Chapter Twenty One

 

Looking South

 

               Though I'm sure he gave it little thought, one of the prettier views on our street was from the front yard of Erastus Clark, whose house looked down at a south-oriented slope leading to the Gills' hayfield and cow pasture with its winding spring-fed brook, rampant with cattails.  Lifting his eyes, `Rastus would be able to see the tree-lined curve of the New Haven River and the fertile fields between.

 

 

              Unfortunately `Rastus had been long subject to mental aberrations which, while not rendering him incapable of an honest day's work, signaled an ever-declining capacity to deal with the realities of daily life.

 

            In the past he had done day work for Dad and other nearby farmers and we boys were accustomed to working with him in the fields.  One day while we were all hoeing young corn, Dad asked him how he liked working with us boys.  `Rastus hesitated, peered up in the clouds as was his wont, shifted his cud of snuff, spit through his teeth and said, "Well, I'll tell you.  One boy working is as good as a man.  Two boys are worth about half a man.  And three boys are no damn good at all."   

 

  Dad laughed and quoted this expression broadly, but despite this touch of folk wisdom, `Rastus behavior continued to deteriorate as did his residence.  Over time the roof began collapsing toward the downhill side.  Bricks fell from a disintegrating chimney and fewer and fewer windows held panes of glass.

 

 

           It was undoubtedly his use of the .22 rifle that finally prompted the local authorities to suggest his visit to the mental facility in Waterbury (in those days we knew it only in its starkest and cruelest appellation -- The Insane Asylum). There he remained.

 

               His .22 had lost part of its firing mechanism so that, after loading a single cartridge, his method of firing was to hold the rifle in his left hand and strike the firing pin with a hammer held in his right.  We boys, knowing this, felt we had little to fear while shamefully shouting his name as we walked by his house on the way to the Gills'.         We nonetheless scrambled for the fence when he emerged from the house with gun and hammer in hand.  When the bullet zinged the barbed wire between us we dived behind the bushes and continued thus all the way to the Gills'. That was our last teasing of poor Erastus.

 

                At the Gills' we were always much at home.  There were three boys approximately our own ages: Ted, Earl and Babe.  Earl, in fact, would become a lifelong friend of brother Rich and they would buy homes a bare quarter mile from each other in Charlotte.

 

             We boys went swimming together at our familiar swimming hole and helped with each others' farm chores.  We played cards -- a brand of pinochle, as I remember.  One fragment of my memory retains the image of an old-fashioned big coffee pot on their stove, always there and always in use.  When it got low coffee beans were ground and added as was water.  I never saw it empty but, of course, it must have been.  All the family loved coffee except possibly Babe.

 

            I recall the Gill boys were unique in that they addressed their parents by their first names, Frank and Ida, but with them it didn't sound disrespectful and seemed to be accepted.

 

                Entertainment was hard to come by in those days so we walked and talked a lot in the evenings.  One night I'll never forget.     We started talking and walking south toward the river.  I being the youngest went along, rarely contributing a word.  When we reached the river I thought they would turn back, but they kept going, up hills and down until we reached Brooksville.  By then we were nearly as far away from home as we could get and I thought for sure they would turn for home and run out of things to talk about, but by now they were intoxicated with the idea of completing the circuit: past Town Hill and Uncle Raymond's and Maggie Goulette's to the village and then a mere two or three miles home!  And they were still talking while I trudged painfully up Brown's Hill.

 

               We and the Gill boys indulged in the usual pastimes together but the event I shall remember longest was the ride on the hayfork rope.          Their hay barn had the usual arrangement for unloading and moving hay within the barn by use of a hayfork powered outside the barn by rope and pulleys attached to a power source.  Usually a horse or tractor.

 

                One day we detached the pulley at the base of the barn, uncoiled the rope and ran with the end as far out as we could so that we had a nearly straight line from our hands to the apex of the barn.      Then we had this great idea.

 

              Let a boy grab the rope at the base of the barn while the others ran with its end and the boy would be lifted high in the air and maybe even propelled beyond the rope's plane if a bit of slack was provided as he reached the level of the rope.

 

              Experiments were conducted at modest elevations with the handlers letting the rope down gradually so as not to break the grip of the flyer.  As successes were achieved and confidence gained and with arms and legs wrapped around the rope we reached ever-increasing heights, the lightest of us even achieving a breaking of the plane.

 

              It was a wonder no backs were broken, for a loss of grip caused by a misjudged jerk on the rope by the handlers would certainly have resulted in very serious injury.  As this was beginning to dawn on us Frank Gill appeared and terminated the suicidal play.     But it was a rush.

 

                We stayed close friends with the Gill boys as long as we lived on the farm.  Richard remained close to Earl and his wife until Earl's death a few years ago in Charlotte.