The Old Farmhouse

It was just an old farmhouse, dilapidated and rundown, barely visible from the road. Like crops that are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, it had yielded its bounty, giving shelter and protection to the generations that had once dwelled within its walls. Now it was just an empty husk. But strangely, though it could not speak, it somehow beckoned to passersby, drawing them in with its silent and brooding presence. Why and on whose behalf did it wield this mysterious power? Maybe it was for those who had once called this place home. Perhaps some essence of their lives was still here, clinging to the ruins, waiting for the chance to briefly live again in the minds of those who stopped to look. Who can say for sure?

* * *

Cheryl opened the car door and got out to see if there was any sign of her husband Jerry. Ten minutes ago, he had assured her that he was just going to take a few pictures of the old farmhouse they had spotted from the highway and then come right back. She knew from experience that no matter what Jerry told her, everything he did always took longer than a few minutes. Cheryl started to walk slowly down the overgrown driveway toward the old farmhouse that for some reason had drawn Jerry’s attention. As she walked, the weeds in the driveway brushed against her slacks and the dried autumn leaves crunched under her feet. She enjoyed taking these late fall vacations in the country but some of the places that Jerry stopped to see left a lot to be desired.

And there he was, just standing there looking at that old farmhouse, his mind probably a million miles away. “Jerry, what are you doing?” Cheryl asked, in a rather loud voice. “You were just going to take a few pictures and then come right back to the car. It’s been over ten minutes. I thought maybe you were lost or something.” Jerry, who had indeed been deep in thought, quickly turned to face his wife. “Sorry, I lost track of the time, I guess. I was just looking at that old farmhouse and trying to imagine who had lived in it, what their lives were like, what had happened to them, that sort of thing.” Cheryl just sighed. “Look at that place. It looks like it’s a hundred years old. I am sure the only creatures living in it now are spiders and mice.”

“It looks like a wreck now,” said Jerry, “but at one time it was probably a nice house. It’s not hard to imagine a family living out here, tilling the soil, raising their animals. I am sure there are a lot of memories in that old house. It’s too bad this old place can’t tell us what it knows.” Jerry put his camera back into his camera bag and turned again to look at the old farmhouse. He could see that the upstairs windows would have provided a clear view of the whole farmstead. He wondered if any of the former occupants of the house had stood near those windows from time to time, gazing at the fields, thinking about what the future held. He could imagine a family living there, and a young boy, doing chores, going to school, and daydreaming about what he wanted to do with his life. . . . . .

* * *

From the landing at the bottom of the stairs, Sara called to her son Billy who was asleep upstairs in his bedroom. Sara knew that Billy tended to wake up slowly so she always called him early knowing he usually needed a little time before he was ready to come down to eat breakfast. Satisfied with the faint sounds of movement she heard coming from the room above, Sara turned and went back to the kitchen.

Billy stretched and rubbed his eyes at the sound of his mother’s voice and then snuggled deeper into the heavy blankets that covered his bed. In the winter, his second-floor bedroom in the old farmhouse got pretty cold at night and this morning it was just plain freezing. The only warmth his room received came through the big iron grate that was mounted on the floor in the hallway. By morning, the fire in the big old parlor stove downstairs would have died down and not much heat would be left to keep the upstairs rooms warm. His dad always rebuilt the fire before he went out to start his morning chores but it took a long time for the house to warm up again. The thought of his bare feet hitting the icy wooden floor in his room made him snuggle even deeper into his cozy bed.

Billy knew the wake-up call from his mother was something he couldn’t ignore for long but he figured a few extra minutes under the covers wouldn’t hurt anything. Besides, he was 13 years old now and it was time for his mom to stop treating him like he was still a kid. Billy wasn’t sure why but he was starting to feel differently about things that never used to matter to him. He had always gotten along with his mom but increasingly he wanted to make his own decisions and he didn’t want his mom always telling him what to do. He knew he loved his mom but sometimes she just seemed to make him ornery.

Billy had other things on his mind these days besides minor disagreements with his mother. Lately, he just couldn’t help thinking about how different his life would be if his family lived in town and not on a prairie farm. Billy had always loved living on the farm but as he had grown older and taken on additional responsibilities, he seemed to spend all his time doing chores. He had always assumed that someday he would be a farmer like his dad but now, he wasn’t so sure any more. The thought of spending his whole life taking care of animals and working outside when the weather was bad was starting to lose its appeal.

Maybe it was those kids at school that had him confused, especially the kids that lived in town. He mostly hung around with other farm kids but he couldn’t help hearing the mean remarks the town kids liked to make. He tried to ignore what they said but their nasty words always seemed to find their target. He would never forget the day that someone had noticed some manure on one of his shoes and what a big joke they had made of it. His face had burned red with embarrassment that day and he had wanted to die on the spot. The taunts had followed him for days afterward and it had eventually ended in a scuffle with one of the town kids. What was the big deal anyway with living in town? His grandparents lived in a real city and they didn’t act like they thought they were better than him.

Despite the resentment he felt toward the kids from town, Billy had to admit that town life did seem to have lots of advantages. If only the town kids weren’t always so snotty. He could easily get used to living in a bigger house and not having hours of chores to do. Instead of going out to the barn to clean stalls when he got home from school, he would go down to the corner drugstore to meet with his friends and to get a soda. On Saturdays he would head to Main Street to gaze in the store windows and to just watch all the people coming and going. Most of the homes in town had furnaces that kept the whole house warm in the winter, not just the first floor. Town life was exciting and comfortable, nothing like the farm life that he was familiar with.

The faint sound of dishes being placed on the kitchen table told Billy that his extra time in bed was over. Another minute and he would be hearing from his mother again, probably with that tone of voice that he increasingly found so irritating. In short order, Billy threw off the covers, quickly grabbed for his robe, and made a rapid dash across the cold floor to the stairs. After a short side trip to the bathroom, Billy quickly found his seat at the kitchen table. His room may have been cold but the kitchen was warm and filled with the inviting smells of his mother’s cooking. Fresh baked bread, scrambled eggs, sausages, and orange juice. With scarcely a word, Billy dug into his breakfast like he was starving. His other problems would have to wait. Right now, he was hungry and had to eat.

* * *

“This is earth calling Jerry, come in Jerry, are you there?” said Cheryl in that mocking tone she reserved for those occasions when she was starting to get a little ticked-off. “Huh, what did you say,” replied Jerry, all but oblivious to Cheryl’s growing sense of impatience with him. “You were just staring and not saying a word,” said Cheryl.” You looked as if you had gone into a trance or something. You know it bothers me when you do that. I was afraid maybe you had a stroke or something.” “I am fine,” said Jerry, “I was just thinking some more about that old farmhouse. I wish we could go inside and see the place but it would probably be too dangerous.”

Jerry was sure the old farmhouse had one of those big kitchens where the whole family had once sat down to eat meals. He could imagine the delicious smells of home-cooked meals being served by a pretty young farmwife to her hungry family. In his mind he could see plates heaped high with slices of ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, and buttered biscuits. It would have been a hard life for a woman but probably rewarding. There would have been lots of sacrifices along the way and probably some second-guessing about choices made long ago. Jerry wondered what it would have been like for the woman in the family. Was she in turmoil and filled with regret or was she happy and satisfied with the way her decisions had shaped her life out here on the prairie. . . . . .

* * *

Sara smiled to herself when she saw her son start to devour the meal she had prepared for him. She had heard the sound of his feet racing across the floor of his bedroom and had waited for his entry into the kitchen. When he was younger, his entrances into the kitchen had always been accompanied by lots of talk about school and the farm and what he planned to do that day. Lately, he had become much quieter and less willing to share his thoughts with her. Getting information from him was growing more difficult by the day. It was only natural she supposed. He was just entering into his adolescent years and would soon begin to experience lots of changes in himself. Those years were sure to be a challenge for him as well as for her.

Sara remembered her own adolescent years growing up as the daughter of a small-town business man. Her passage through adolescence had not been an easy one. Her father had held very rigid ideas about the family’s social status and he had discouraged her from becoming interested in anyone who didn’t possess the right potential. All he ever seemed to talk about was how important it was that she marry someone with solid financial prospects. Her father’s ideas about marriage were as old-fashioned as his stuffy old business suits. She knew that when it came to getting married, she was going to follow her heart no matter what her father said.

When Sara had become engaged to Ed, her father had been just dreadful to him. Ed was the youngest son of a farmer and had never wanted to be anything but a farmer. His dreams about the land and of having a place of their own and of raising a family had won her over. She had fallen in love and they had been married despite her father’s objections. In the end, her father had relented and had even arranged for them to get the bank loan that had bought them their farm. Hoping to avoid more bad feelings, she had never told Ed about her father’s role in getting the loan. It was an uneasy truce however, and the tension between her father and Ed lingered on to this day. Sara still hoped that someday they would put their differences aside because in many ways they were very much alike.

The dreams they had shared about farming had become a reality. However, the reality of life on a prairie farm was much harsher and more difficult than she had expected. The old farmhouse they had moved into had been in really bad condition. It was cold in the winter, hot in the summer, dusty when it was dry, and damp when it was wet. Ed had worked countless hours to fix it up and make it livable. At first it didn’t even have an indoor bathroom. Sara still remembered the look of horror on her mother’s face when she had showed her the outdoor privy. Thank goodness Ed had been able to finish the bathroom before Billy had been born. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to have a new baby in a house with no bathroom.

Despite his best efforts to make their home comfortable, Sara knew that fixing up their old farm house was not Ed’s highest priority. Everything depended on the farm generating enough income to pay the mortgage and all the other countless bills that seemed to arrive on a daily basis. Ed spent every waking hour of every day working on the farm. Sara had taken over managing the expenses and it was a constant battle to make ends meet. She canned vegetables, made preserves, mended torn clothing, and basically did everything she possibly could to avoid spending money on things they could make or do for themselves. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to a restaurant for a meal. When she lived with her father and mother, going out for a meal had been a regular event.

Still, it hadn’t been all hard work and sacrifice. Sara could still see the expression on Ed’s face when he had held Billy for the first time. Ed had gone on to be a wonderful father, patient and loving with Billy, always willing to show Billy new things on the farm. Billy had taken to farm life like a natural. Ed had also been a good husband, always caring and gentle, even when she was in one of her “moods”. However, it had not been easy for her and she wondered what life would have been like if she had married someone that her father considered more suitable for her. Had she and Ed really been married for nearly 15 years?

Ed was just coming in the door as Billy was finishing up his breakfast. Ed and Billy seemed to have an easy-going relationship and Sara wondered if that would continue as Billy got older. Billy got up to put his dirty dishes in the sink. Sara waited for Ed to take off his heavy coat and boots before setting a place for him at the kitchen table. She didn’t know who had the bigger appetite, Ed or her son. It was absolutely amazing how much food the two of them could consume. Still, it was gratifying to see the food she had prepared disappear so quickly. Her father had not been a big eater and was always fussy about what he liked. She remembered the look of disappointment on her mother’s face when so much of the food she had worked for hours to cook had remained uneaten at the table. Leftover food had never been a problem in this house.

* * *

Jerry had done it again and this time Cheryl had to give him a little shake to bring him back from la-la land or where ever it was he went when he checked out. “Jerry,” said Cheryl, “I am starting to get concerned about you. I don’t see anything special about this old farmhouse. It looks just like all the other old farmhouses that we have run across. What is with you?”

“I don’t know,” said Jerry, “but something just feels different about this one. I don’t know what it is but there must be something here.” Besides the house, Jerry could see the remnants of a barn and another smaller building that could have been a machine shed. The whole place was situated on a slight rise which would have left it fully exposed to the weather. In the winter, the cold northwest wind would have come blasting across the fields making any time spent outside a bone-chilling experience. In the summer, the hot sun would have beat down on the fields and buildings leaving the crops, animals, and humans parched and desperate for water.

It would have been a hard life for the man of the family as well. There was a lot of manual labor involved in making a farm productive. No doubt whoever had planted the crops, tended the animals, and maintained the buildings would have worked some very long hours. Most of the work would have been done outside where you battled the elements nearly every day of the week. It would not have been an easy way to earn a buck. Jerry wondered if the man of the farm had ever questioned the choices that had led to him becoming a farmer. . . . . .

* * *

Ed stuffed his gloves into the pockets of his coat and hung it on the wall-mounted coat rack next to the door. He remembered making that coat rack several years ago in the small woodworking shop he had in one corner of his machine shed. There was something satisfying about being able to make something useful with your own hands. Ed took off his boots, greeted his family, and told everyone it was really cold out there today. He mentioned to Billy that if they had a good harvest next year, he would try to find some way to make his room just a little warmer on these cold winter nights. Ed then headed to the bathroom to get ready for breakfast. When he got back to the kitchen, Sara had his breakfast waiting for him.

Ed sat down to eat and Billy went up to his room to get ready for school. When Sara bent down to hand him his coffee, he turned toward her for their customary good morning kiss. As Sara walked back to the sink to start the dishes, he glanced at her from the corner of his eye and watched as she casually brushed back a wisp of long brown hair that had fallen across her face. Once again, he felt thankful for the wonderful woman that had agreed to be his wife and had then become the mother of his son. He couldn’t imagine what life would have been like without her. Last Christmas, he had overheard Sara telling her mother that this year would be their 15th anniversary. Had they really been married for nearly fifteen years? He had circled the date of their anniversary on the calendar that he kept out in the barn. He wanted to get her something special this year but he still didn’t know what.

As usual, Ed’s thoughts about his family were accompanied by a few pangs of guilt. When he and Sara had first moved onto the farm, he had no idea how hard it was going to be for her. He had been so full of dreams and ideas. Now he wondered how he could have been so sure of himself. As the son of a farmer, he thought he knew everything there was to know about farming. While he did know about planting crops, taking care of animals, and fixing broken machinery, he really hadn’t known much about farming from the business side of things. That is probably what Sara’s father had been trying to tell him when he had talked about his plans to buy a farm. Sara’s father knew about running a business and knew how hard it would be for them to make a go of it. Fortunately, Sara had a good head for numbers because without her to handle their finances, they might have gone broke.

Now he wondered if he shouldn’t have listened a little more closely to Sara’s father. Though he had never mentioned it to Sara, her father had offered to create a position for him in the small company that he owned. Ed couldn’t see himself working in an office so he had turned him down without really considering the offer. At the time, he thought that Sara’s father had just wanted to meddle in their affairs and was reluctant to let his daughter go. Now he realized that he was only looking out for what he saw as his daughter’s best interests. Maybe it wasn’t too late to mend some fences with his father-in-law. He would have to give it some thought. He could see how tired Sara was when she came to bed at night and it bothered him to think he could have given her a much easier life if he hadn’t been so stubborn.

Even Billy was not immune from the hard work of running a farm. Again, Ed felt sort of guilty about giving his son so many chores to do. Still, Billy seemed to like working on the farm. Ed’s oldest brother had inherited the family farm when their father had passed away. At the time, Ed was not much older than Billy and he had helped his older brother take care of the farm. Ed’s middle brother had stayed on for a while but when he was old enough, he had left to find some other way to earn a living. Ed had always felt that farming was in his blood and had made up his mind that some day he would have a place of his own. He wondered if Billy would someday feel the same way.

Last Saturday, Ed had made a trip into town to get something from the hardware store. While in town, he had run into Billy’s teacher from school. The teacher told him about an incident that had taken place between Billy and another classmate who had been teasing Billy about something. The teasing had finally boiled over into a confrontation. Billy had grabbed the shirt of the other classmate and some words had been exchanged. The other student had decided to stop whatever it was he had been doing and Billy let him go. No punches had been thrown and nothing else had come of it. Because it was over almost as fast as it started, the teacher hadn’t said anything.

Ed never asked Billy about the incident at school but he wondered what it had been about. Maybe he should have said something but it sounded like it wasn’t anything significant and he didn’t want Billy to think he was checking up on him. Billy was sure to have a lot of disagreements with the other students at school and it was probably best if he could settle them himself. Besides, Billy was stronger than most kids his age because of all the chores he did on the farm. That couldn’t help but work in his favor if someone tried to bully him.

* * *

This was just unbelievable, thought Cheryl. She seriously began to wonder if her husband had somehow changed into a zombie without her knowing about it. This time Cheryl gave Jerry a little kick to get his attention.

“Ouch, what was that for?” asked Jerry.

“That is my way of saying that I have seen enough of this old place,” said Cheryl, “and if you go off into the twilight zone one more time, I am getting into the car and leaving without you. Besides, it’s windy out here and I’m starting to get cold.”

This time it was Jerry’s turn to sigh. “OK, I have enough pictures for today. Maybe we should go back to the hotel and try out their hot-tub.”

“Finally, a good idea,” said Cheryl. Jerry glanced back one more time and then the two of walked back to the car leaving the old farmhouse with all its memories, real and imagined, behind them.

About the author

name: Dean Eisfelder

Dean Eisfelder is a retired technical writer who spent most of his working career producing hardware, software, and process publications. He is currently a member of the Riverview Library Writers’ Group and writes mainly for personal enjoyment. His works include historical narratives, family history, personal memoirs, short stories and a mystery novel. The encouragement he received from his fellow writers has given him the confidence to pursue his interest in creative writing.