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Book Excerpt
By LeAnn R. Ralph, Fri Dec 9th
From the book: Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam (tradepaperback; Sept. 2004) LeAnn R. Ralph http://ruralroute2.com ~ 5 ~ May-Day! The school bus had long since disappeared over the last hilltoward the main road one afternoon when I set my books on thekitchen table and hurried into the living room to talk to mymother.
Mom was sitting in her favorite easy chair by the picturewindow, and her crutches were laid neatly on the floor next tothe chair where she could reach them. Outside the window, the air was so clear everything shimmeredand sparkled. The fence posts. The plum trees. The lilacs. Buteven though the sun was shining and the grass was as green asthe bottle of food coloring in the kitchen cupboard, a chillywind blew out of the west. I would never tell her so, but I wasglad my mother had insisted I put on my red button-down sweaterbefore I left for school this morning. “Mom?” I said. “Is it all right if I ride my bike?” As I waited for her to answer my question, she looked up fromthe newspaper and peered at me through her black-rimmed readingglasses. “You won’t have much time before supper,” she said. “Why don’tyou go out and find Dad instead?” Since there were no other children in the family for me to playwith, and no neighbor children close by, going outside to seeDad was even more fun than riding my bike. There was only one problem. “Isn’t he in the field someplace?” I asked. For the past month, Dad had been plowing, disking and planting.He often didn’t arrive home until it was time to put the cows inthe barn and feed them. If Dad was out in the field, then hewould be too busy to talk to me. My mother shook her head. “He’s finished with the fieldwork. Hecame in for coffee this afternoon for the first time in I don’tknow how long.” “Yipee!” I said. Mom smiled and went back to reading the newspaper. A little while later after I had changed out of my schoolclothes and had put on my denim chore coat, I opened the porchdoor and saw our old, battered, green pickup truck backed up bythe granary. The driveway made a circle past the buildings, and in the middlesat the garage, a round, wooden grain bin, and the red gasolinebarrel shaded by a large silver maple. Another silver maple grewin the front lawn, and a row of silver maples lined the lawn inback of the house. One time Mom had told me the silver mapleswere planted by my great-grandfather after he homesteaded thefarm in the late 1800s. The granary, which had little windows in the peak near the roofthat looked like a square tipped on end, stood across thedriveway from the gas barrel. The position of the pickup trucktold me that Dad was inside the granary, loading oats intoburlap bags, and that he planned to go into town tomorrow togrind feed. About once a week he loaded the truck and made atrip to the feed mill. I stood on the porch and watched as Dad lifted a burlap bag ofoats into the back of the truck. My father made it look asthough the bag of oats weighed no more than a ten-pound bag ofsugar, but I knew better. A bag of oats weighed about a hundredpounds. Dad had put one on a scale once so I could see how muchit weighed. As my father disappeared into the granary again, I smiled tomyself, happy in the knowledge that I knew right where he was,so I wouldn’t have to wander around the buildings, yelling forhim. I sat down on the porch steps. All afternoon, the concrete stepshad been soaking up sunshine, and beneath the seat of my jeans,the top step felt almost hot. Dandelions filled the lawn, as ifsomeone had scattered handfuls of gold coins, and big, whiteclouds that looked like giant cotton balls floated across thesky, pushed by the wind. Only a few days of school remained, and I could hardly wait forsummer vacation to begin. We usually got out of school the thirdweek of May if we didn’t have too many snow days to make up. Andon the last day of school, we always had a picnic. Everybodytook their plates outside, and we sat on the grass instead ofeating in the cafeteria. I wasn’t looking forward to the picnic quite as much as I didother years, though. Last year on the last day of school, I hadno more than settled down with my plate when a garter snake hadslithered out between my feet. The mere thought that I hadalmost sat on a snake still made my stomach do flip-flops. As I sat there thinking about the school picnic, one of the barncats rose to her feet, arched her back and stretched, and thenclimbed the steps to sit beside me. She had been sprawled in thegrass, sunning herself, and beneath my hand, her brown tabby furfelt warm and soft. In a couple of minutes, the cat went back to sunning herself,and I headed for the rope-and-board swing hanging from theclothesline poles. While cloud shadows slipped across thefields, I swung higher and higher, my arms wrapped around thethick rope tied over the crosspiece. The rope had come from anextra coil stored in the haymow. Dad used the same kind of ropefor letting the big door down so he could put hay into the barnduring the summer. When I had gone as high as I could go, I sat quietly while theswing moved slower and slower and slower. More puffy cloudsdrifted across the sun, and in the field behind the barn, clumpsof alfalfa rippled in the cold breeze. The thought crossed mymind that maybe I should have put on a stocking cap. But thenreason prevailed. It was May, after all. I hopped out of the swing and strolled toward the granary justas Dad brought another bag of oats and heaved it into the truck. The maple trees around the lawn were now covered with greenleaves, and as I passed beneath the maple tree by the gasbarrel, I was close enough to the truck to see the crack in theupholstery on top of the seat behind the steering wheel. I had no more than lifted my foot to take another step towardthe truck when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked down. And there, coiled in the grass by my feet, was the biggest snakeI had ever seen. I had come within inches of stepping on it. The snake watched me with beady black eyes—and then its forkedtongue flickered in my direction. Before I had time to think, I drew a deep breath…turned…and tookoff for the house. As I raced past the garage, I became
aware of someone screaming.Blood curdling screams that were enough to make the hair standup on the back of my neck. Then I realized the screams were coming from me. Seconds later, I cleared the porch steps in one leap and bargedinto the kitchen, startling my mother, who, by this time, hadleft the living room. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Mom gasped, as she turned awayfrom the sink. “Snake!” was all I could say before collapsing against her. Mom grabbed the cupboard to steady her balance and then put herarm around me. “Where was the snake, honey?” she asked, pattingmy back with one hand as she held onto the kitchen counter withthe other. “Did you see a little grass snake?” Before I could answer, I heard the porch door open and then thekitchen door. It was Dad. “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding slightly breathless. “Whathappened? Is she hurt?” “She saw a snake, that’s all,” Mom replied. I still had my face pressed tightly against her, but I thoughtshe sounded exasperated. “It was a BIG snake,” I sniffled. Hah! I wondered how calm Mom would be if she had almost steppedon a fifty-foot boa constrictor. We had learned about boaconstrictors in science class, and even the smaller ones couldeat rabbits in one swallow. “Oh,” Dad said. “I thought maybe she’d hurt herself.” He quietlyclosed the kitchen door and went back outside to finish loadingoats. As I stood there leaning against my mother, I became aware thatshe was trembling. I took a step back. Mom wasn’t trembling. She was laughing—laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. I drew a shaky breath. “What’s so funny?” “Hee-hee,” she spluttered. “Tee-hee.” “It is NOT,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height,“funny.” Mom nodded her head. “Yes, it is.” She made her way over to the table and sat down. Wouldn’t you just know it. I was almost dragged away and killedby the biggest snake I had ever seen, and all my mother could dowas laugh. Now that I’d had time to think about it, the snake bythe granary was at least as long as the handle of the push broomwe used to sweep the barn aisle. I was beginning to wonder if my mother was ever going to stoplaughing when she finally started to wipe her eyes. “What,” I asked once again, “is so funny?” “Your poor father,” she said, as fought back another snicker“There he was, out there in the granary, loading oats, mindinghis own business…and then…well…” Dad? My mother was laughing because…? She was laughing because Dad must have run to the house as fastas I did. If not faster. The thought of Dad running almost made me forget about the snake. I had never seen Dad run anywhere. Sometimes he walked prettyfast. But I’d never seen him run. “He probably wondered if you fell out of the tree and broke yourarm, or something,” Mom explained. “Oh,” I said. In a little while after I calmed down, I ventured outside again. The truck was still parked in the same place, but this time, Iapproached the granary with extreme caution. I even squatted down to look under the pickup truck. I didn’t see the snake anywhere. Not in the grass. Not by the truck. And not by the granary step. Then, and only then, did I consider it safe to squeeze past thetailgate and climb into the granary. “Hi, Daddy,” I said, waiting for my eyes to adjust after thebright sunshine outside. “That was a bull snake,” Dad said while he continued baggingoats. My father had a funny way, sometimes, of knowing what I wasgoing to ask before I could say it—except that knowing what kindof snake it was didn’t make me feel any better. “He’s a good snake,” Dad added. “I’ve seen him around here alot. He helps us. He hunts mice, like the kitties hunt mice. Wewant him to be around the granary.” “He’s a good snake?” As far as I was concerned, there was no such a thing as a ‘good’snake. “Will he bite?” I asked. I had watched the cats hunt mice, and I understood why Daddidn’t want mice in the granary. He said the cows wouldn’t eatthe feed if it had mouse droppings in it. I didn’t blame them.Who would want to eat something that had mouse droppings in it? “No,” Dad said, dumping another shovel of oats in the bag, “thesnake won’t hurt you. I suppose he was taking a sunbath when yousaw him. The sun is warm today, but that wind is awfully chilly.” By now, I was starting to feel a tiny bit guilty about myterrified, screaming reaction to the snake. If my father said hewas a good snake—and that he was only taking a sunbath, justlike the kitty by the porch had been taking a sunbath—then maybeit wasn’t quite so bad. “Tell you what,” Dad continued, using a short section of stringto tie the bag shut with a miller’s knot, “whenever you’rearound the granary, keep an eye out for the bull snake. Thatway, the next time you see him, he won’t be so scary.” “Are you sure he won’t bite?” I asked. Dad heaved the full bag of oats into the truck. “No, kiddo,” he said. “The snake won’t bite. In fact, I’d evenbe willing to bet that you scared him more than he scared you.” I seriously doubted the snake had been more scared than me, butI kept it to myself. For a long time after that, whenever I went near the granary, Ilooked for the bull snake. But I never saw him again. And neither did Dad. “What do you suppose happened to that snake, Daddy?” I asked oneday a few weeks later when he was loading oats again. “I think you scared him away,” Dad said, taking another burlapbag and hooking it over a nail to hold up one side while heshoveled oats into it. “He probably decided to go live someplaceelse where it was quieter.” “Do you really think he moved?” I asked. “Just because of that?” My father nodded solemnly. “Snakes don’t want to be wherethere’s a lot of commotion. You wouldn’t like it if someonescreamed just because they saw you, would you?” I thought about that for a few moments. “No, Daddy. I wouldn’tlike it.” I hoped, then, that the snake had found a nice place to live, aquiet place where his afternoon sunbath wouldn’t be interruptedby blood-curdling screams of terror. And with any luck at all, it would also be someplace where Iwouldn’t almost step on him again. ***************
About the author:LeAnn R. Ralph http://ruralroute2.com
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