life
has been'too full for much indulgence in story-
books. She continues a life -time correspondence
with an old school friend and once a year has this
friend to visit her.
YaMe: Wade Van Dore Assignment: New Marlborough
Title: Living Lore
Topic: L.rs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Paper One
"Yes, indeed I have I've lived on this place all my life,"
said Mrs. Cruickshank cheerfully in answer to my question. "Grampa built
this house for my father when he was married, and I was born here. Then
later when I married Ben, Papa was alone so I couldn't go away and leave
him, so we just stayed right here. I was the only one he had. I didn't
have any sisters or brothers just a lone chick, as they tell about.
And sometimes Papa was a trial for Ben too, but I will say that Ben was
always right good to Papa. Thought maybe I'd have only one baby too
it was eight years after Dorothy was born that Junior came, and then
four years before our Donal' came. 6o we finally had quite a family
after all."
"But what about the big house," I asked, motioning toward the
fine old building set back from the road, its ancient clapboards weathered
to a silky grey and enhanced by light green shutters and lilac bushes
beside the door. "Didn't you ever want to live over there?"
"Land sakes, no We liked the little house. It has been plenty
big enough for us. Gracious, I just wouldn't know how to act rattling
around in that great place, and having to keep it clean. I declare it's
hard enough to clean this one," and she sent an apologetic glance toward
the dark red painted house set close beside the road in near proximity
to the great barn, as if to imply that she didn't keep even the smaller
house clean enough. "No, and I never slept in the old house but one
Name: Wade Van Dore
Title: Livin„4 Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Fader' 'Ode
night in my life, and that was to keep company with the Doctor's wife
when she was there alone once. Mercy, but it did seem strange sleeping
there so near to my own bed in the other house. It's no wonder
Barell won't keep the place now that He's gone. And I wouldn't
be s'prised if she needed the money too, as much as we needed money
when we sold it to them, ten years ago when times were so hard for us.
3ut we never expected they would sell it as long as we were here. It
dian't seem like we were selling to them, though, because they just let
us stay on the same as always, with our stock ana all. We cut the hay
every year, and sold firewood and had our truck garden and they never
asked a thing of us but to open up the house and make a fire sometimes,
or take care of the water pipes. Ben put in the bathroom and kitchen
pipes for them, but the Doctor paid him for the work, and said long as he
was doing it he might as well put water in my kitchen too. I tell you I've
blessed him many times for that faucet in my sink."
"Do you know what you'll be doing now, or where you'll go?"
I asked, for I had heard that the Doctor's wife had just recently sold
the property to a young couple from Hartford.
"No, that we don't. But I don't see how we can stay here. Why
the new people want us to pay fifteen dollars a month rent, and Ben to work
eighteen hours a week besides, taking care of their riding horses."
"I think they're Jews," drawled Ben as he came up just then
from his work in the barn, joining us as we walked into the lamp -lighted
-3
Name: Wade Van Dore Assignment: New Marlborough
Title: Living Lore
Topie: Urw. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Papier One
house from the deepening dusk of the yard. "That young feller tells me
every time he sees me that he got cheated on this place. He even got a
surveyor u to go over the lines, and says to him that he wanted enough
extra land offen it to pay the cost of surveryin'. But the surveyin' feller
says back to him, 'Just who do you expect me to steal this land from,
anyhow?' So I guess it didn't get surveyed. Another day he started
walkin' over the line, with me to show him the way, an' we weren't half
through when he was ready to call quits. Why he's got more land here now
than he knows what to do with. Can't ride horses in them woods. Lawn too
big now to keep mowed. says they're goin' to keep sheep on the lawns City
folks:"
"Yeh, Jim come up t'other day," says blond, nice -looking
Donald, entering the conversation, "an asked Mr. Bell if he could have
the hay in that field next to his place. 'Why, is that my field?' says
Er. Bell. 'I didn't know that b'longed t' me. What'll you give me for
it?' I almost laughted right out, an' I guess Jim was s'prised too. All
the hay fields hereabouts growin' into brush, an' he wants to 1111 his
hay!"
"I never see the like before," resumes Ben, wagging his head.
"If they hain't Jews, I don't know what they be. I told him right out
as how he got a bargain on the place, an' I happen to know he's already
been offered a thousan' dollars more than what he paid for it."
hame: Wade Van Dore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
paper One
"I don't care if they are Jews Jews can be just as nice as
other people, I expect," asserted his wife. "But it is too bad that
they are carryin' on so: You can't feed a dog hay, and Mr. Bell will
find he can't treat country people like as if they were so many garden
weeds if he expects to get along in the country gracious no!"
"Are they up now?" I asked in the expression used by natives
concerning part-time residents. City people are "up" when living
in their country houses; when they have returned to town we say they
have "gone down."
"ho, they aren't here," answered Mrs. Cruickshank, "but the
old la dy, :is. bell's mother, is over at the house, and she is really
awful nice. hot a bit smart and sassy like the young ones. I guess
they don't treat her awful good either. She is German or Swedish or from
one of those countries. Talks kinda foreign -like. She's friendly to us
and it seems real nice to have a neighbor so near. I do get some woman
hungry, I must say. And now one reason I'll hate to move is that I'll
miss her. Sut maybe we can stay close by. Why, even miss this
old roads 'Twon't seem the same if we live on a better one some 'ere.
Goodness, when I remember all the times I walked up and down this road,
going to school when I was a little girl, down the hill to the schoolhouse.
That's a antique shop now, or whatever they call those places. The rich
New York people down there have put a pig sign on it anyhow. I used to
walk those two miles down there, no matter how cold or hot it was and
-5
Name: Wade Van Lore
ritle: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Tonic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Pater- One
the snow seemed deeper then than we have it now. Dorothy and Junior
went to school there too, and Donal' went through the grades. xiut they
started the bus to town when he went to high school. I'm glad one of
mine went to high school. Graduated too, with a prize for chemistry.
I never did know much about that." She sighed, remembering again the family's
_present search for a new place to live. "Eyah, it never rains but it pours,
as the man says." The expression "eyah" is breathed more than spoken, on
an incoming breath, and I wonder if it is a direct descendant of the old
English "aye". When quoting a proverb she always qualifies it with "as
they tell about" or "as the man says."
There was a little silence, and then Mrs. Cruickshank reported
in rather awe-stricken tones, "You know how proud the Doctor was of those
old clapboards on the big house? He knew I told him that they were
the original clapboards, more than a hundred years old, and never been
painted. So he got some oil of some kind from someTeres to have 'em
treated and preserved, and had the men folks help to put it on. An' now
these new owners talk about painting the house white! After all these
years, when it's been so pretty and different and everybody has admired
it so:"
Even I was flabbergasted by this bit of news. It was hard to
visualize the stately old building in glistening white, and I said
so in sympathy, but my hostess's sorrow seemed almost imnersonal
so far as the house itself was concerned. Again I spoke of their moving.
Name: Wade Van Dore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank r•
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Patier. Ono
"Perhaps you will be able to get a house with a bathroom," I suggested,
I knew this to oe one of her dearest wishes. Her face lighted at once.
"-Yes, I've thought of that," she exclaimed. "L6ok, I'll show
you the kind of bathroom I'd like," and she reached for a Ilrge, well-worn
mail-order catalogue. "Ain't this a purty one?" and she pointed out a
creation in orchid colored tile. "But I guess we'll be lucky just to get
a house, almost any kind of a house, even. Ben has been down to see the
Foresters' place. The man is in jail for six years for killing another
man, and his wife went to stay with her daughter, so the house is empty.
'Tisn't
started
walls.
in very good repair, 'cause once when they got drunk they
a fire in it. You can still see burnt places on the floors and
But Dorothy said she'd help us paint 'n' paper it. There's no
water in the kitchen, but a spring runs into a little hall, like."
"I'll miss you when you move," I said to the family as I bid them
goodnight, pitying their homelessness, their sense of loss, and their
incredulous aisillusionment in the hard-boiled city folk.
When next I saw them it was in their new home. For they did
take the Foresters' nouse.
"It's a lot different from our old place," remarked Mrs. Cruick-
shank cheerfully, after I had casually inspected the rooms, upstairs
and down. "But I'm getting used to it bit by bit. It's lots lighter,
and the rooms are Ilrger, and the boys have even put a faucet in the
kitchen. I think it looks quite nice with the new paper and paint,
-7
Jame: Wade Van Lore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Paper One
and Dorothy bought me these curtains. Seems I haven't seen you for
a long time. iirs. Bell's mother comes down for milk almost every
day, and she tells me she sees you sometimes. She brought me some of
the plants I'd left in the dooryard, now wasn't that nice of her? I
was so busy movin' I couldn't take 'em up, and even had to leave the
white v!lets Donal's girl gave me last year on Mother's Day. So the old
lady brought 'em down to me. I guess her folks don't like it 'cause she
gets milk here and likes to see me. But land sakes, the poor old lady is
lonesome alone by herself most of the time. I hear tell they are fixin'
our house for her to live in. If that's what they wanted why didn't they
gay. so? Telling us they could rent it to someone they knew for fifteen
dollars a month and eighteen hours of work a week: Now they are putting
in a bathroom and everything. I'm glad, though, fer hiked the old lady
from the start. She is real nice and did she tell you *bout livin'
in Germany during the war?"
"Yes, she did. dhat else have you learned about our new
neighbors?" I inquired.
"Ch, dear mel they are up to all kinds of mischief. Horses
ruining the lawn that Ben spent so much time on making nice, and
you can smell the horse dung all over the place. An' the hired man
runs around with the country girls even if he is married and has three
children. An' that nursemaid don't look like much to me, either. They
had one of Polish Tom's girls in to help with the house-cleaning, and
-8
Name: Wade Van Dore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Noir :One,
the next day ijrs. Bell went down and accused her of stealing five dollars
from the nursemaid's purse. Tom was so mad and upset you know how
honest and good and hard-working the whole family is that he order
poor Lary never to go there again. Dear me, it's a pity, 'cause Mary
really is such a nice girl. Then some hunters staying down at Bill
Thompson's shot one of the Bells' goats leastwise so they say and
the Bells had state troopers all up and down the road trying to find out
who did it. And both the Bells have stopped the different summer people
on the road and asked them to call. Imagine! You know how the summer
people are, around here friendly enough with everybody, but no great
shakes at going to each other's houses. Mostly all old people too,
wanting to be quiet. But these young ones seem to want to have a real
noisy place with dancing and bridge games and all that. I guess mebbe
they'll find they've come to the wrong place. And they're pretty mad
'cause the people from the big houses haven't come to see them they
can't understand why the same folks are friendly with that young couple
of writers living down the road in that old shack they fixed up. 'Well,'
mebbe it's 'cause those two've got some brains,' I told Mrs. Bell's
mother, 'and I think you'd like them too.' So I took her down there,
and the young lady was just awful nice to that poor old thing, nicer
than her own daughter is and of course her daughter was mad about that,
too. They're mad at themselves, those folks, if you ask me."
-9
me: Wade Van Dore
Title: Livir* Lore
Assignment: New Marlborouwh
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Paper One
"Evidently they belong to that wide class of people known as
the vulgar rich." I ventured.
"I guess mebue so," assented Mrs. Cruickshank. "Though the
young lady certainly has nothing to be so set up about I don't know
much about Mr. Bell. But the old lddy told me herself that she did
housework to support her young ones and now since her daughter married
a man with a little money she's been so stuck up you'd think she'd always
been rich. But mebbe that's just her way of getting even. Mebbe other
girls used to turn up their noses at her! But isn't it a pity she didn't
have sense enough to know what a fine person her mother is in spite of
doing scrubbing and washing for folks? She sure has no call to be
ashamed of that old lady.
"It's like Donal's girl being ashamed of his uniform. You
know he's a chauffeur now for the Tallmans. They bought him a nice
uniform and cap and I want him to have his picture took in it. He looks
real handsome, I think. put Helen, his girl, doesn't like it at all.
I can't understand why not. She's a maid herself for some folks south
of here and her mother works for summer folks. Nothin' to be ashamed
of in good honest work, is there?"
Of all the people she is talking about, Mrs. Cruickshank
herself is perhaps the truest aristocrat. The best blood in the section,
that of generations of pioneers and landed gentry, is accumulated and
concentrated in her thin_ old veins. It is rather pathetic to see her
-10
Name: Wade Van Dore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New bilarlborouRh
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Paper One
so defiant against the false standards of interlopers. As we talked
she moved quickly about her large kitchen which also serves as dining
room at one end. She was pouring milk into bottles.
"I want should take home some of this milk for the little
boy," she said. "Land sakes, I wish I had something nicer to send him.
I don't know what we'd do without milk. We've lots to be thankful for,
I guess. Always something good about everything only sometimes you
have to look for it with glasses on.
"D'you want any of these magazines?" she went on. "Donal'
brought 'em home from Tallmans', an' I'll never read 'em all. I like
the pictures an' some of th' stories. But don't they have fancy cooking
pictures! My, it's all I c'n do t' peel potatoes three times a day.
I guess the folks that write these receipts don't. mean 'em for a body
that has to pick her own berries, wash milk pails, an' weed a garden,
an' can stuff, besides washin' and ironin' and cleanin'."
I looked over the magazines and selected several to take
away. Among them were copies of the New Yorker.
"What do you think of these magazines," I asked, holding
one of them up for her to see.
"Good lands: I don't see much sense to them I don't for
a fact!" she exclaimed. "But then, if other folks do, I s'pose they're
all right. I guess there's lots in the world I don't understand I
know enough to know that, at least," she laughed. nmy motto is it's
-11
Name: Wade Van Dore
TitIe: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
Paper Cne
better to be ignorant than to think you know too much. Gracious:
I hope I never get like old Mr. Moss down the road. He's so stiff and
set in his ways I do believe it's hard for him to go around a bend in
the road: Why only last week when I walked down to chapel, I followed
his tracks in the snow, and for the whole two miles they did not once
cross from one side of the road to t'other. I couldn't help but notice
because I had t' cross back and forth a number of times to keep out of
mud holes, but Moss's tracks never turned once."
"Didn't it tire you walking all that distance? And up and
down hills, too?" I asked.
"Land sakes no: or mebbe being tired means somethin'
different to me than it does to other folks. Did I ever tell you
that I never been sick never except for when the children came,
and that always seems different somehow, b'cause you're getting something
for your trouble. An' I will say it wasn't as hard for me, havin' my
babies, as 'tis for some. Ben says I'll outlive the whole family -just
dry up finally and blow away. Msbbe I've been so well 'cause I've kep'
so busy.. Guess I've just never had time to be sick."
"That's one way to live," I said. "But what would happen
to the poor doctors if everyone was like you?"
For a moment Mrs. Cruickshank laughed at this question, then
she answered:
"Well, I do bilieve they would have to be their own patients.
An' if they could not make a living in such a way, they would have to
hustle and find some other kind of work."
Name: Wade Van Dore
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: New Marlborough
Topic: Mrs. Cruickshank
Berkshire Hill -Town Wife
?liver One
The afternoon had been spent in talk, and now the men were
coming in from their chores to listen over the radio to their favorite
adventure serials. I know this to be a daily custom, never interrupted,
so considered it a good time to leave. Mrs. Cruickshank pressed upon
me the two quarts of rich creamy milk and promised to come down soon to
spend a day with us. The hill road held only shadows and sunset glow
as I walked home upon it.