Document text
9
lear_tet,Ywn, C.
Dairy timer
Ante V. ;;teens, writer
Douglas arter, Reviser
'ITY. rrne4
By four oteloek la the rornini, lights flicker through
the windows of the lretan farmhouses arah araham calls to
Dale, "asks up son, it's time to begin liking. Young
Dale Troans and turns over, but less than a half hour later
his boots ean be heard tramp, trenp, on tte stair. irreneee,
bis slender, br1;ht-haired, younTer sister follows wttb a
lighter tread he ha all- on slaes and sweatiqb, and
puts on a fresh, white apron as she lees. Their flashlights
illumlnate the side Tess -lot i the red clay of the up..
ward-1110pin'; ro,td. 7-ut of the blnekness emerges the *tout
filure of bon. the hired hel7er. Doors and windows of the
cattle stalls of the bottlinn and refri..teratiw-, rooms
sLoe brifitt go'nst the
rkness, Cows stir and low sleepily
as Ben washes their well filled baits. Mere i the welsh of
nilk in pails, the eliek and Turgle of bottles beIng filled.
Down the hill rises fro% the A.tehen flue, as the sky
gradually brightens
The work of the thy hsuell begun.
By six o'clock the milk from 23 cows has tven cooled end
sealed by Itanees in the bottles her =other boiled zInd
sterilised the after... on before. The rfi1k of the previous
afternoon, bottled and kept in the refrieerator, is also
ready to be loaded on the truck.
Dale and Frances turn toward the kitchen, whence come the
odors of hot ooffee and fried country sausage. arah places
hot biscuit or corn broad and syrup on the table, and young
Dale, ravenously hungry, consumes large quantities. Frances,
careful of her slim figure, eats more daintily. 3reakfast
over, Dale takes his elitee at the driver's wheel, for Ben
has the milk truck loaded, and starts out before seven o'clock
on his mornine remade. By now the sunlieht brightens the
smoke frem the kitchen flue and the bed .of daffodils in the
side yard Frances waves him good luck, and his mother re-
minds him of some important errand in town
es he drives u the hill toward the county road leading
to the highway, the house and barns disnppeer from sight in
their own valley among the rounded, ;1-afy, hill pastures.
It will be midafternoon on his return fro the town 15 miles
away, where from door to door he delivers milk to his customers.
At four -thirty p.m., the afternoon aliking, sterilization of
bottles, bottlingand refrieleiration will begin afresh. AS
he approaches the farm, Dale's first view will be the tee
story, rambline, white farmhouse, its nosse-ereen roof seeming
to rise from a group of reddening maples, the whole set in
a frame of irassy, dome -shaped hills overhung by dark, pine
clad mountains.
After Dale drives off in the truck at seven in the morning.
Ben waters the cows, drives them to pasture, clean") out the
stalls, and goes to work on the new, half-comalete(',. brick
silo, or paints the new tin roofs of the veather4.beaten barns
and cow shed a bright green* !anwhile, Latrah and Frances
put the houae in order, with the help, of whichever of Sarah's
married daughters may be visiting them at the time.
"Some mornings I oversleep," :E---4rah told me when she gave
me a recent interview. "Why, yesterday Ididn't wake up
until faur-tnirty in the mornita" he bad clone to bed at
seven o'clock the evening before.
Sarah Graham, who is 59 years old, has "run" the dairy
farm of 73 acres ever since her husband's death eight years
ago, looks more than her age, her round face 'ailing
deeply seamed. Though her thoughts seem to move rapidly,
her speech is husky, and halting, almost Choked, "1 have
been a heart patient for 17 years," she explained cheerfully.
After my husband's death, my older children helped me,"
she said. "but now they are all marriej and have homes and
families of their own, all except Dale, who is just 21, and
Yrances„ who is not yet of age. As soon as Dale establishes
himself here, and ,ets married going to leave the farm,
live in town do as I wish, read a book, and rest think
ilve earned a rest."
aarnh's husband, Danl.1, was born in 'nland, she says,
and came to this eountry when he was about 15 years old.
Her nelghbore say he was a. German, which he might have been.
Their 12 living children, four sons and eight daughters, are
tall and biondly Saxon, with blue eyes and fair hair, while
Sarah herself is short and dark. ahe was married to Daniel
Iraham at 14. He was some eight years older. She bore him
15 children, two of whom died in infancy. She also lost one
grown daughter. Sarah does not approve of early marriages.
"I told my daughters," she said, "I hoped none of them would
marry before they were 18.
The Grahame, over since aa h's marriage, have been eon...
nected with dairies or dairy farming. 'Shortly after their
marriage, her husband bought his stepfather's dairy in the
suburbs of the county seat. He made no sueeess of it. After
he had resold it, he worked around numerous dairies and dairy
farms as ariaer, milker, general helper, and finally as
manager. Later he left the county to take the management
of a larae dairy farm at a State-owned sanitarium in the
eastern dart of the atate Be and his faally lived there for
six years. In 1,24 he returned to the county, and bought
the farm now operated by his wife and younaest son.
aarah, although she has lived the reater part of her
life In the mountains, was born, she will tell you, "In the
low country at Modward near ':;11mIngton." Her father was a
carpenter, but her arandparents were farmers.
"I used to visit my arandparents when I was a child," said
Sarah, "and remember much that 7 saw there. When I tea*
charge of this farm eight years ago at my husband's death,
I was helped by remembering how my grandfather did things.
Vhen we begun planting, I remembered how my grandfather
planted grain. As my boys 3ot the ground ready, I followed
them sowing rye as I had seen my grandfather do it. I didn't
miss many wreathes. After the field came up, the boys
laughed at me and said the field looked like a checkerboard;
but I didn't see the resowing it,"
"When he had to cut up a ho," she con.arrued, "I remembered
how it was done on grandfather's farm. T had my sons take
the hog, after it was killed and scalded, and hang it on
that tree up there,* pointing through the window, "and then
I sbowec thea how to out it up.
*I didn't try to branch out on new projects when I took
hare of the farm, but made a living out of it for far
self and the children, and paid up most of my husband's
debts,*
arub, alma axth other dairy farmers, lost much money by
the coming of disease among her cows. "5ince tate
inspection began five years ago, she said, "1 have had 60
cows condemned by the inspeetors. The State paid me $20 to
325 apiece. It was hard to replace them. There were few
cows left for sale in the county, and there WN8 always
danger of buyAn cows already infectad, anti' the State took
over inspection of arivate cattle. !Amy of the small farmers
reaented this State inspection. hat they did with their
cattle, they thoueht, was their own affair. But it seams to
me very important that cows be inspected. Ac all my children
were raised on the bottle, I know the velue of clean, wholee
some milk." Ale added, "We had to buy where we could, so
our herd is mixed but 'la's hopes in time to keep only
Terseys and Holsteins."
:rah points out, too, that the matter of equipment bears
heavily oi the retail milk dealers. It costs for instance,
several hundred dollars to put in the aeeeratue for bottling
milk. The bottles themselves are expensive, for each must
be stamped 1th the farm -owner's name, 7t is not infrequent
to have to buy $75 worth of bottles at a time as they are
.broken or lost The caps for the bottles rut be stamped,
too, with the nene of the owner,and of course, while they
are cheap, they mist be boueht in reat quantities.
eirah's refri-eratine plant is costing her 41,C0C. I
never would have gotten such an expensive one myself," Wm
said. "A WO refrigerator would have been laree enough
for a farm of this sizes"
be went on to xplain, "TWo years aloI sold the farm to
Dan eenton, a dairy farmer of some experience. He was to
pay e $15,fT0. For first payment, he awapped me a house,
lot, and a few nares his home He valued it at 113,C004,
"Fe started out on too leree a scale. Ile eut in the
;1,0cC refrieeratine plant. He bought a new milk trutik and
a new pump, when the old ones would hnve done for several
years. At the end of the year, he found he couldn't make
it.
reenwhile, 7rs. 7raham's son, "411e, could let no work.
2o she agreed to buy back the furm and install :Ale there.
4r the terms of her agreement with Dan Benton, she was to
give him back his home, and take over her farm with all its
Indebtedness. A neighbor of the grahams, 720s. Torrent,
whose husband owns a dairy farm, said to me, "Dan Benton
certainly 4ot the best of Mrs 4"raham, She agreed to assume
all the debts on the farm. Every day she learns of new ones."
Yrs. Torrent said, also, "The reason Dan Benton put in so
mueh new equipment was the inspectors bore down hard on, him
beeause he was just starting out for himself. They had been
easy on Urs, graham, because she is a widow, and because
she had been in charge of the farm for several years. So
they made terms easier for her."
"The new pump, truck, and refrizerntor had all been
bought on credit, said arah graham, "so Dale and I are
paying for them."
"But since Mr. ?Anton had not paid for them couldn't you
have had them taken back?" I asked.
*Yes, but we needed the refriT:eration, and by the time
the equipment was torn out and cheaper machinery installed,
it would have cost nearly as much,"
Consequently, the grahams are planning to apply for a
Federal loan of $3,5CO. There is also a debt of $1,0004
borrowed from a land oompany in Raleigh during her husband's
life. If they ;et the Federal. loan, :24 -rah estirtates they
can pay all indebtedneFs and have money left to buy two
heifers. After all debts are paid, ,:arah count on Dale's
+Blearing 4150 a month. She hopes to .!et her car to assume
the responsibility of repaying the Federal loan. Mrs.
Torrent says dubiously, *Be has never assumed responsibility
so far."
"I could," said arah, "lend leis the money myself." She
went on to explain that she owns three cottages in the county
seat, bought with hrr husband's and dead daughter's life in-
surance. These have a market value of between ,-6,000and
48,000. "By sailing part of my town property, I could raise
enough to est-Iblish Dale, and let him oay me by degrees;
but I think it's better to put the responsibility squarely
on him."
Dale, when he can afford to do so, intends to install
equt for making concrete blocks, and so replace the
wooden stalls and other frame buildings with concrete ones
like those on the neighboring dairy farm of Jim Torrent and
Tom ;%ndriews.
The Grahams, like other dairy farmers In the neighborhood,
pay the hired helper 41 a day. The custom is to furnish
this worker with a house, firewood, and all the milk he can
use Hours are from fount -thirty a.m. unt.,1 dark, seven days
in the week, a part of Sunday excepted.
"There is always somethim to be done on a farm, says
tiarah. "A new-born calf has to be cared for; a sick cow has
to be treated; the hogs have to be fed (we keep a few pigs
to eat the slops); the stalls must be cleaned daily, except
in winter when they are bedded in straw. Then the straw
must be changed often.
e try, too, to raise as much food
for the stock as we can. 'Ana* our farming land is limited,
we rait it all into corn and lespedeza. te find it cheaper
to buy food for the table than to raise it at the expense
of corn or clover.
"t'ith so much to be done, she observed, "I find it best
to give each person his own tasks and hold him to them.
Frances, for exaple, among other duties, attends to bottl-
ing the milk. I look after washin4 nn4 sterilizing the
bottles. I keep the easy jobs for myself," she laughed,
"on account of this heart trouble. I've lromised my
married daughters not to over do. Yvon when my grand-
children come to see me.
ive each his task. Inveryone
here," I say, 'is busyl you'll be very lonely and lost
if you have no work to dolf I did the same thing with my
own children. I tried to make them all indenendent. Some-
time* I think T made them too mueh so." She is a little
worried, however, about Dale. "He depends on me too much,"
she says. "T am tryins to lead him to face his awn problems,
and make his own decisions."
The other sons have jobs and femilies of their (winHarry,
the oldest, is foreman on a Federal building project in
Virginia. "He makes $75 a week," she says proudly. "He
never finished high school, so he found it hard at first to
read the blue prints. But his wife is well educated. Her
father teaches school. o she taught Harry what he needed
to know to do his work.'"
Jim, another son, works in an automobile tire retreading
business in town at $20 a week. He and his family live in
a neat white cottage not far from his mother's farm. redmund
lives in town and makes 420 a week working in a news company.
Two of Una, 3reham's daughters were educated in a State
college for teachers.
One taught for several years before
her marriage. "She still is teaching," Sarah says: "her
own children in her own home." The other college graduate
could et no school position, but she, too, is married and
is using her training an her awn children. The chief re...
reations of the family seem to be gt)!Ill to church services
on zunday and to the Y.?.1.7.„ but Sarah considers the
movies clean and educational, and encouragi,s her children
to go to them, and to go to a drug store for refreshments
afterward
The farmhouse, though old-fashioned, seems quite com-
fortable. A J;rassy lawn, fringed in Wareh with yellow wands
of forsyt'ia„ leads to a deep front piazza. The parlor
occupies the front of the house. Its red carpet, green-
cushioned wicker furnIture„ and large -figured lac curtains
are protected fro the light in true mid-Victorian fashion
by drawn shades. It has an open fireplace and a few pictures.
A double door connects it with the living room, which Is well
lighted and is heated by an Immense coal heater. The living
room furniture is simple but oomfortable, and the room has
a cozy appearance. A child's white iron crib with immacu-
late white beCding and pale blue blankets was rolled near the
heater. In it, a plump, blond baby sucked contentedly
at the bottle, which its fair-haired mother, a visiting
daughter of the home, held for it.
Sarah Graham, seated in a comfortable rocker, was resting from her morning's tasks. She expressed herself as
well satisfied. "I feel," she said, "that I have fulfilled
my obligations to the race. I feel, also, that my present
oceupation is useful and honorable. I am helpin to build
up strong, healthy bodies in other women's homes. All I
want now is to see Dale established on the farm. Then I
want to rest."