Chore Boy

I

IN ’61, the year in which he came of age, my grandfather married Laura Scholl. At the time of this event he received a title to his share of the Illinois claim that he and his brothers had helped their parents to ‘prove up on.’ There were two hundred acres in the portion. Eighty of them had been under cultivation for several years; the remaining hundred and twenty were still to be wrested from woodland and prairie. But there were buildings on the farm — a barn that had been made to stand for many years and the little house that was later to become the tenant house.

My grandparents took no honeymoon. Their marriage had been consummated in May, and spring planting was upon them. They moved at once into the little house, then quite new, and began to look forward to bumper harvests. They talked of how, year by year, new fields would be cut from the woodland; how with good luck the cattle and the horses and the hogs would increase themselves before the year was out. They thought of sheep to be raised and wool to be carded, of chickens and of geese; and of how, if things went well, they would have, sometime, a team of fine carriage horses.

Behind all this planning, in each ambition that the future was to see fulfilled, there lay, quiet and unspoken, a farmer’s need for sturdy sons.

It had never occurred to my grandfather that the first child might not be a boy. His wife had considered this chance, but left it unspoken. And so, late in the following year, they found it necessary to reserve the name George for future use, and to substitute Nettie.

They laughed a little then, as though nature had played them a rather untimely but by no means irreparable jest, and two years later recalled the name George for further consideration. Their second daughter was christened Nan.

No of her children were born to my grandparents for three years. By this time only sixty acres of the farm remained in woodland. Two hired men helped with the work of the fields. Long lines of pompous geese paraded up and down the lane, and chickens scattered everywhere. Into these surroundings of rural felicity a third girl was born.

It was not that my grandparents objected to daughters. In those days a family was hardly complete without at least a few children of each sex. But girls grew up and married, and moved to other people’s farms. It was hard to think that the broad, fertile fields, with no male heir to care for them, might some day be divided and sold to strangers. The thought of such a possibility caused my grandfather no little concern.

His desire for a son was further sharpened by an intermittent spring of inventive urges. He had a great many ideas — ideas for making a new kind of churn and a sling for hoisting hay, ideas for mole traps and wagon springs and pumps — if only he had time to develop them, even a few evening hours exempt from the daily round of chores. Chores and boys went very well together, so he thought hopefully of sons who might yet arrive.

It was easy in these imaginings to ignore the periods of infancy and childhood, and to think instead of robust and likable striplings who were gifted with special abilities when it came to managing horses and milking cows, He thought of these vague youths sometimes as he worked in the harvest field, gathering sheaves that any boy could gather and setting shocks that any boy could set. He thought of them when the evening chores were done, and when, resting his elbows on the barnyard gate, he looked out into the soft twilight that hung still and gray above the fertile land. But most of all he thought of them when into his mind there came the idea of a workshop — a workshop equipped with a forge and a bench and a quantity of good mechanic’s tools. ‘If we had a son,’ he would think, ‘he’d look after things a little, and maybe I could have an hour now and then.’

My grandmother shared this hope. It had not escaped her notice that, since the third girl was born, her husband had carefully avoided his jokes about sons. It seemed to her that he sometimes went a good deal out of his way to show how much he liked his little daughters.

II

The year 1873 was one of memorable events. At the close of it only twenty acres of the farm remained in woodland, and this was to be left uncut. A new house stood completed, gleaming in its fresh paint, and a tenant family moved into the little one. There were plenty of cows in the pasture. No one could have wished for better crops. The sheep had done well. My grandmother was selling poultry because she had too much of it. And a team of Morgans were in the stable. Thus, more than ever, everything was in readiness for a male heir when the fourth daughter was born.

Into this sonless household, early the following spring, there came a peddler. He was a forerunner of the modern book agent in that he offered for sale, in addition to pots and pans, household remedies, and horse liniment, a thick, gilt-lettered volume called The Ragpicker’s Curse.

One of these books found a home in the walnut secretary my grandfather had built. It was a doleful book, dedicated to those unfortunate people of the large cities who spent a cruel and hungry life in gathering and sorting rags. What specific curse hung over them was not made clear, unless the woodcuts, speaking more impressively than the text, were left to state it in very general terms. These woodcuts were as melancholy as they were profuse. They depicted dank basements in which feeble old women and starvedlooking children sat among heaps of unsavory rags. There were dismal pictures of tenement dwellings, in which whole families crouched weeping around a fireless hearth. Small and mournful urchins — presumably the offspring of ragpickers — were to be seen sleeping like dogs in icy alleyways and in large packing boxes.

It was these last victims of The Curse who stirred my grandmother’s deepest sympathy. For days she went about her household tasks pausing to sigh and to murmur, ‘Poor things!’

My grandfather read the book also. One evening he looked up from its pages and said, ’I could use a good chore boy around here this summer.’

How much of this idea had arisen from the dolorous woodcuts, and how much from some new inventive urge pressing for a few hours’ attention, it is hard to say. But there is no doubt that my grandmother’s thoughts flew straight to the unhappy street waifs in their alleys and boxes, for she replied: ‘With all the poor city children that have n’t so much as a bed to sleep in, it looks as though a chore boy would be easy to find. Why don’t you write to some Charity Home?’

There was further discussion, and it recurred during several days. On his next trip to Old Town, my grandfather ferreted out the address of a Chicago orphanage. He scrawled it across the envelope of a letter that was already written, and left this communication at the postal window of the general store.

In those days, contrary to my grandmother’s supposition, orphans — except very small ones — were none too plentiful. American industry had newly entered a period of terrific growth, and orphans more than four feet high were much in demand for factory and mining purposes. It may have been because of this widespread opportunity for juvenile service that the institution to which my grandfather wrote was for the moment a little short of suitable chore boys. In any event, nearly three weeks elapsed before a reply came. The letter read, in part: —

We have now, sir, a very exceptional boy, Leonard Crothland by name, and we beg to offer our opinion that he will serve you well in the capacity you mention. He is strong for his years and enjoys the best of health. He is not a great eater, but is used to work and needs no coddling.

The letter went on to say that the boy was available at once; was, in fact, being held in readiness pending the receipt of a specified sum of money. The money, it was briefly explained, would be needed for carfare and for ‘changes in institutional records.’ The letter concluded: —

I remain, sir, your most obedient servant,
SARAH TULKER,
Matron in Charge

This communication had a depressing effect upon my grandfather. He said it sounded too much as though a boy were being offered for sale — an unfortunate tone of writing that placed him in the position of having sought to buy one. After he deducted the known cost of carfare from the stipulated sum, this dark notion gained considerable credence. Changing an institutional record, he thought, was a very costly process indeed, and he added that, in spite of all the lives and money poured out to fight the Rebels, the slaves were n’t all freed yet. Then he turned to the matron’s description of the prospective chore boy, and found it far from satisfactory.

‘A very exceptional boy,’ he read again. Exceptional for what? ‘Strong for his years . . . not a great eater.’ How could that be?

At length his suspicions culminated in an aversion to the name of his correspondent. ‘Tulker,’ he kept repeating. ‘Whether he needs it or not, I’ll wager no boy gets much coddling from a woman with a name like that. Tulker! There’s a nigger in that woodpile!’ He enlarged upon the theme. ‘And if he needs no coddling, what does he need — watching?’

But my grandmother would hear to no such interpretations of the letter.

‘If you want a chore boy,’ she said reasonably, ‘and this woman has one for you, why don’t you get him?’ She returned to her vision of alleys and boxes. ‘Poor thing! A summer with a bed to sleep in would n’t hurt him any. And we have so much spare room now.’

III

On a morning late in May, my grandfather waited restlessly upon a little area of packed cinders that lay between the Old Town railway station and the tracks. The Chicago train was due, and the chore boy was due with it. As my grandfather paced back and forth, the idea of sending to the city for a boy about whom he knew nothing now struck him as being decidedly foolish. For the first time, he wondered how much that book about the ragpickers had influenced the enterprise. Then he felt more foolish than before.

His thoughts turned to the matron’s letter. Two weeks had done nothing to clarify the contradictory description it contained. ‘Not a big eater, but strong for his years. ... I can’t make anything out of that.’

In his own letter my grandfather had said, ‘A boy about fourteen or fifteen years old.’ How big, he wondered, would a boy be if he were fourteen and strong for his years? As big as Sam Morley’s oldest? Too big to need coddling — maybe that’s what she meant, that Tulker woman.

A score of dimly imagined boys came into his mind. Tall boys and short boys. Boys with freckles, like little Johnny Strodel. Boys without freckles, like big Johnny Croch. But none of these seemed to fit the veiled description provided by the Matron in Charge.

The whistle of the approaching train broke my grandfather’s thoughts. He glanced about at his fellow waiters. They were two, lounging at ease on the station-house steps. They had brought their whittling from in front of the general store for the daily pleasure of ‘watching the train come in.’ Obviously, they were expecting no orphans. My grandfather envied them mildly.

A shrill scattering of small boys came suddenly around a corner. In their wake trailed the dull-witted son of a villager. Something about him held my grandfather’s attention. He was an awkward, overgrown lad who walked with a peculiar swinging gait. His face was extravagantly pimpled, his lips were parted in a stupid grin. A quick animation seized this youth. Without discernible motive, he made a lunge at one of his smaller companions, swung him easily off the ground, and set him gently down again.

‘Strong,’ thought my grandfather; and Sarah Tulker, leaping unexpectedly into his mind, added, ‘for his years.’ At once my grandfather discovered in the village half-wit a living image of the boy he had come to meet. He tried to brush the impression aside, but it persisted. Here, at last, was that anomaly, a boy who was strong for his years, who was not a great eater, and needed no coddling.

‘I’ll send him back on the next train,’ thought my grandfather firmly.

IV

A moment later the train was in. It stopped with a long screeching of brakes. The passengers began to alight. There was old Colonel Hassel, who had made another trip to the city.

. . . And Mrs. Cronway, come to visit her daughter again. . . . And a woman he did not know, trailed by two small boys.

My grandfather’s eyes went back to the coach door. No one else appeared there. With quick relief he thought, ‘He did n’t come.’

The train started to move.

‘B-o-o-a-rd,’ the conductor cried, and swung up on the coach steps.

My grandfather began to whistle. He had started toward his team at the hitching rack when he felt a sharp tug at his sleeve. When he turned and found himself confronted by a small boy, he thought: ‘One of that woman’s boys.’ But the woman was already a considerable distance away, and she seemed content with the custody of only one child.

As my grandfather’s eyes came back to the sleeve tugger he dismissed a sudden possibility. No, this was no chore boy. He was n’t big enough. Nine years old, perhaps, or ten. And he looked a little hollow-chested, and much too pale.

None the less, he asked, ‘Are you Leonard Crothland?’

‘Lenny,’ the boy corrected briskly, and my grandfather became the subject of a cool and somewhat critical examination. There was an engaging assurance about this wisp of a boy. He swung a paper-wrapped bundle from both hands, and teetered from toes to heels on feet planted well apart. His lips puckered gravely as his round, solemn eyes went slowly over the person of his new employer.

My grandfather thought of the clumsy, dull-witted youth who had been in his mind, and laughed. This sound ended the examination. The boy’s face cleared. He presented his credentials in a single sentence, ‘I’m bigger’n I look.’

My grandfather appraised the boy gravely, and replied at length, ‘I see you are. Just the size for milking — if you don’t sit down to it.’

For a moment they stood looking quite pleased with each other’s wit. Then my grandfather led the boy to his wagon and swung him up to the seat. By the time the first of the three homeward miles was crossed, the two were on the best of terms.

They talked about horses. The boy, with his eyes on the reins, told how he watched them go by in the street — dray horses. He wanted to be a teamster some day. And my grandfather said there were twelve horses on his farm, not counting the colts; one team of Morgans that had come clear from Kentucky. They talked about the fields they were passing. The grass in one of them, it turned out, was n’t grass at all. It was wheat. And the funny-looking thing a team was dragging across another field was a harrow. And the men at work in the distance were planting corn.

The boy’s confidence deepened. He said, ‘ I ’m glad your nose ain’t crooked. The last one’s nose was crooked.’ This facial peculiarity seemed to have impressed itself on the boy’s mind as a convenient index to character and temperament, for he added darkly, ‘He got terrible mad.’

‘The last one?’ My grandfather gazed in some astonishment at his slight seat mate. ‘ Have they had you out to work before this?’

‘Oh, sure. Off an’ on for a long time now. Weedin’ onions mostly.’

My grandfather recalled the onion fields he had passed on infrequent trips to the city — great flat stretches of coal-black muck set with endless rows of green. And along these rows he had seen a small army of women and young children crawling on hands and knees.

‘And then there’s always scrubbin’ an’ such jobs at the Home,’ the boy went on, glad of an opportunity to enlarge upon his abilities. ‘And if I had n’t come out here, I was a-goin’ down in the coal fields somewheres to be a breaker boy.’

Weeding onions. . . . Breaker boy. That was worse than picking rags.

‘And how did you leave Sarah Tulker?’ my grandfather asked.

His chore boy considered the implications of this question, and hesitated.

‘Kind of a funny name, Tulker,’ my grandfather pursued. The tone of the remark dissolved the boy’s caution. He returned to his own understanding of the former question.

‘I left her without cryin’ none,’ he stated casually. ‘Glad to. Even if you got onions.’

‘Ah.’ It was a significant sound. My grandfather muffled some further comment to say hastily: ‘We have no onions except a few rows in the garden. Horses, but no onions.’

‘Oh, horses . . .’ The boy’s eyes were on the reins again.

‘You want to drive? . . . Here.’

They arrived at length at the west line of the farm. Then my grandfather said: ‘See that big tree ahead there, boy? When you pass that tree, turn out a little and stop.’

Passing the tree, the chore boy turned out with such a will that one wheel of the wagon dropped into a little gully. They stopped well jolted.

V

This jolt stirred an idea in my grandfather’s mind. It had appeared there before from time to time. He thrust it aside long enough to point out the boundaries of his land, the house and barn, the white gate through which they must turn presently, and to say: ‘Well, Lenny, here’s your home for the summer. Think you’ll like it?’ Then he turned his full attention to the idea, so that when the boy replied he heard only the words without their meaning.

He was thinking of a bolster that might be placed beneath a wagon box — a bolster made of two hickory beams with a row of strong coil springs between. It would take only a few evenings to try it out. . . . But there was the planting that had to be finished before another week had passed, and the hired men would n’t get it done alone. . . . And the chores, as always.

. . . The new boy was small, and it would take him some time to learn.

As it usually happened when his thoughts ran to this subject, my grandfather imagined a vague-looking youth, pleasant and very sturdy, who that evening would take care of the chores so his father might temper springs in the workshop.

His eyes went leisurely over the rolling fields spread out before him. Land that was his heritage, that he had worked so persistently to claim from wood and prairie. The tall, ambitious youth stayed in his thoughts, helping him now to plan for the purchase of new acres, sharing their work and their rewards. He saw the distant pasture dotted with grazing cows; the woodland that was always to remain heavy and green as it was then; the big, new house and the red barn with his name painted in white letters on one gable end. . . . Daughters grew up and married. They moved to other farms. Whose name would be repainted there in fifty years?

‘Yes,’ thought my grandfather, ‘if we had a son . . .'

VI

It was my grandmother who first perceived that her daughters would be no longer without a brother. This knowledge did not come to her in any flash of intuition. Except for his solemn eyes, there was nothing very prepossessing about the pale, undernourished boy whom her husband had led into the kitchen that morning in May. She said he looked as though the wind might blow him away, and that it was ‘a sight’ to see him eat.

It was a sight, no doubt, that she encouraged, for those who tell this story of the chore boy remember how, in the weeks that followed, a pair of slight shoulders straightened, and a sallow skin grew bronzed beneath the sun. They recall, too, how this boy began to follow my grandfather about like a second shadow; how he reproduced the casual remarks of his employer with such persistent accuracy that my grandmother took to calling him The Echo.

It is hard to say now just when it first occurred to her that Lenny could not easily be parted with. But when the summer had ended, when the time had come for the chore boy to be returned to Sarah Tulker, she dismissed all discussion of the project with a simple motion of the hand.

And so, one day, the Morgans were harnessed and my grandparents took the boy to Dixon ‘ to see about adoption papers.’

Here this story ought to end, but it never does. The oldest of my grandfather’s daughters, who finds recurrent pleasure in telling of these incidents, has a favorite comment with which to finish off the tale. It has nothing to do with the chore boy and very little to do with the story, unless it be to draw some subtle moral from the perversities of Mother Nature. For the teller of this story always pauses a moment when she has done speaking of ‘the adoption papers,’ and then concludes: —

‘And less than a year after they adopted Lenny, George was born.’