Sam by Kenneth George Bishop

Sam

It was early May, I’d just come in from the cow shed when the phone rang, it was from my sister Janet. She is a good sort, a bit bossy but good and kind. She doesn’t waste much time coming to the point.

“Any objections to the kids and I coming up for the holidays? The house will be due for another tidy-up by now. We’ll be up Sunday and will bring some stores”.

“Hell no. I’ll be glad to see you. I’ve plenty of Tucker, going to kill a beast next week. What do you mean ‘tidy the house up’, it’s good and tidy.”

She laughed and said “I’ll bet it is, never mind, we’ll see you about midday Sunday”.

After I put the receiver back on the phone I thought, “Hell, what day is this, Thursday – no Friday. Hell I haven’t much time”.

Janet is good but she is a bit fussy, and she often throws clothes, hats and things out that have a lot of wear left in them. Luckily I’m aware of this so I make my preparations.

First I go through the pile of clothes in the wash house waiting to be washed when I get the time. People don’t understand, woollen shirts get worn and ragged under the arms from wearing overalls but the rest of the shirt is good, a lot of wear left in them. So I get a bag and go through the shirts, any that are a bit tatty I put in the bags, the same with singlet’s, tea towels and overalls that have a few holes in them. When the bag is three quarters full I take them over to the implement shed, jam some baling twine in the top and either throw the bags in a corner or hang them up on a nail on the wall until she goes home again and I can resurrect them again.

Anyhow I had a lot of things to do, I’m drying the cows off next week, the home-kill chap is coming Tuesday to do the beast and two pigs. Yes there are a lot of last minute jobs to be done before drying off.

I’d just got in on Sunday morning when Janet arrived, with all the gear that she deemed necessary for their stay.

The two boys were aged twelve and fourteen, Max and John, and had sprung up quite a bit since the Christmas holidays. The two girls, Sharon and Trixie were nine and seven. Actually I give Janet and Morrie credit, the kids were well mannered, but pretty gullible in many ways. Perhaps all town kids are, I don’t know many.

They were carrying all the gear in the house and I said to the kids, “Where is the kitchen sink?” They all looked at me.

“Haven’t you got one?” asked Sharon.

“Yeah I think so, but I haven’t seen it for awhile”.

Trix flew inside and came out and said, “Yes, you have got one, don’t you use it?”

“No, hardly ever, it wastes time”.

“Then how do you wash your dishes” Trix wanted to know.

“What do you think I keep dogs for?”

“Getting the cows in” Sharon replied. “Don’t try to tell us Uncle that the dogs do the dishes, dogs can’t wash dishes”.

“Now see here you kids, don’t dare tell your Mum , she has some funny ideas and might take you home again, but I put the dishes and pots out on the lawn there and when I let the dogs off they lick them as clean as a whistle”. They all looked at the lawn and screwed their faces up, “oooh Uncle, that’s gross”.

Just then Janet came outside and said, “Come on you kids, go and get changed into your farm clothes”. While they were away we chatted a bit on family news and complimented each other on how well we looked as siblings always seem to do. I enquired about Morrie, “Oh he’s good really. It’s football season you know”.

“Yeah I know, right in his element again eh?” Old Morrie is the expert on football, knows every player in NZ I think, good bloke though.

Sharon was the first to emerge, “Mum, Uncle asked why we didn’t bring the kitchen sink. It’s one of his jokes isn’t it?”

“Well,” I answered, “You seemed to have brought everything else, why not the kitchen sink”.

Janet looked at me accusingly and said, “By the look of it we should have brought ours. Have you been washing your socks in it again”.

“No, oh! Hell no, it’s the stain of the water that makes it look like that”.

“I hope you don’t let the stain colour your milking plant like that”. I stood up to my full height of 5ft 4” and said, “Certainly not. I’d get a grade if I did”.

“What’s a grade Uncle?” Max wanted to know.

“Well if the milking plant gets dirty, bugs get in the milk and send it off a bit, the tests at the factory pick it up and the milk gets down graded. You get paid a lot less”.

“It’s a pity the factory didn’t run tests on your house too, and graded your milk on that as well”. Janet can be a bit harsh at times.

“Your brother Dave’s house is spotless and he’s living on his own too now.”

“Yeah but look at his farm, damned disgrace. Broken gates and fences, thistles and ragwort everywhere, and that bird he’s got spends a lot of time up there. She cleans it up, I know that”.

“Anyhow, come and have some lunch. I brought some food with us”.

She produced some nice things to eat, filled rolls etc. I noticed the kids tried not to put anything on their plates, and grinned to myself.

“Did you really wash your socks in the kitchen sink Uncle,” Trix wanted to know.

“No, they fell in when I was carrying an armful of washing past the sink and they must have fallen in without my noticing it. Your Mum and Dad came unexpectedly and your Mum saw them”.

Janet gave me a squinty look and said, “I have grave doubts about that, I couldn’t find any other washing”.

“Well I suppose I’d better show the kids around. You want to come Janet?”

“No, I’ve a bit of cleaning up to do here first. Tomorrow perhaps”.

“Hell sis, you haven’t been here long enough to make a mess yet. Relax a bit, and come for a walk”.

I might have imagined it but a sort of spasm ran up her back and she quickly replied, “No. I’ve a lot to do here before I can relax”.

Well, I thought to myself, she always had a few funny ideas, and left her to it.

We walked down to the shed; the kids were like rabbits, running here, there and everywhere. “What’s this, what’s that, what’s that for” as town kids always seemed to do. My mind got pretty fuddled after awhile, answering their questions.

When they saw a heifer standing looking at them, who had poked her tongue in her nostril on one side, then poked into the other nostril, they all asked at once, “what’s she doing that for”.

When she did it again, I answered, “Well cows don’t have hankies and they have to wipe their noses the same as anything else”.

“Eeeeew gross,” all said at once. “Do all cows do that?”

“Yes of course, so do dogs, cats and lots of animals”.

I took some milk and meal over to the pig sties. I like pigs. I like to let them out of the sties for the afternoon and they all take off for a run, grunting and chasing each other. After a couple of minutes they often just collapse and lie down, pigs are the clowns of the domestic animals I think.

After a while they all got up and ran back to the sty to see what was going on. The kids were enthralled. This was exciting stuff. Pigs when run outside have a nasty habit of rooting up patches of ground and making a great mess. To counteract this most pigs have rings put in their noses, this doesn’t impede them in any way except they can’t root up the ground.

The kids noticed the rings and wanted to know why. I told them that they stopped them from rooting. John, the eldest gave a scornful scoff, “Don’t hand me that one Uncle. Rings in their noses wouldn’t stop THAT”.

I stopped and looked at him. Well, well, well, our John was now a man of the world. I got my tins and wandered off. The kids stayed a while but after a bit the two girls caught up with me. Full of questions about this and that and one thing and another, “Where are the ducks, where are the calves, where are the turkeys ... the sheep”.

By 3pm I was completely in a daze so decided it was time for smoko. When I headed that way the kids took off and when I arrived they were all talking to Jan at once.

I put the jug on for a cup of tea and shut off, when I came to all were looking at me and Jan said, “What stories have you been telling them now?”

“What stories?”

“Well, cows not having hankies and pigs unable to breed”.

“Hell and Tommy, of course cows don’t have hankies but I never said anything about pigs not being able to breed. Someone has got their wires crossed somewhere”.

Janet changed the subject, “How many pairs of overalls have you got?”

“Oh three or four, maybe more”.

“Where are they? Also your shirts and trousers, I can hardly find any”.

“Well it’s like this Jan. At this time of year when the weather is changeable I sometimes take some clothes off and leave them in a shed or something. Then later I find them and bring them home, wash them and put them away.” That would settle her down I thought.

“Well I’d better go and do my chores”.

The kids were outside and we all marched off to feed the pigs, chooks, dogs, ducks etc. It didn’t take long, but no hen eggs. Funny, there should have been at least a dozen. But there was a big yellow stain on the tractor shed floor.

Then Pixie, “I’m sorry Uncle. We were collecting them for you and I fell over and they all broke, the other chooks ate them.”

We had a bit of a yarn about collecting eggs and the pros and cons. When we got back inside, Janet asked me how long the bath plug hole had been blocked.

“Is it blocked? Well I didn’t know that, I don’t use it much. Only the shower”.

“It has course hairs in the plug hole?”

I daren’t tell her we’d scalded a pig in the bath a couple of months before. As I said before, Janet has some funny ways.

“I’ll take the pipe off in the morning and check it ok”.

She had made a nice dinner, she’s a good cook. The kids didn’t seem too keen on scraping their plates clean, in fact they seemed to go to a lot of trouble eating the meal without actually touching the plate with their knives and forks. I kept Jan talking so she didn’t notice.

Everyone gave a hand washing up the dishes, no they didn’t want me to give a hand. The dishes were very well washed.

After milking next morning which was a community job the tribe came away on the tractor with me to feed out and shift a few electric fences. All managed to get at least one shock, the two girls got bogged in a swamp and had to be pulled out. The job took twice as long as it usually did however it was company and we had a lot of humour.

Then the business of the blocked bath plug emerged. I got the stilsons and pipe wrenches and took it off. I tried to get the audience to go away but no luck. Sure enough it was blocked. I tipped the muck out and Sharon noticed some feathers in there as well as bristles. Janet came around for a look as well, “they look like fowl feathers and pig bristles to me, how did they get in there” she wanted to know.

I quickly had a problem with the pipe and mumbled something or other. That didn’t satisfy Janet.

“Now dear brother, tell me how do you get feathers and pig bristles in the bath”. I had to think quick.

“Well sometimes you get feathers on your clothes and in your pockets, the same with pig bristle when you are handling pigs”.

“So you have a bath with all your clothes on to get rid of feathers and bristles eh? It sounds a bit far-fetched to me. You’d better come up with a better excuse than that one”.

All the kids were eyeing me, waiting for my answer.

Dear little Trixie saved the day for me. “Oh Uncle, I’ll bet you fell in the bath by accident after a pig chased you inside and you had been plucking a chook and you had a bucket full of feathers. The pig thought the bucket was full of pig food”.

Everyone, even Jan had to laugh at that and she said “Yes so to save time, he ran the bath and sat in it and had a bath with all his clothes on – and the pig got in too”.

I remembered I hadn’t let the pigs out and had to hurry away to do that. Jan looked at me and shook her head. “Mum would turn over in her grave if she knew you were scalding pigs and chooks in her lovely clean bath”.

Later on when I came back and went inside the house was transformed. Janet had tidied everything, it looked very neat and clean.

That night Jan and I went through the farm books. She is the accountant. “I must say with all your untidy housekeeping the farm is doing very well indeed. It’s a credit to you”.

“Well the farm won’t make money unless it’s farmed properly and I don’t spend much time in the house, every hour spent inside is an hour not doing farm work”.

She agreed that that was right. Then the bombshell. “I think you should get a housekeeper to look after the house and you”.

I nearly choked, “What the hell would a housekeeper do that I can’t do”.

“Keep the house tidy”. Hell! Woman’s logic.

Next day she came for a walk around, I told her the water was getting to be a problem. With more stock about more water was needed. We talked about this and the kids raced back to tell us a cow was in the water hole where the pump shed was. We went over and a heifer had got in somehow and was bogged. She saw the point of the old fashioned water supply.

An hour or so later with the help of the tractor the heifer was out but the water was very muddy.

The kids decided water was off the menu which made me grin. I didn’t bother telling them the water for the house was filtered.

Next day I was pottering around waiting for the home kill chap to arrive. I had the beast to kill in a yard with a couple of other cows to keep him company. The kids were away somewhere, Jan came out and I asked her where the kids were. I told her the chap was coming to kill the pigs and a bullock and maybe she would want them not to see it.

She surprised me. “We saw Dad kill animals for meat, it didn’t do us any harm. If they arrive, let them watch”.

And so it happened. They arrived back as the truck approached. They stood back and watched. I had to grin. Jim the butcher is a master at his job. In twenty minutes the beast was shot, skinned, gutted , weighed and in the truck. They were astounded at the amount of offal that came out of the beast. Then the pigs were done. I had the water boiling and in no time at all the pigs were shot, scalded, gutted and were also in the truck.

Jim said, “Hooray” and drove away.

“What’s going to happen to all the guts?”

“That’s what we’ll live on for the next week” I answered.

They all looked at each other with rueful looks. I took a knife, got the livers from the pigs and other titbits and said, “time for lunch”.

They reckoned they weren’t hungry but young people aren’t good at fasting. I lit a fire, put some netting over it and waited.

Just then Charlie, our Maori neighbour, came in with his wife and kids. Charlie is a comedian. “This was real good kai”. He took over all the titbits, cut them off and put on the netting with an iron plate about 2ft square (a barbeque) and started to eat. He showed them how to get a piece which was cooked, hold it up in the air and lick the fat off his arm.

“Pai korry, real good kai this one”.

In no time at all, all were eating their fill. Jan was there, having a go too.

It was then that I stood up and said “the country life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know”.

After everyone had eaten their fill, Charlie took some other titbits, I got the fat and put it in sacks to render down.

The rest was buried.

The kids were amazed. They looked like Eskimos – grease from head to foot. John said, “Uncle I never knew meat could taste so good, when are you going to kill again?”

Charlie told the kids they hadn’t eaten anything yet. Wait till they tried some smoked eels!

Janet said to me on the side “I think it’s time I got these kids home before they become real savages”, but she gave me a smile and added “We don’t want them all like you but to be honest, they could turn out alot worse”.

Anyhow a couple of days later Morrie arrived. I didn’t have any trouble enticing him out to my brewery shed and having a few homebrews.

After awhile he said, “you know you old bugger, the kids have had a hell of a good time. They certainly learn some new things up here. But what’s this eating cow guts business?”

“Well Morrie it’s rather an old custom among some people. Nothing is wasted. The butchers don’t waste anything” and I explained what it is all about.

Anyhow Janet called out that they were ready to go.

Here things weren’t at all easy. Trixie was crying because she wasn’t allowed to take the three kittens I’d given her. Max was out of sorts because he couldn’t take the little eels in a jar. Sharon wasn’t allowed to take the bantam hen and her five chicks. John was sulking because he wasn’t allowed to take the cow skin home-made boots. They weren’t bad boots either, maybe a bit hard no doubt where the skin dried out. I got a lecture on my house keeping abilities and the need for a housekeeper. After all the goodbyes the car went out the gate and a great quietness settled on the place.

I went over to the house, it was tidy and neat. But hell I couldn’t find anything, all my notes and figures written on the back of Park Drive tobacco packets were gone. Notes here and there telling me where this and that were nowhere to be found. So I went over to the implement shed to get my clothes. Holy hell! All the clothes had been cut up into strips and a note TELLING me “the rags would make good cleaning rags to clean the tractors etc which were due for a clean”.

This was a real blow.

I was almost in a state of shock so I went over to the brewery room, poured a glass of plum wine, opened a bottle of beer and sat down for a quiet smoke and a drink. Hell, those clothes had another year’s work left in them, probably more.

Bloody waste of money.

I like Janet. She is a good woman and a great sister but she has some strange ideas. The town life had changed her and those kids were damned good kids but they’d be ruined before long I suppose. A pity she is so bossy though, she didn’t used to be.

Holy mackerel! What a hell of a strange idea in my getting a housekeeper. She’d be like Janet I bet, make my life miserable. I poured another big glass of wine, well I’d fight that great idea.

Women are strange creatures all right. They definitely come from another planet.

I rolled another smoke. Hell it was quiet. I’d finished the wine and went and let the dogs go. Even they were in a bewildered state, well work still has to be done. But hell it was quiet. I grumbled to myself, “bloody housekeeper – like hell!”