By The Pound
We Actonians drive our hybrids to Idylwilde and buy our blueberries by the pint in cellophane wrapped containers with prices carefully inked in the calligraphic font Vespasiano. Jeff and Karen pick their own at a local farm and truck home forty pounds of blueberries in a cardboard box.
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And I’ll bet the pies and buckle are amazing! ‘Tis the season, I guess. Such perfection with which to work! No wonder they tote home a ton …
Comment by adam — June 25, 2006 @ 8:09 am
This made me think of this section of my mother’s autobiographical novella. She wrote it in college for a writing course, I believe. And the blog has enjoyed her writing before. I’m not sure exactly how old “Jen” (my mother) is here, but the section is placed after an event from fall of 1938, so it might be early summer of 1938. Oh, and she grew up in southern Connecticut. (Enough paragraphs and punctuation for you, S. Dan?)
Excerpted from “Each Tucked String,” by Nancy Tomlinson Hall Rice
“Gonna be another scorcher.†Mrs. Bailey squinted expertly at the sun across the mowed fields of Kellogg’s Hill.
“Feels good now, though,†Jen said. She squidged her fat toes about in the cool, smooth dust of the country road. “I’m glad you pick early. I was up even before Mummy came down. Was she surprised.â€
“She knew you were going berrying, though,†said Mrs. Bailey.
“Oh, sure. She helped me rig up this Quaker Oats box last night. See, we made holes here, near the top.â€
“That sheeting is good,†said Mrs. Bailey. “Good and strong, but won’t cut into your neck the way string does.â€
“I know. Well, we copied that from you, because you ’member, you showed me last time about tying those two bandanas together.â€
“Well, fine,†said Mrs. Bailey. “That’ll hold a good deal, and if you fill it too quick I’ve got a paper bag you can have.â€
“It isn’t big,†said Jen, “but at least it isn’t tippy like that pan I used last week. That was scary. Isn’t this where we go in? Sure, because that’s where Mrs. Carter got bit by the bee. I remember the cherry tree.â€
“Lord yes,†said Mrs. Bailey, and she laughed out loud. “I’d about forgotten that, Jen. Lord, that was funny.â€
It was funny. Fifteen quarts of berries and two hundred pounds of Mrs. Carter flying in all directions down the lane. Jen laughed too.
“Boy, I wouldn’t run,†Jen said soberly. “Spill all those berries? Not me.â€
“What’d you do?†said Mrs. Bailey.
“I’d say, ‘Please Mr. Bee, go bite Mrs. Carter.’†They both giggled again. Jen wondered what had made her say that. But the meadow was warm and friendly, humming quietly in the morning sun. Stalks of late clover, daisies, St. John’s wort slapped wetly against Jen’s bare, brown legs and caught at the faded calico of Mrs. Bailey’s skirt. Here and there the aloof red-orange turk’s-cap lilies cupped themselves proudly above the grass. There were the early morning smells of damp earth and wet fern.
“Serve her right,†said Mrs. Bailey grimly. “Teach her to go blabbing all over town about who it was picked Gifford’s field.â€
Jen felt a certain sense of panic. She had been with Mrs. Bailey when they picked Gifford’s field.
“Was Mr. Gifford mad?†she said. “I thought it was all right.â€
“He wasn’t, but Mrs. was. Not that she’d pick it herself, mind. Time she was done gallivanting around the city, her precious berries’d have rotted on the bushes. Met her down town just last week, right after we picked there, remember? Dressed fit to kill, she was. Buying avocadoes. ‘Miz Bailey,’ she says—you know how she talks—‘Miz Bailey, ah understahnd blueberries ah late this yeah.’ Hunh, I should tell her different! No sir, what she don’t know won’t hurt her.â€
“Maybe we shouldn’t have,†Jen said timidly. “You know, picked Gifford’s. Maybe she would have, or maybe he would. He’s nice, don’t you think?â€
“Hmp,†said Mrs. Bailey. “Or maybe Mrs. Carter would, you mean. How else did she know the field was picked if she wasn’t there herself? There’s more than one full pail come out of that field this year, mark my words; though mind, I ain’t the sort to go naming no names.â€
They pushed on through the swishing clumped grass of the meadow. It was wetter here, Jen noticed. They were nearing the marshy place. Lacy green ferns tickled up between her toes, and the rosy lavender milkwort bunched daintily in their shade.
“Ought to be some pretty good bushes along about now,†said Mrs. Bailey.
“Ooooo, look,†said Jen, “see there.â€
“I’m no good without my glasses,†said Mrs. Bailey.
“Low set,†said Jen, “with big, blue ones. No, here,†said Jen, starting for it, “over here.†But when she came close, she stood staring helplessly, her arms dropped by her sides.
It was a dream bush—green rain-washed leaves; sleepy blue cloud berries, clustered thick and dew-sprinkled.
Mrs. Bailey slung her three-gallon bucket into position and started stripping.
“What’s eating you?†she said.
Jen grinned sheepishly, reached out and pulled them gently into her hand, watched the black shine through where the cloud rubbed off.
“Sometimes I can’t,†she said. “Sometimes it seems like killing a butterfly.â€
“You don’t and Mrs. Carter will,†said Mrs. Bailey tartly. “Do you know that woman’s already canned forty-two quarts. Course I put up forty-six myself, which ain’t bad, considering she’s got Mable to help her, and her majesty Miss Debbie don’t lift a finger to help me.â€
“Forty-six quarts,†Jen echoed. “Forty-six.†Reverently she let the berries roll along her hand, heard them drum the bottom of her box. They dropped heavily like fat raindrops against a dusty road.
How many times would one reach in forty-six quarts? Reach and let roll, reach and let roll. Soft and damp and round they were between her fingers. No, it was too much to think about. Mechanically she reached for more.
Silently now they picked, lost to one another and small angers, absorbed in the hum of the meadow. Together they moved quietly about the bush, separately then moved on.
Jen picked slowly, surely, methodically. Berry by berry, branch by branch, she moved, fingers pulling the soft, ripe, blue ones and leaving the small, hard, green ones and red. Her bushes, when she left them, had a lean and waiting look. Small wonder that Mrs. Gifford had thought the berries were late this year. She had not known to look first for the small telltale trampled path around each bush.
The dew was gone from the berries now. They were warm and smooth and thudded softly. Rolling the berries gently about in the box, Jen could remember from the layers of berries how each bush had been. The first was the loveliest, with frosted blue ones and dusty pink. When she rolled them all to one side like this she could see the little polka dots of wetness the berries had left against the box.
The tiny dusky blue ones were next. What a bush that had been! Huge and spreading and motherly, hundreds upon hundreds of berries, and all ripe at once. And then her favorites, those round bright black ones, shiny and staring like her old Betsy’s button eyes. How long, do you suppose, since she had thought of Betsy? Hmp! Only a few of those—they’d been too high to reach. And then—now she had forgotten those. Funny how long you could pick without knowing, and how branch by branch, bush by bush, they lured you on. It was good to pick, good to be in the meadow. The sun was warm and reassuring on her back. She hooked a horny stink bug out from among the berries and stopped to watch a thin green inchworm humping up her arm.
Suddenly, harump, Mrs. Bailey cleared her throat. Jen waited.
“Jennifer.â€
Jen settled her berries firmly about her neck, and, holding them with both her hands, made her way among the bushes toward the voice.
“Hi,†she said.
“’Bout set to go?†said Mrs. Bailey.
“Sure,†said Jen. “Anytime you say. Wasn’t the field nice this morning.â€
“Pretty good picking,†said Mrs. Bailey, and she glanced about her at the known bushes with their trampled grasses, the bare twigs twisted so the underside of leaves showed white. (Jen wondered, did her bushes look like that?)
“Boy,†said Mrs. Bailey. “What wouldn’t I give to see the look on Mrs. Carter’s big fat face when she gets a gander at this field tomorrow morning.â€
So! thought Jen to herself. That was why Mrs. Bailey had come by last night in such a hurry to pick today. The sillies! Well, she had been glad enough to go, and it was nice picking first in a field. Neater, somehow. Jen patted her Quaker Oats box affectionately and looked proudly down at the clean blueblackness of her berries. It had been a good morning.
“It was good picking,†she said.
“How’d you make out?†said Mrs. Bailey.
Jen was startled. The old question, but she was never ready for it, she never knew what to say.
“Pretty good, I guess,†she finally replied. But something more was expected of her, something she could not quite put her finger on. Mrs. Carter would have known. Mrs. Carter could pick as fast as Mrs. Bailey, or almost; so back in the days before the feud was on, when they had all three picked together, there had been some point.
“Quart and a half, maybe two,†she said, “and you?â€
“Oh,†said Mrs. Bailey, pursing her lips, “say ten twelve quarts, once I get it picked over.â€
Jen looked over at Mrs. Bailey’s bucket, dotted with bits of leaves, stems, whole clusters even. It shocked her, and she remembered now that it always did. Mrs. Carter’s berries were the same way always, too—green, red, purple—calicoed with the colors. She was proud they were not her berries. But one did not say that. What was it one said?
“How’d you make out?†Mrs. Bailey would say. (Here it was coming back to her; she was remembering the ritual.)
“Looks to me she done right well,†Mrs. Carter would answer. “Got a good quart there. Make a nice pie.â€
“Not with the kids her mother feeds. Not with that houseful,†Mrs. Bailey would say. “Wouldn’t take more than an hour to polish those off.â€
And she, Jen, would nod shyly. “Wheaties,†she would say. “A bunch of them come in from swimming and they eat them on Wheaties.â€
“Well!†Mrs. Carter would say, “you do right well, Jen, all the same. And don’t she pick clean!â€
“Eyah!†Mrs. Bailey would answer. “I never saw a youngun pick so clean.â€
And Jen had always squirmed her feet in the grass and said, pleased and wondering, “Do I?â€
And she remembered now her own part in the ritual. “Twelve quarts!†she should have said. “I never did see how you do it. I wish I could.†The words formed themselves in her mind, but she could not bring herself to say them. Last year, perhaps, she would. But now, since the feud, it was different somehow. Something was being asked of her that she could not answer. They had smashed the rituals, these older women. Loyalty had been smashed, modesty, and secrecy. Jen was baffled by the change. At first she had given in to it (“Please, Mr. Bee, go bite Mrs. Carterâ€); but she saw now that she herself and her ways were threatened; she wanted her distance from it.
“Are we going now?†she said; and they started back. The grass was dry now, the midmorning air hot and drowsy with the hum of bees, heavy with pungence of sweet fern and bayberry. Past the marsh they went, through turk’s-caps and clover, out over the stone wall. As they swung out onto the dirt road and down the hill for home, Jen almost thought she heard the click of the meadow closing behind her. Well, it had been a good morning. Her cardboard oatmeal box was heavy with berries; it felt comforting around her neck. The meadow droned contentedly behind her in the sunlight.
And then it happened. The wet, weakened bottom of her box gave way. With a sudden swish like a spring rain her berries tumbled wildly down, pummeling her knees, bouncing between her toes, gaily trickling in a merry stream straight down the hill.
Helplessly, like a six-year-old who has wet her pants, Jen watched the dusty pool of berries widening at her feet.
“Oh my Gawd!†said Mrs. Bailey.
Jen stooped and deftly picked out a handful of clean ones still on top.
“The rest are pretty dirty,†she said, and decided to let them stay.
“If it had been in the grass,†said Mrs. Bailey, “we could have saved them, but not here.â€
“No, I know,†she said.
“I have to be getting home to the kids,†said Mrs. Bailey, “or we could go back.â€
“Oh, no,†said Jen. “It doesn’t really matter, you know. They use bananas, peaches, anything. They just like berries when they’re there.â€
“Well,†said Mrs. Bailey, “here, I’ve plenty, why don’t we just put some in this paper bag.â€
“No,†said Jen, and she meant it. “No, really no. That’s silly.â€
“Here,†said Mrs. Bailey, scooping in handful after handful, and then shaking them down. “Now don’t say no, I want to do it. There,†she said. “That ought to fix it,†and she handed Jen the bag, and Jen took it.
“That’s awfully nice of you,†she said politely, “but you shouldn’t.†And holding the bag gingerly, a little in front of her, and out a little from her body, she walked on.
Comment by la Madre — June 25, 2006 @ 8:32 am
Karen and Jeff’s 40 pounds look far more like I’ve always imagined Jen’s Quaker-Oats-box-full (pre-spill) than like Mrs. Bailey’s 12 quarts. Thanks for the photos, Mike.
Comment by la Madre — June 25, 2006 @ 8:35 am
A fine follow-up La Madre. I read it aloud to my mother and we both loved it. Far too many wonderful lines to highlight them all, but “…watched the black shine through where the cloud rubbed off” really got me. Would you email me more?
Only one thing we couldn’t figure out. What the Quaker Oats box contraption looked like.
Comment by michael — June 25, 2006 @ 10:16 am
My mental picture shows the cylindrical cereal box hung around the neck with a strip of cloth, freeing both hands for picking.
Comment by FierceBaby — June 25, 2006 @ 11:26 am
That’s exactly right, FB. Mike, could you be not old enough to remember Quaker Oats when it came in a cylindrical cardboard box? (Like how cornmeal is often packaged, but in a bigger box. It held about a gallon, I think.)
Comment by la Madre — June 26, 2006 @ 7:07 pm