My father's nickname was Shorty

A Bell for Shorty by Jim May

My father's nickname was Shorty. He wasn't particularly short, but he was the second son born to a farm family of twelve children, and when his oldest brother, my uncle Ben, gave him the nickname, it stuck. In our small town there were many nicknames: Happy Wagoner, Squirrelly Ashe, Skunk Adams, and Jerky John. Given the range of possible friendly appellations, "Shorty" wasn't so bad, I suppose, and my father never complained. As I grew up, it never occurred to me that his nickname had anything to do with his height. It was simply what most people called my father. Our family called him Dad.

My father was fifty-one years old when I was born; my mother was forty-two. They were devout Roman Catholics and I was a "rhythm baby." My mother used to say that all Catholics were preoccupied with two things, rhythm and bingo, and if the rhythm didn't work, bingo! I was a bingo.

The best thing about being the youngest was the year I had my father all to myself. I was five years old, and there was no kindergarten at the one-room school I would attend the following fall. My oldest sister was married and my other two sisters were in high school. My brother was working construction, and my mother assembled typewriters at a factory in Woodstock. Each day, after an enormous farm breakfast of bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, eggs, pancakes, and German coffeecake, everyone scattered to their destinations in town, leaving Dad and me, the oldest and the youngest, at home to be the real farmers.

He and I went everywhere together: to the barn, out to the fields to plow and plant, and on visits to his horse-trading buddies. Visits to these traders were my favorites, because they usually meant a longer drive than just stopping by a neighbor's farm.

We loved car rides. After milking was done we'd get into the Chevrolet Bel Air and head out, sometimes driving in excess of thirty-five miles per hour; my father was born in 1896 and was most comfortable at carriage speeds. I'd kneel on the front seat so that I could lean my arm out the passenger window, and Dad would light up a cigar.

Our dog, Bootsie, loved these trips, too. Farm dogs are usually big, tough, and shaggy, but my father loved to cross-breed rat terriers with Chihuahuas. Bootsie was the outcome of this genetic horseplay-what we called a "lap-yap." But she was tough. She chased cows-would get right after them and bite their heels. The cows would kick right over the top of her, so it worked out pretty well. Once, though, we had a brindle cow that kicked straight out like a mule. Her hoof caught Bootsie right between the eyes and punted her through the air like a football. She landed with a sickening thud and lay still. I put her in a burlap bag and dragged her all the way home, which probably didn't do her any good.

That night I put the sack at the end of the bed and cried myself to sleep. We all figured she was dead. The next morning she jumped out of the sack and trotted all over the house, just as easy as you please. The blow even cleared up a disgusting nasal snort that she had had all her life-an effective cure, perhaps, but not one recommended for less hardy creatures.

As the car rolled steadily and determinedly toward our destination, Bootsie would jump down from the front seat onto the floor, scurry under the springs and cushions to the back, jump up onto the back seat, leap high onto the backrest of the front seat, and perch for a precarious moment. She'd then hurl herself through the air, landing on the front bench seat, and springboard to the floor once again to repeat the ritual.

With Dad driving at modest speed, she could accomplish this cycle approximately six times per mile. Her moments on top of the front seat were critical, since any bump in the road or one of Dad's frequent steering adjustments could send her on a scrambling freefall backwards onto the floor; a sudden braking of the car would vault her, rocket-like, toward the dashboard, ears flattened against the sides of her head, a half-bark, half-scream emitting, Doppler-like, from her tiny mouth as she sailed through our field of vision voicing the extreme displeasure with which she greeted her impending and eventual collision with the windshield. The possibility other being skewered by the Jesus icon mounted on the dashboard was an ever-present fear of mine that never materialized.

We must have been quite a sight, traveling a serpentine route at sub-automobile speeds in a rusty green Chevrolet- a grandfatherly figure wearing a straw fedora, smoking a cigar, and scanning the pastures and woodlots earnestly for signs of a horse that might be for sale; a small boy with a seemingly elongated upper torso that allowed his arm to hang out the window in a haughty, adult fashion; and the dark blur of a small dog going around and around hamster-like, with such intensity that she appeared to be propelling the vehicle at its leisurely pace.

Dad's horse-trading friends included a wide assortment of men, his age and older, whose ability to bargain, persuade, entertain, connive, and yes, swindle (in a friendly sort of way) allowed them to live at the edge and apart from the daily rounds of the tiring, bone-numbing work that was the lot of most dairy farmers. These traders always seemed good-humored and in the mood to stop whatever they were doing on their place when Dad and I pulled into their yards. I came to learn that this was due in part to my father's own wit and charm, but also to the relish with which these rough-necked dealers welcomed the chance to talk about their favorite horses, their best trades, and the general outrageousness of the lives that they led.

My early years were filled with long afternoons in cold, pungent barns, sitting on hay bales and listening to stories and anecdotes punctuated by the snorting and hoof-stomping of horses in their adjoining stalls. The stories were generally along the lines of trading a blind horse for a dry cow, and who got the better of the deal.

I went along to work in the fields, too. I remember sitting with Dad high up on the iron seat of the old tractor, the big seat with the holes drilled in it for the rainwater to drain through. There was plenty of room for both of us on that wide, flat, piece of iron. I sat half in his lap, surrounded by his arms as he held the steering wheel. Sometimes I'd grab the wheel and "help" him steer. Other times I'd watch intently as the plow cut through the ground and the ground responded: slowly turning over itself, exposing the rich loamy soil, the dark flesh of the prairie, where each year farmers planted their seeds and hopes. Most times I would just daydream while holding onto my father's arms, enjoying the smell of sweat and Old Spice.

In late summer, as we made our way toward the house at noon or at the end of the day, we would often stop the tractor under the chokecherry tree that grew along the fence line. We could reach the cherries from the seat. We'd sit for a long time and eat them. They don't call them chokecherries for nothing. They were bittersweet at best, with a large stone in the middle. But I loved sitting there in the shade of that scallop-barked tree with its delicate, shiny leaves, eating something wild that I had picked myself. My father always knew where to forage for food. We'd pick asparagus in the spring and hickory nuts in the fall. Having grown up on a tenant farm with eleven brothers and sisters, he never took any food for granted, particularly if it was provided by nature without requirement of cash or toil.

During those quiet times under the chokecherry tree, we'd listen for the sound of the meadowlark calling from its perch on a fence post or a bobolink singing on the wing as it flew over the clover and alfalfa. Dad could make a whistling sound that he told me was the call of a bobwhite quail. I never heard a quail answer nor did I ever see one, as they were pretty well hunted-out in those days. But years later, I was in Virginia one afternoon and I heard a low, clear whistle from a woodlot. I recognized the sound instantly. It sounded like Shorty May.

In those days, even though I was five years old, I never thought of myself as being "babysat." I was the official "hooker-upper" on the place, and could drive a tractor, in a manner of speaking. In late summer the corn stood tall in the fields but was still green and juicy. We'd hook up a hay wagon to the tractor. I'd lift the wagon tongue (most were four-wheeled in those days, so there was no weight on the tongue) while Dad backed the tractor toward me. When the coupling hole in the tractor's drawbar matched the hole in the wagon tongue, I'd drop a pin through both holes, joining the wagon and tractor. I was proud of this contribution because I knew that it would have been nearly impossible for my dad to do that job alone. Next we'd pull the wagon down to the cornfield, cut and load some corn, and feed it to the cows when they came up to the barn for milking.

My job was to "drive" the tractor while Dad cut the corn. Once we reached the cornfield, he'd put the tractor in first gear and hold the clutch pedal to the floor. Then I'd put my small work shoe on top of his heavy work boot, and while the tractor continued to run he would slowly slide his foot out from under mine. I could feel the tension of the clutch pedal rising against my foot and as I pushed back with all my weight, the pedal would slowly depress again. At that moment I took control of the big machine.

While I watched from the tractor seat, Dad would take a wooden-handled corn knife from a toolbox on the wagon and begin cutting the tall stalks of corn, swinging the knife in slow, steady arcs. The stalks would tremble as the knife passed through them, hesitate for a moment, and then lie down into the crook of his arm. When he had a pretty good bunch of stalks, he'd throw the bundle onto the wagon. As he worked his way across the field row by row, he'd get quite a distance away from me and the wagon-too far to carry the heavy bundle of corn. This was the moment I waited for, the chance to prove myself. He'd turn toward me and the tractor, quickly gauge the distance as being too much, and holler, "Go!"

I'd let up ever so slowly on the clutch. If my foot slipped off the pedal at this juncture the clutch plate would catch all at once, engaging the engine; the tractor would rear up onto its big, black, back tires like a red metal stallion, land with a clank, and kill the engine; and I would have failed, for the time being, at my quest to be a real, grown-up farmer.

Usually, I'd be able to let the clutch out slowly enough that the tractor would creep ahead, in a kind of jerky, halting sort of a way, to where Dad was standing with the corn, until he hollered, "Whoa!" Then I'd push the clutch pedal down and let out a sigh of satisfaction as he tossed the corn onto the wagon. I was pleased that I had saved him a lot of time and effort walking back and forth to the wagon and climbing on and off the tractor to move it closer to his work. He was nearly sixty years old and farming three hundred acres by himself; even then I was aware of his age and how hard he worked.

There were times when I couldn't go along with him, times when I had to stay alone back at the house. There was the time that I rang the bell.

It was early May, corn-planting time. The McHenry County farmers say you plant your corn "when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear." It was in the early morning on a soft spring day-a planting day. I had awakened to the sound of robins and the smell of plowed earth coming through my open bedroom window. The birds were back and the lilacs, planted carefully to the south of the house, perfumed the breeze, which was carrying spring all the way from the Gulf of Mexico. I watched Dad milk and feed the cows, helped him hook up the corn planter, and looked on as he filled first the canisters that held the fertilizer and then the ones that contained the corn seed itself. When he was finished and had tightened the last wing nut on the last bolt, he looked at me, thought for a moment, and said as he turned toward the tractor, "You'll have to stay home today."

I didn't understand why. It seemed like a horrible injustice. Looking back, I think he may have been afraid to have me sitting with him on the tractor seat that day. There was a lot of moving around when you planted corn. We used an ancient two-row planter that had been converted from horse-drawn to mechanical. A man sitting on the tractor had to reach around and back to put the planter in gear by hand. The marker arms had to be lifted and dropped again at the end of every pass so that each row of corn was properly spaced for future cultivating and harvesting. With all that movement, a small boy could easily be bumped and fall under the tractor wheel. Farming is dangerous work. Every farmer knew a friend or relative who had lost a hand or an arm to a machine. Local accounts of some child crushed under the wheel of a tractor or truck served as moral lessons and cautionary tales.

Before he got on the tractor. Dad turned to me and said, "I know you'll be alone, so if there's trouble, ring the bell."

A rusty, cinnamon-colored bell hung from a wooden frame on the roof of a storage shed we called the shanty. The shanty was attached to the house. I had never heard the bell.

A greasy, hemp rope fell from the bell to a thick knot that was tied to some rafters. That morning. Dad had climbed a ladder up to the rafters to untie the rope. It had uncoiled and danced its way down, almost touching the ground.

"It's not for fun or foolishness, but if there's trouble, ring the bell. I'll hear it in the field and come back in on the tractor."

He left for the field. I watched the tractor roll down the lane, getting smaller and smaller. Finally it was out of sight. I didn't like being there alone. I was afraid someone might come down the driveway. It wasn't just strangers that scared me. I was just plain shy, frightened even of neighbors. I had many four-legged friends, and two-legged friends with feathers, but I wasn't used to being around people.

The time was passing ever so slowly, so I thought I'd go into the shanty to play. It was an interesting old building that had been built originally for carriages. It was much too narrow for the big cars we had in the fifties. (Now these buildings have cars parked in them all the time. They've gone from buggies to Toyotas!) Back then we used the shanty to store odds and ends: bald tires, old harnesses and license plates nailed to the wall. I liked to go in there to look around. I could usually find some greasy, rusty thing to take apart and, occasionally, put back together. So it was with a mild sense of adventure that I entered the dusty old building that day.

When my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I saw our dog, Bootsie, asleep in a dirt hole. Curled up next to her was a snake. This snake looked threatening, and I had overheard some talk about rattlesnakes on neighbors' farms. Recalling my father's words, I thought to myself. This could be trouble. I looked up at the bell. I liked the idea of ringing it. I liked the idea of Dad coming in early from the field. I knew he'd be coming in for the noon meal, which we called dinner, but it was still mid-morning and I didn't want to wait. I looked at the snake again and it seemed to have gotten bigger, with a more sinister look on its face. I thought. This is trouble enough.

I grabbed the old hemp rope and gave it a pull that literally lifted my feet off the ground. When the side of the rusty bell hit the clapper, it sent a low, rich toll out over the fields. The pigeons flew up off the barn and the young heifers jumped around in the pasture with their tails straight in the air. I guess they had never heard the bell either. I liked the sound so much that I gave it another pull.

When the toll had drifted away, I heard something else: the engine of my father's tractor. Every tractor sounds different. This was his. He had heard the bell and was coming in from the field.

It wasn't long before a buoyant, sooty line of exhaust smoke appeared over the corncrib, and then I saw Dad wheeling the tractor around the corner of the toolshed, really moving. He had the old International H tractor in "road gear." It was unusual for him to drive that fast. He had farmed most of his life with horses-heavily muscled Percherons and Belgians, with feet as big as serving platters and withers as high as a man's forehead. He loved those big horses and used to train the raw, young ones to pull together in a harness and work at a farmer's side. But he never quite trusted tractors and machinery. He drove slowly on these metal beasts-second or third gear. So that day when I saw his tractor belching smoke and coming into the yard at full speed, I knew that he was worried about me and I thought, Maybe I am in trouble!

The tractor braked, coming to a stop right in front of me. He turned the engine off and it got real quiet, the kind of stillness only noticed after it has been preceded by a loud noise. "What's the trouble?" he asked, still seated on the tractor.

"There's a snake over there by Bootsie!" I replied, pointing to the shanty. He climbed down off the tractor and walked quickly to the old building, taking big steps. I followed behind him, running. It turned out to be a garter snake, about eight inches long and disappointingly harmless. He let go with a big sigh like he was relieved that I was safe and sound. Then he got mad.

For parents fearful of their children's safety, life is an emotional seesaw. As soon as they find out the kids are alive, they want to kill them.

"I've got a lot of planting to do today. I can't be coming back in unless it's more trouble than that!" He turned toward the house, walking past me, muttering that I was "bugs," which was pretty strong language for him. That was the last he said about the incident.

We had our dinner early that day. He stayed long enough to hear the noon farm report on the radio. He even listened to a little bit of the music that came on the Chicago Barn Dance station after the news. But he didn't dance that day. Most times when the music came on, he'd do a little fox trot across the linoleum floor-dance to the radio in his worn overalls with the cool breeze blowing under the maples and through the kitchen window, until it was time to go back to the hot, dusty field. He didn't dance that day, so I suppose he was more angry with me than he let on, and I never rang the bell again.

The following year, on the first of March, we auctioned the farming business and moved to town. Dad said it was because of the price of milk and the recession. I think the work was getting too hard for him.

March first is the day that farm leases are up. A tenant farmer can move and be settled in time to get the crop in. But this time we moved to town. There would be no crop, no planting or harvest to mark our lives, no cows for Dad to milk and feed twice a day. We kept a couple of horses and my pony, which we pastured at a neighbor's, and sold every-thing else.

On the day of the sale, Dad woke me early. He walked into my bedroom while it was still dark. "Do you wanna go with me to feed the heifers? It will probably be the last time."

We went together. I've always been grateful that I worked with him on the last day that we were farmers together. It's the only thing I remember about the sale.

He got a job working in a milk machine factory in town. It must have been hard on him working inside after all those years of farming, but he never said too much about it. The second spring in town, he was laid off from the factory and was hired to work on a Lipizzan horse farm. This was a blessing because he loved horses. He cared for the brood mares, and I would go with him to help on weekends, especially in the wintertime when the mares "came due." Sometimes we'd sit up together all night. Over the years we welcomed many slippery, spindly-legged foals into the world. We were partners again in the farming business.

One day while I was at school, he was leading a big stallion across a hayfield to a new barn when the big horse bolted. The stud horse threw its head, jerking on the leather lead that Dad was holding. I remember him saying, "If I would have let go, I would have been all right." Instead he'd held on and fought the horse. Maybe he'd remembered his younger days, cowboying those raw, young draft horses that he had trained to behave and work at a farmer's side. But Dad was old now, and the strain was too much. He had a heart attack and died a short time later. I was sixteen.

In the years that followed, there were times in my life when there was trouble, and I ached to pull on the rope, but I didn't have a bell to ring and he didn't have a tractor to drive in from the field.

This story has been silent for years, like the old bell. But now when I tell it, it feels to me like I'm pulling on the rope. And if you hear that bell, or maybe a bell of your own, then I know I've rung it. Shorty May taught me to listen to the land and to its people, and sometimes while searching my memories, I can hear the tractor coming, too.