“Well now, byes, you really want three threshing floors?” Charles Mauger asked, pronouncing it “thrashing,” as did everyone here.
James looked askance at his son. “No no, two is all we need. Two mows, one at each end, loft in the middle, two threshing floors in between, is fine.”
“Poppa,” Jim said, “that’s not what I had in mind...”
James could see from his son’s remark Jim had been holding himself in and might blow up at any minute. Well, better get the design of the barn right.
On the one hand, he had a grudging admiration for the boy: his ideas were so grand. I mean, why the biggest barn on the Gaspé? They did need a larger one, and the present heap was not worthy of the “Old Homestead.” But would it not be too large to finish? “You’ll never get it done.”
“We will, Poppa, never you mind, now.”
James could see Charles eyeing the both of them.
Jim went on quickly, “And each threshing floor long enough to take a team of oxen, with hay cart behind.”
Well, James thought, yes, you should be able to drive right in, and pitch the hay off the load into the mow. Good idea, in fact. He’d not thought of that.
“Well sir, we make her two dozen feet,” said Charles. The Maugers came from Jersey so they spoke both English and French. Charles had settled in Shegouac where everyone was English, but his was still not perfect.
“And alongside of the three threshing floors, we want three hay mows, sure, but at the end nearest the house, we want a loft only, you see Poppa, and under that, we’ll put a woodshed for Momma to open this side nearest the house.”
“What rubbish is that now?” James asked tartly. “What’s wrong with the back kitchen. We always used that. Your momma —”
“My momma hates not having enough space to take off our outer clothes in winter when we stack all that dry wood in there. She’s asked me over and over!” A vein or two bulged on his son’s neck.
“All right, all right, I agree. But the barn is just getting too, too big!”
“She gonna be one real big barn,” Charles agreed and shook his head.
“No point in building it if it’s not big enough,” Jim almost shouted. “Why go to all the trouble? I’m the one in charge.” He stopped himself. “Well, I mean you will be, Charles, but I’m cutting all the wood next winter.” He turned to his father. “I’ve got Joey to help, and we can get more, if there’s any money after buying that churn...” he ended, rather scathingly.
“Money, we’ve got money,” James snapped. “But what about the wood? You’ll never cut enough beams in one winter.”
“So I’ll do it over two winters.”
“Gonna take a pile of lumber,” Charles threw in cautiously. James could see he didn’t want to offend either of them, but was cautious as any carpenter should be.
“Poppa,” Jim blurted, “didn’t me and Joe cut all those beams for the new school foundations? We only had a couple of fellas from up Saint Godfrey helping, fine workers, okay, but I know what cutting wood is.”
“This will be ten times that schoolhouse,” James roared in spite of himself, and then looked down, feeling somewhat sheepish.
Charles nodded. “For sure, oh yes yes yes. Lots of good strong beams. Maybe even eighteen inches square.”
“Well, there are still three stands of good cedar back by the Second,” Jim argued. “No trouble to float them down, if that brook floods again like this year.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Jim shrugged.
James noticed his son was almost beginning to give up. “Well, far as getting help goes,” he admitted, “we do have something put away. Probably do more good in others’ pockets. If ya can get them fellas down Gascons way, they’re real good lumberjacks. Maybe we could find some extra pound notes.”
“Or dollars, they’re comin’ in now,” Charles added. “Canadian dollars. Like in America.”
Jim turned to Charles. “My question is, Mr. Major, how long you want those beams, and how many?”
Charles grinned and sat down. He picked up a board, and started to jot figures with his keel, the black chalk used by lumberjacks to mark logs. Jim and his father waited patiently.
Charles looked up. “You know, much better to work with a pattern. You take thirty feet deep for the threshing floor, so the whole barn, that make her thirty foot wide.”
Jim nodded, thinking. “Go on.”
“Well by jeez, fifteen feet wide each threshing floor. Them mows, thirty feet, she make,” he paused, scribbled, “one hundred five feet long overall, by thirty feet wide. Longest barn around, for sure.”
“So, how many beams?” Jim asked.
“She’s comin, she’s comin. Sure and a big pile of thirty-one-foot beams, and another pile of beams maybe not so wide, as rafters for the roof.... I figure out more tonight, and tomorrow at church I give you measurements.” Although the Maugers were French, they were also Protestant.
James shook his head. His son had won. He’d gotten his big barn. Would he finish it? Would he himself live to see it finished?
* * *
“Well my dear, the poor woman didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant. Now how do you hide that, I’d like to know?” snapped Eleanor Garrett.
Catherine shook her head. “Terrible thing, for sure.” She was spinning while her mother rocked and knitted, having the afternoon gossips she loved.
“So all right then, hide the fact you’re pregnant, perhaps give the baby away, but don’t for heaven’s sake throw the little mite to the pigs!” Eleanor stopped her needles clacking. “That killed it, you know Catherine.”
Catherine did know. The story had gone up and down the Coast in a flash, like all bad news. Her mother began knitting furiously again. Catherine now found it hard to concentrate: she was feeding the raw wool she had carded, twisting it between her fingers while turning the spinning wheel with one foot.
“Who’s ever heard of such a thing? Imagine! Where was the Good Lord?” Eleanor shook her head. “Little newborn, torn apart by pigs.”
“Mother, I’m as shocked as you are, so let’s not discuss it.” One thing she had kept to herself: it was rumoured Widow Carlson had conceived the child from her own father — another reason why, perhaps, the little dear was better off in heaven.
“I don’t blame you, my dear. I don’t blame you one bit. I mean, every time I think of that little baby, did the mother offer up a prayer as she threw it into the pig pen, I wonder?”
“Mother! Don’t think about it!” Catherine was sick at the thought.
“No, I shall put it right out of my mind. All they found, you know, was part of the head, and a little arm...”
“Mother! Isn’t it time for your nap?”
“Yes dear, I believe it is.” Her mother put her knitting down in her lap and turned to Catherine. “You know, dear, you’re looking tired.”
Mothers — why do they have such perceptive eyes? “I am, mother. Very tired these days. I don’t know what’s coming over me.”
“I know what’s coming over you, Catherine. It’s old age. You’re nearly seventy. And you’re looking after a houseful. You know my dear,” she paused, and took a breath, “I’ve done a lot of knitting in my time. I hate to say it, but sometimes, enough is enough. Perhaps we should both of us slow down?”
“How do you mean, Mother?”
Eleanor paused, then looking straight ahead pronounced loudly, “We should sell the sheep.”
Catherine glanced up. Her mother herself seemed shocked at her own words. “There, I’ve said it. You, you’ve made enough blankets. And the carding, I watched you yesterday. You’re plain worn out.”
Catherine nodded. “I was, Mother, I confess. I don’t know what to do.”
“Sell the sheep, that’s what. Tell James. If you don’t, I will.”
“Well, let me think about it. It could be time. We do need the money for Jim’s new barn.”
Breathless, Martha rushed in with a basket of eggs. “Look, Ol’ Momma, look what I brought yez. I almost got me a dozen.” She set them down. “One, two, four, five —”
“Now dear, what comes after two?” Her daughter Ann who lived up by Travers Lane was sending Martha over to help every afternoon. Nice gesture, though she was only seven.
“Two? Three!”
Catherine nodded. “Go on.”
“Three, four, five, six, seven...” she paused, “Ten?”
“No dear, you remembered yesterday. Aren’t you learning your numbers in school?”
“Yes, but we got no school in summer. I can’t remember numbers, but I like spelling. C-A-T, D-O-G, listen, M-O-T-H-E-R.”
Eleanor rose. “Well, I think I’ll go upstairs. Now you look after your grandmother, Martha, like a good little girl.” She walked to the corner staircase and before making her regal way up, she paused. “Well, one good thing — that dreadful war in the Crimea has ended. What a saint that Nightingale woman must be!”
“Yes, Mother, Reverend Milne had us say prayers for her last Sunday. Now go on up for your nap. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
Eleanor smiled, and disappeared, happy no doubt they would have another subject for their daily gossip tomorrow.
“I’m ready to wind this skein, Martha. You remember how we do that?”
“Oh yes, oh yes.” Martha came forward and held out her two hands, just wide enough for Catherine to wind onto them the new ball of wool she had spun. But even this, for some reason, was wearing her out. And she still had the washing.
As they passed through the summer kitchen, Catherine paused at her wonderful new iron stove — the gleaming black box on which she now cooked their meals. So much easier than the open fire, for sure, but it had taken getting used to. She hoped they’d include a woodshed in the new barn. With some more barking to keep the place warm, this summer kitchen could serve as a winter kitchen too. Another room. What a joy!
Once outside, Catherine realized how pleased she was at the return of the sun. Martha handed up the clean, damp clothes from the basket and Catherine began to pin them on the line, when she had to sit. “I think...” she said to Martha, “I’ll just rest awhile. Take that tub, put it upside-down, and you can stand on it and hang up the rest of the clothes all by yourself.”
“Oh goody,” cried Martha and did just as she was told.
The three men came round the end of the old barn, so higgledy-piggledy with its outhouses and attachments, a shelter built on for the sheep, somewhere else for the extra hay, and a chicken lean-to.
James came forward. “You all right, Catherine?”
“Quite all right, James, thank you,” she said cheerily. “I’m just taking a little sit down.” Then she sat up tall. “You know, James, my mother is getting too old to do much more knitting.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” he replied, thinking she must be in her nineties, though no one took much notice of birthdays hereabouts. Birth dates were marked in the family Bible, and then forgotten.
“So perhaps,” Catherine went on, “we could do with fewer sheep...”
“Get rid of them? Good idea, Momma!” Jim glanced at his father. “Those blasted sheep, always gettin’ through any fence a man could build. We’ve got all the scarves and mittens we’ll ever need, and so have the grandchildren.”
“And enough blankets, James,” Catherine added.
“Come on, Poppa? Whaddya think?”
James frowned. Catherine knew sheep had been a part of his life for years. James nodded slightly. “Let’s sleep on it.”
He would end up agreeing, of course. The end of an era, in a way. If only another one would begin with Jim getting a wife.