At
age forty-six I decided to take a creative writing class and found myself
needing to write a short story. As the things in my life were changing, somehow
I wanted to honor those changes by bringing some younger and older life moments
together. To make matters interesting, in today’s literary markets the type and
time of my childhood writing is referred to as “historical fiction.” This
little short story never happened in my life, and now I find myself very close
to the grandma’s age. It made me smile as I read some of the questions asked of
me at the time, my answers then, and those now. They really haven’t changed
much at all. Still, I must admit, the story seems to have been written by a
younger person than I am today. At whatever age, hope you enjoy both
sides of the story and connect the dots of time.
BRIDGING THE GAP
1950
Grandpa was getting up from the dinner table
when Grandma reminded him, “Don’t forget to check on Old Sue. She may have
found her calf by now.”
Mandy tried not to giggle, but it’s hard not
to giggle when you’re eight years old.
“Grandma,” she said, “I saw a calf born when I
was four years old. I know cows don’t go around looking for their
calves.”
Grandma choked back a chuckle from behind the
ear of corn she was trying to chew with her false teeth. “Maybe they’re like
people,” she said. “Maybe they go looking around for the very things that are
inside them all the time.”
Now Mandy was really embarrassed. She was
beginning to wish she had not invited Gloria to spend the weekend. Last week
she stayed with Gloria in the city. They went swimming, to a ball game, and
even to the movies. But there was nothing to do in the country except
shuck corn and shell beans, and the grown-ups couldn’t even talk right.
“Don’t mind her,” Mandy said to Gloria.
“Grandma would try to make religion out of a mud puddle.”
Both eight-year-olds giggled and tried to dart
out the door before Grandma could chain them to the dishpan. Whoever said
Grandma was slow certainly did not know Amanda Krebs.
“You gals get back here before I cloud up and
rain all over you,” she called to them.
“Grandma! I have company! We didn’t have
to wash dishes at her house.”
“You probably didn’t feed
chickens or gather eggs either, but the hens don’t stop laying just because
your cousin is here.” Grandma was already boiling water for the dishpan.
Gloria looked at Mandy. Her
hands were as smooth as her face. Both her eyes looked questioningly at the
singing kettle.
“Don’t worry, Mama and
Papa will be home from the factory after a while and we won’t have to do this
at my house. We even have hot and cold running water at home just like you do
in town”
“Oh, I don’t mind,”
Gloria lied because she was too polite to tell the truth.
Grandma looked at the two
girls. It had been sixty years since she was eight years old. You didn’t talk
about where calves come from back then, even if everybody did know. And girls
certainly never went around in short pants after the age of four. But Grandma
could be modern. She could shake her stiff leg better than anybody at the
harvest barn dance every fall. But she couldn’t be patient with little girls
who had lily-white hands and wore necklaces in the middle of the day. She began
pulling dishes from everywhere and dropping them into the sudsy hot lather.
“God gave us hands and
feet because he knew we were going to need them,” her lecture began. “If he
just wanted something to look pretty, well, he’s got plenty of flowers for
that. You girls got it easy.”
Gloria leaned over to
whisper to Mandy. “Are we going to hear about how she walked to school now?”
“No you ain’t.” Grandma’s
ears were as sharp as her tongue. “Whatever made you think I went to school? I
learned arithmetic from the Sears Roebuck catalog and the only book I ever read
from was the bible.”
“That has to be true,”
Mandy informed Gloria. “Grandma talks about the Bible so much that until last
year I thought she must have written at least half of it herself.” The girls
giggled.
Just then the back door swung
open and Grandpa rushed in, “Better get some things together. Old Sue
isn’t able to have that calf.” He reached in the corner and picked up the gun,
stuck a few shells in the pocket of his overalls and waited for Grandma to come
with some rags, scissors, and on her way out the door she grabbed her sowing
basket.
“Can we come?”
Mandy asked.
“No!” Grandpa was
firm.
The girls watched the
couple hurrying across the yard. Just a few minutes ago the wrinkles in
Grandma’s face had seemed to dance as she talked and worked around the kitchen.
From behind, she looked old. She had a white cloth tied around her head that
looked like it was holding her head together. She drug her stiff leg along
behind her as though it weighed too much to lift beside her other one.
Grandpa carried the gun
beside him as though the gun itself made a statement to life. His steps were as
firm as his voice had been when he had forbidden the girls to come.
Mandy and Gloria looked
at each other and read each other’s thoughts. They threw down their dish towels
and started toward the door. “We’ll cut through the corn field and go around
back of the barn,” Mandy said.
“Why did he take the
gun?" Gloria asked.
“Shshsh, Grandma can hear
me thinking.”
The girls didn’t have to
duck. The corn stood almost six feet tall now and the leaves waved gently to
them as they passed across the rough dirt. At the end of the corn field was a
wire fence. Mandy lifted up the bottom two rows of wire so Gloria could crawl
through.
“Are there cows in here?”
Gloria whispered.
“Yes, and one bull, but
don’t worry, they are more scared of you than you are of them.”
“I don’t think so. How
far is it?”
“Just across the branch
and threw those trees on the other side.” Amanda was used to the thorns
and the pasture. It never occurred to her that Gloria might be
frightened. A wooden plank lay across the little branch. The water was no deeper
than three feet, with little minnows swimming under the plank as though they were
playing “Snake in the gully”. Mandy took the six quick steps to the other side
before she realized Gloria was not with her. She looked back at Gloria’s
uncertain expression, and made a motion with her hand for her to follow her.
The sun came through the trees and rested on Gloria’s auburn hair, making it
appear for a second as though her head was on fire. The beauty of it caused
Mandy to feel a brief jealous second, before she started back across the plank
to take Gloria’s hand. The girls turned to the right and followed the trees to
the wooden gate that let them peer into the barnyard. They were almost too
late.
All they could see was
red, even brighter than Gloria’s hair had been. Now the sun lay over the place
where Grandma and Grandpa knelt. Grandma was rubbing Old Sue’s head and almost
sitting on her front legs. Grandpa’s hands got lost somewhere in the red blob.
It was impossible to tell where Old sue turned into the calf Grandpa was
pulling from her body. It looked as though the cow literally broke into pieces
while the girls watched. Finally, Grandpa and Sue gave a long cry together and
Grandpa fell backwards catching the little red blob in his lap.
But Old Sue didn’t stop
wailing. Groans too horrible for eight-year-old ears to hear filled the
barnyard with pain. Grandpa started standing up as the little red calf
sputtered into life. Grandma carefully wiped its mouth, eyes and ears with the
wet cloth she had brought, and smiled as the newborn immediately tried to suck
on it. Sue was just too old to give birth. It appeared that Old Sue was akin to
Grandma, seeming not to know when it was time to let go and let the young ones
run the world.
Grandpa put a shell into
the gun. Mandy covered her ears. Gloria screamed at the sound of the gun, but
Sue became quiet and still on the ground. Grandma turned toward the sound of
the scream. The girls came through the gate to kneel beside the new little
creature that was struggling to stand up from Grandma’s lap.
Grandma looked into
Gloria’s face and her heart melted tender to the child.
Until now, Old Sue had
been just a cow to Mandy. Now she had real identity. Her life stood for
something.
“What are we going to
name it?” Mandy asked as though that were the appropriate question.
The little calf made a
noise that sounded more like a sheep than a cow. Gloria’s eyes never left
Grandma’s face. Each little dancing wrinkle seemed to have something special to
say now.
“What will happen to the
calf now?”
“Well, we have another
calf about a week old,” Grandma explained. “We’ll take this one to the mother
and see if she will let it nurse.”
“Will she?” Gloria
questioned.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, sometimes a mother
will take on another’s baby and sometimes not. Cows and animals can be like
people sometimes. What it all depends on is love, nature, and God.”
Gloria finally looked
into the baby calf’s face. The eyes were closed and Gloria wondered if they
were any color at all.
“Let’s name it,” Mandy
insisted.
“Let’s let Gloria name
it,” Grandma suggested.
“Well, the first thing
this calf heard was its mama getting shot. Why don’t we call it Bambi?” Gloria
said.
“Then Bambi it is,”
Grandma agreed.
“What will happen to
Bambi,” Gloria still wondered aloud.
Grandpa had been busy
cleaning up around the area and picking up things for Grandma to take back to
the kitchen.
“And why the sowing
basket?” Gloria asked.
Mandy giggled. “To sew up
your mouth so you won’t ask so many questions,” she said as she began to
understand why Grandma had said that to her a thousand times when she was
younger. Simultaneously, Gloria realized a real resemblance in Grandma Krebs’
namesake. She looked around the little area at the baby calf, her cousin, and
the two old people. She reached out to touch Bambi’s little red head as the sun
touched them with brilliance.
“Child,” Grandpa said
because he was too old to remember a name like Gloria. “You come back next
summer and Bambi will serve you up milk, cheese, and butter.”
Questions asked by class and answered by me.
Q: What is the
significance of the color red?
A: The brightness
of life from beginning to end; light on Gloria’s hair, a young girl fixing to
face life that may include some problems (jealousies), the redness of the cow
falling apart at life’s end, the redness of the calf’s head as infancy.
Q: What is the
meaning of the title?
A: The bridge of
life, emphasized by the wooden bridge the girls had to walk across to get to
the answers.
Q: Shouldn’t the
girls be younger than eight?
A: I don’t know but
I don’t think so in rural 1950.
Q: You didn’t
follow through on the God theme; why not?
A: It was a part of
what Grandma believed, and was a subjective presence in the story in the
birthing of the little calf.
