Gone To The Country chapter 2

Chapter 2

This was Grandad Mowrer's farm! Grandad had raised his children here. The farm had fed them well. It was out in the middle of nowhere. Mountains all around. Wide open spaces. Freedom! They had lots of freedom. Nobody here to tell them what to do. They had fled from the Cleveland rat race. Now they intended to enjoy life as it was meant to be lived.

"Let's celebrate!" said Cherokee. He ran back across the footbridge to get his bike. He rode a black Chopper. Big Al followed to get his "Captain America" Springer. Tiny rode a "dresser" with a sidecar, painted candy-apple red. No way would it come across the narrow footbridge. Besides, Tiny wouldn't risk getting any scratches on his "baby."

Out by the barn Big Al and Cherokee stripped off mufflers and lights and saddlebags and anything that would break easily.

Tiny and the women stood and watched.

Big Al hit the starter button. The motor started up with an earsplitting blast of noise! "Vroom! Vroom"'

The women put their fingers in their ears. So did Tiny.

"Wow!" said Big Al. "Listen to that hog talking! Isn't that beautiful noise. Unadulterated pure joy! And nobody around to yell at us or to call the cops."

Cherokee started up his bike and led the way. "Let's ride!"

He swung the motorcycle around in the barnyard, wrestling the machine by its widespread handlebars as he would a steer. The rear wheel, turning full blast, shot a spray of dust and gravel.

They blasted across the field, following a faint trail. The bikes bounced and swayed and tore up chunks of grass and weeds.

Big Al tried to pass on the left. Suddenly a hidden rock threw him up in the air. The bike went sideways and fell over.

Big Al went flying. He landed in a clump of weeds and just lay there.

Cherokee came back to see what happened.

"Are you hurt?"

Big Al rolled over and sat up. "Only my pride," he said.

He got up, walked over to the bike and wrestled it up on its wheels. He checked the front wheel and forks, straightened the handlebars a little. He touched a dent on the tank. He mounted the bike and started it up.

They raced across the field to the far end and then back again. They did this several times.

Then side by side they raced across the field to the mountainside on the left. With the rear tires shooting gravel, they followed a trail through the trees. They climbed up nearly to the top of the mountain. Then following a trail between two huge rocks, they used the brakes to slide down the mountainside to the bottom. They raced across the field back to the barn, and slid to a stop.

By then the wives had gone back into the house.

Big Al and Cherokee spun a few power circles, motors roaring and the rear tires shooting up rooster tails of dirt and gravel.

Tiny quickly ducked into the barn to escape the debris.

"Wow!" said Cherokee. "It's good to be free!"

Big Al gave an imitation of a Indian war whoop!

Tiny came out of the barn and they all walked up to sit on the front porch. It was a beautiful day.


By now it was nearing 11 o'clock. The men sat talking. The women were in the house, looking things over.

A door slammed and the men looked up.

"Al, look at this kitchen! What am I supposed to do?"

Edna was standing on the back porch, wringing her hands, with a wild look in her eye.

Jenny Lou came around from the front of the house. She went up the steps to the back porch. Big Al and the others followed. She opened the door and they all went into the kitchen.

"Look at that stove, if it is a stove! No water! No refrigerator! How did your Granddad live here?"

"Edna, be quiet! If Granddad did it, so can we. We just have to figure it all out."

"When I was a little girl," Jenny Lou said, "my Grandma took me to visit friends in southern Ohio. I saw a stove like this. I think she built a fire in it. I remember she put sticks of wood into the stove."

"Wood!" screamed Edna. "Where would we get wood out here?"

"Now, Edna," said Big Al. "What do you think trees are made of? There is lots of wood all around us. We just have to bring it in."

Cherokee had gone back outside. He burst in, slamming the door behind him. "Al, someone is coming across the field on a horse."

Big Al ran out, with Cherokee following. The women stayed behind, watching fearfully out the window.

The man wore ragged clothes. His shaggy hair spilled out from under what must have once been a dress hat. His hair was a grizzled gray, as was his beard. He looked exactly like what the tourists think of as a "mountain man."

Ephrairn!" said Big Al. "I thought you had died."

"Do I know you? Why, can you be Al? You've growed up, got big, you have. I used to bounce you on my knee."

"Come meet Ephraim," Big Al shouted at the house.

Ephraim got off and dropped the reins to the ground. The horse just stood there.

The others came streaming out to see what the shouting was about.

"Ephraim, this is Tiny, as you can see, and Edna, and Cherokee." He proceeded to introduce them all. "Ephraim was a good friend to my Granddad."

"How are you, Ephraim? Where are you living now? How did you get here?"

"Hold your horses! Where's the hurry. It takes time to think. No use standing out here. Let's go sit on the porch."

Ephraim led the way and they all took places on the front porch. He sat in a rickety looking chair somebody had made out of tree branches. The rest sat on the floor.

"Well, now," said Ephraim, "I worked the Rodeo circuit in younger days. I got too old for that, but I stayed on as long as I could. It was my life. Then several years ago I came back here. I didn't have nowhere to go. Your Granddad was still living. He told me this was my home as long as I live."

"Sure," said Big Al. "If Granddad said it, you got it."

"But I don't like houses. There's a railroad tunnel back over yonder. It's from the logging times, when they cut the trees and hauled them away. The mountains are growed up again, now."

"A railroad tunnel, you say?"

"Yep. Back inside it there are rooms cut out of the mountain. They stored stuff there. Now I live in one of them rooms, snug as a bug in a rug."

"How did you know we were here?" Jenny Lou asked.

"With all the racket and clatter you fellers made? A deaf man could of heard you."

"Besides," continued Ephraim, "I keep an eye out on this house. I owe it to your Granddad. I wondered who would be back in here. Ain't nobody lives in these here hills anymore. But sometimes touristers find their way in. Some fellers set up a tent over in the meadow about two years ago.

"But let's talk about you folks. What are you doing here? Last I heard your people had moved up in Ohio somewhere."

"Well, Ephraim, we came back here to find our roots. We want freedom and wide open spaces. It got too crowded for us. We couldn't be ourselves without the Law getting after us."

"The Law's here too, as you will find. But how will you live? There ain't no jobs. That's why everybody moved to Ohio in the first place. I like it. But then, I get a pension check, and it suits me just fine. And the other end of that railroad tunnel comes out just below Branson’s Grocery. I can get everything I need real easy like."

"Ephraim," Edna said, "how in the world did Granddad live in a place like this? No electricity, no refrigerator, no stove, no water? What are we to do?"

"Well, now, let's go inside. You just don't know what you got here. You city folks have got a lot to learn if you're going to stay out here.

Ephraim led the way as they filed into the kitchen.

"Al, you take that bucket there, and go get some water from the creek.

"Al was soon back with the water.

Ephraim went over to the sink (which had been made of boards). Then he put his hand on a strange device, and turned to speak.

"This here's a pitcher pump. You pour some water in the top," (he proceeded to do so). "Then you work the handle like this, and purty soon you got water."

A stream began gushing out of the pump.

"You got to prime it, that's how we say it. There's all the water you could use, right out of the ground, right here in your kitchen. Just work the pump."

"What about the other things?" Edna asked. "Where's the bathroom?"

“Come on the porch," Ephraim said, and stepped out the back door. "You see that little building? That's the “chick sales,” what you call the bathroom. And over to the left, you see that door into the hillside? That's the refrigerator. There's a cold spring back in there. You just set your pans of stuff in that to keep them cool."

"But how do you cook?" Jenny Lou asked. "I think that might be a stove in there. But how do you use it?"

"Bring some of that wood," Ephraim said, pointing to a stack of wood on the corner of the porch.

They went back inside. Ephraim opened the door of the stove, took a stick of wood, and put it inside. He took another stick, sliced slivers off with his knife, and put them inside. He split a third stick into small pieces, put them on top of the pile in the stove, struck a match and lit the slivers. Soon he had a good fire going in the stove. He put another stick on the fire.

"You regulate the fire," he said, "by this air control in the stove door, and by this damper (he touched the handle) in the stovepipe. It would get too hot if you let it just burn."

Tiny came down the stairs two at a time shouting, "Al, there's someone coming up the road!"

A Jeep stopped at the footbridge. A deputy, judging from his uniform, came across and started up the steps.

The deputy shouted: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Big Al answered quietly. "This is my Granddad 's farm. I am Albert Mowrer. My Granddad was Henry Mowrer. We belong here."

By now the deputy was on the front porch. "Let's see your driver's license."

Big Al produced the license.

The deputy took it and looked at it carefully, then gave it back.

The deputy looked up as Ephraim came out the door.

"Ephraim! Is that You!"

"Dennis, you son of a gun! What are you doing here?"

"Ephraim, do you know these people? What do they have to do with you?"

"Well, now, this is Henry's grandson. I knowed Al when he was just a little tyke. They just come in here this morning."

"If Ephraim says you're OK, I'll take his word. You must be who you say you are. We can't be too careful out here in the wilds. You wouldn't believe some of the characters who come here trying to hide out."

Big Al shook hands with Dennis Frye, the deputy, and then introduced everyone to him. Lastly Ephraim gave Dennis a big hug and a warm handshake.

"We try to patrol this whole area," Dennis said. "We got a report of strangers coming in over the mountain. I had to check it out. I got to be going now. If you ever need me, you know where to find me." And with that he drove off.

"Dennis is OK," said Ephraim. "His granddad was my cousin. He is fair and square."