Document text
Name: Robert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore
0,
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
Dunnell
Ur. Dunnell, with the aid of a helper, was replacing old
ties on the spur railroad track that served his coal bunkers.
"Yer see that place down there?" he asked, with an expansive
wave of his hand in the direction of a, gully that the railroad
had partly filled. "Well, the first public water works that
taey was in this town stood there.
"Though, I don't know as you'd exactly call them 'public.'
They was built by Ira D. Sankey, the gospel singet, and they
supplied him and some of his neighbors. But, I understand that
he didn't give the 'water of life, freely, freely, freely,' as
you might think from the song, The customers had to pay for
having the water pumped, all right.
"Yer see, the side hill is all full of springs, They don't
never dry up. I bet yer they's as much water comes out of those
springs there as they does out of the Warwick brook. You can't
see it, but it runs into a swamp on the medder. Anyway, Sankey
got enough to run a great, big, wooden, overshot water wheel.
And the wheel was hitched on to a pump that was the most awkward
looking thing you ever seefi Seemed to be all knees. And that
thing pumped water up to a reservoy in his attic. He lived in
the house next the Unitarian church. So Sankey was the father
of one set of water works, anyway. They was others. But near
as I can find out, Sankey's was the first.
Page 2
Name: Robert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore
Topic: The. Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
"Guess it's goint to rain. My left side is painin' ma some.
Let's go in the shanty and set down. Guess Theodore can finish
this job. 'T ain't more'n one man job anyway. My business ain't
but a one man business any more. And I hope to L I have sense
enough to keep it so!
"Oh, yea, I know all about the impawtence of givin' people
work in private industry. But if they ain't anytAing private no
more, with people coming around with *Wks and writing down
anything you're a mind to tell 'em, by G-1 and they ain't any-
body got no inaustry no more, how the L are you going to do it?
"That's what I mean. They ain't no private industry. Take
a feller on a farm. He could get a living if he would work at
it. But no, he won't work no more from sunrise to milking time
as he'd have to. He puts in a lesser number of hours each day,
so's he can listen to the baseball games over the radio. That's
the 'more abundant life,' that is. He don't need a radio any
more than nothinl at all. But his neighbor's got one, so he
has to have one, too.& The government and the State colleges
oversell those fellers on machinery.
"Look a -here! I know a farm that a feller's grandfather
had. His grandfather made a living on it, so did the feller's
father. And both of 'em brought up families. It's got the same
mortgage on it now that it had on it when his grandfather bought
Page 3
Name: Hobert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
it. But it's a 'one -boss farm.' The feller's grandfather had
one horse, which could do all the work that was necessary. And
he managed to keep the fences up, and the brush cleared. But
one of the neighbors got two 'losses. EA got 'em because he could
use 'em. He had a 'two hoes farm.'
"That riled the feller's father. And when he come into the
property, about the first thing he did was to buy, another horse.
So there he ws with two bosses on a one-horse farm.
The feller didn't stop with two bosses, I guess not. He's
got a tractor, he has, and a hay loader, and a radio and an
electric ice box, a truck and an automobile to go to the moving
pictures in. And he's got all kinds of loans from the govern-
ment. And it's a godsend to him that he gets paid for not raising
some of his crops. Otherwide he couldn't stan' it. 'Cause, all
the while, you remember, all that feller's got is a one horse
farm. He don't need all that stuff in order to get a living.
And that's all you can get out of a one‘hoss farm. You can get
a darned good living, though. But you can't make enough to sup-
port all that machinery.
*That's what I meant when I said that I hoped I had sense
enough to keep my business a oneeman business. I sell less and
less coal every year. Folks is going to oil. But that's all
right. My son Myron has an oil business, which he started small,
and that keeps growing. Most people when they give up buying
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
coal of me, buy oil of him so's 761 losing business for myself)
so's I won't have to sponge on him. They'll be a living in this
business as long as I can handle it, if I work it right. But
I got to make up my mind that I've got a one-man business, and
not get to liking to see my name printed on a lot of trucks that
I can get on easy terms. If I do, the damned machinery will sink
me.
"I'd probably get to fightin't too. After they bought the
two hosses on that farm I was telling you about, they used to get
to fightin' as to the best way of b cking 'em out of the barn.
You could hear 'em from all around. Don't seem to me that it
maket.very much difference how you back a team. But it seemed
important to them. I've often wished I had snuck in and backed
'am out while the fellers was fightin'. I bet that would have
stopped them once and for all.
"I never did much fightin'. But one of those fellers had
ruther fight than eat, I guess. I know that when we was kids,
and a -going to that little school I've told you about, we
started one day and tried to box each other's hats off. Not
fightin', but dust havin' fun -or so I thought. But somehow or
other, when I went to box off his hat his nose got in the way
of my hand, and he got an awful nosebleed. His nose must a -bled
easy. .or I didn't hit him hard. I wasn't aiming to hit his
nose, nor I warn't mad, nor nothinl. We fixed him up as best
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Names Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Asaignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
we could. And I forgot all about it.
"One day, years later, I see him coming up the road. He
drove a blind hose anyway. And to add to that he had been drink-
ing hard cider 'til 't was runninl out his mouth, by G-1 he was
that full. It was getting along towards dark. And with him,
probably seeing two of everything -or nothin' at all when his
head dipped forward on his chest, I figgered he and the blind
hose was bound to meet up with trouble.
"I goes out and stops the hoes, and tells him to come in
my yard and sit for awhile, that he warn't in no condition to go
driving a blind hoes around a dark road. 'Who sez so?' he wanted
to know. 'Why, d -n you,' he says, 'You made my nose bleed once.
And I'll fix you yeti'
°It all come back to me in a flash, the school house yard
and us boxing off hats. It hurt me, too, to think that he'd
bored ma a grudge all them years. It made me mad, too, to think
of how he'd never come out with it when he was sober. But had
kept it down inside him rotting away. I thought that maybe when
he'd sobered up and understood how I'd helped him from getting
himself and his rig smashed up that he'd think better of we, so
I talked to him calm. Finally, he said he would come in my
yard, after I'd talked away about how dangerous it was for him
to try to drive home up that dark road, on the bank of the
Page 6
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Nan of Northfield
G.O. Bunnell
river. I got him so he didn't dast even try to drive into my
yard. So I got in and took the lines from him, and drove him
in. When I'd done that, he took hold of my hand, and told me
how he'd misjudged me. His words warn't very plain, but I under-
stood, and how he knew now that I was the best friend he'd ever
had. Be asked my pardon for having misjudged me. I felt a lot
better when I heard that. But as he kinder gulpdd and licked,
I figured that his stummick might be a mite unsettled by all
that cider. And I thought I might fix that up. And, maybe,
sober him off. I was feeling what the wimmen call 'weepy.'
"What I use to settle my stummick is saltratus. So I got
a little, put it in a glass and mixed it with warm water and took
it out to the feller. He didn't want to drink it. Said he didn't
know nothing about it. I said, 'You don't think I would try to
poison you, do you?' tbibl, he said, 'You're the besh frien' I
ever had. Gimme the glass.' I give it to him. And he drank
it -tossed it of all in one gulp -and they was a glassful, too.
"Then he turned reader in the face. His eyes bugged. His
mouth opened and I got out of the way just in time. I hadn't
figgered what saltratus would do with all that cider. Cider
ism acid, you knowl_and when it's mixed with sal'ratus it fizzes.
I might just as well have fed my friend a sedlitz powder one
mixture at a time. I didn't see no fizz come out his ears.
Page 7
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunneil
But it might have. It come out everywheres else. And the words
he used in between. And what he called me, would a -hurt my feelings
if I hadn't been so interested in what the saltratus was goin' to
do next. Finally, he quit fizzint and says good and calm and
sober, 'All right, Bunnell, I'll not forget this. Although I
Opose it serves me right for thinking that any such low -lived
skunk as you are had any good in him at all. Get up Bessie.'
And he drove out of the yard and up the road. And those were
the last words that feller would ever speak to me.
"Funny what kids will do. I got to thinking of that school
just now the place where we boxed hats. I was just a little
shaver when I first went there. And I guess I was preety cute.
My mother always kept me dressed neat. And I had brown curls.
4,k lot of the girls who went there were women grown. Great
big girls that would be aehamed to be seen in a school now. But
then it was all right, 'cause they all want. Those girls used
to tease me somethin' awful before school, or recess, when they
was time. They'd hug me and kiss me. And the boys would laugh.
And I didn't like it.
"We hada teacher. A good teacher she was, too. She was
awful strict. And she had bright, brown eyes behind her glasses
that just stuck out at you when you was doing something that you
shouldn't. If you warn't looking at. her you could feel her eyes
Page 8
Name: Hobert Wilder Assignment: Northfie d
Title: Living Lore Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
on you or thought you could. She had a sharp tongue, too.
But she used to smile when she saw the girls a -teasing of me
seemed to think that was all right.
"I wanted to quit school. I didn't want to go where I had
to be hugged and kissed and everybody laughed. It got preety
well round how I felt. But that didn't make no difference.
"One day I was riding to school with a feller that was taking
a load to town, and going right by the school. he got to teasing
me about how the girls kissed me. And I told him I didn't like it.
"Why don't you make 'em stop?' be wanted to know. I said I
couldn't. And he said, 'Yes, you can, too.' 'HOW?' I wanted to
know. Well, he told me what to do. He said he had a charm, a
sort of mystic spell. That all I had to do, when they begun to
ilug and tease me, was to say certain words right out good and
loud. And that they'd stop. 'Course, I was anxious to find out
what the words were. And after I'd promised to use 'em, he told
me. They warn't but a few. And while I understood acme, they
was others that I didn't and as I'd never heard 'em before I
figgered they was the magic words. The feller practiced me up
so's I could say 'em just right. And when we reached the school-
house I was just dying to try 'em. Sure enough, the girls was
there in the schoolhouse with the teacher. The boys was mostly
outside. But I went right in.
Page 9
NaMe: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
"'Oh, here's Georgie'? says one of 'am. I'm going to give him
a kiss. 'I am, too,' says another. And they all started for me.
But this time I didn't run, nor try to git away. I stood there,
with my baok to the teacher, and when they'd all gathered' round
and put their arms around me, and begun to play with my curls, I
got off my magic remark.
"Just the minute I said it, I knew I'd said'somethin' I
hadn't orter. I looked arousd at the teacher, and she was a -boring
me with her eyes. But her cheeks were bright red. And she didn't
say nothinl. I looted at the girls. And some of 'em was bent
overvcith their hands across their mouths laffing. But not
makin, no noise. They was all beety red.
"I don't know what I did next. Or how I got out of there.
But I did. And finally I found out what them magic words meant.
But they was magic all right. They worked. The girls never teased
me no more.
"And that teacher, I never knew what happened to her. She
was an ola maid then. And by rights she ought to be dead now.
But she ain't. I mel, her on the street in Greenfield the other
day. I rushed up to her to shake hands, and tell her how glad
I was to see her. And what& good teacher she was, 'cause she
really was the best I ever had. But when she wee me coming,
what does she do but look at me with them eyes of hers, turn
beety red, andwalk right by me with her nose in the airl
Page 10
Name: Robert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
d.o. Bunnell
NO, I don't recollect any ghost stories. But, come to think
of it, the house you live in is supposed to be haunted. Didn't
yer ever her anything peculiar? That house was built before the
Revolution and a lot of strange things have happened there. One
of them front rooms was a recruiting office for the 'Sea Fencibles'
during the War of 1812. But the haunted part didn't come then.
Nor it didn't happen when the place was a stage coach tavern run
by a man named Lord. It was when the Doolittles lived there.
"One night Mr. JJoolittle was away and Mts. Dodtlittle was
there alone. It was preety late of a pitch dark night, and the
rain spattered on the windows once in a while way it does
sometimes in March. Mrs. Doolittle sat by the fireplace readinl,
or knittin', or somethini, by the light of a kerosene lamp that
went up and down the way they did when the wind blew and smoked
up the chimney on one side but maybe you don't remember.
"All of a sudden she heard a gentle bump on the floor. It
scared her a bit. She looked allaround and couldn't see nothint.
It came again, a sort of hollow sound seemed to be right under
her feet. She let out a scream and rushed over to Joe Fields
without a hat, or shawl, or not:int and 't was raining, too.
"Joe was home. He'd gone to bed but he heard her hammering
and come down to see what the excitment as about. She told her
story. And Joe figgered that she'd been sitting there along and
Page 11
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain and
Feed an of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
got scared. And imagined that she'd heard the noises. 'T
seemed, though, that the only way to get rid of her was to get
dressed and go over and see for himself, then talk her out of
it, or hope that Doolittle would show up so he oduld get back
'home to oed. He couldn't figger no way out of it, so he told
his wife what waS in the wind, and dragged himself over there.
"He went in where krs. Doolittle had been, settinl. He
didn't hear nothin' and was about to say so, when somethin' went
kinder, 'bong,bong' right under his feet. He says he yanked his
feet off the floor so quick that he waved 'em right 'round his
ears. ge looked to see if airs. Doolittle saw him ,)ump. He
didn't want he. to think that he warn't brave, so he said he'd
go outside and walk around the house and see if a door or window
was open where some prowler might a got in. He didn't have no
light, nor nothin' but he used that as an excuse to get out of
the house. When he got out it was still raininl and he didn't
like that either, so he crawled all the way 'round and found
everything all tight. And while he was there he thought that
there was one place he might look to see what was rapping on the
floor, and that was in the cellar. Struck him funny that he
hadn't thought of it before. But when he got in the house, he
didn't like that job either. It occurred to him that if they
was any;Jody the -re, and he went barging down stiller with a
light that the feller could see him before he could see the feller.
And that he might not get a chance to see the feller at all.
Page 12
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man of Northfield
G.O. Dunnell
But Mrs. Doolittle had fetched him a light, and they warn't
nothinf he could do but start. She opened the suller door for
him, too. he started down the Buller stairs. And his light
shone on somethin, that made him stop. The light was reflected
from somethin' shiny, and he heard the 'bong, bong, again.
'Cept that this time it was louder. However, he wasn't scared
a bit, now. BR was orave as an;ithing. 'Mrs. Doolittle,' he
hollered, 'T ain't nothin' at all to be nervous about. Thl
suller's got filled up with water, somehow, and the noise you
heard was kr. Doolittle's empty cider barlls floatin' around and
a bumping together and hittin' the floor joists!'
*Yer see, they waan't any spirits to it. What spirits they
was had gone. Ben drunk up bj kr. Doolittle. But still they
was real spirits that had some connection with this ghost story."
*Well, I guess that's all I can tell you today. It's
,ettinl late. Come on, I'll drive you home before it rains.
By G- this rheumatism 's gettin' worse."