Hugh McHatten stopped the tractor just short of the barn doors and swung around in the seat to look back over the field that he'd just dressed. He jist loved this job. Yes-sir, there was something about spreading manure that made him feel good. Some people would say that this was a nasty, smelly job but Hughy didn't care. There was something about loadin the spreader right to the top and then driving back and forth across the empty fields and seein the manure flying out the back onto the ground. He jist loved it! After all, it didn't cost him nothin; it was poor man's fertilizer.
Hughy had been born on this farm in Aroostook County, Maine and was the youngest of three sons. He was the one who really loved this land and he was the one who'd stayed home to help his parents as they got older. Finally, when his father was unable to farm any longer, Hughy was the one to take over. Farmin was hard, thankless never-ending work and it would discourage the hardiest of men but Hughy never got tired of it.
When the first touch of winter came howlin up the State Road and the county was covered with three feet of snow, most folks put their feet up and slid their arm chairs a little closer to the wood stove. Hughy would take this lull in stride and he'd begin reviewin his plans for crop rotations for the comin spring.
He'd pour over the new seed catalogues and farmin bulletins from the Aroostook County Farmer's Co-op to learn what new farmin techniques might have been introduced during the past year. Maine Seed Potato Growers had sent him a news bulletin about a new potato cultivar that was supposed to be the answer to a farmer's prayers. The Aroostook County Co-op had been experimentin with this potato seed for the past five years at the co-op farm in Presque Isle and they'd had very good results so far.
This hardy potato seed was supposed to be blight free, resistant to all the ordinary potato pests and best of all it was supposed to be able to withstand the short, cold growin season of the county. If this was true, that meant that a farmer could begin plantin a lot earlier in the spring instead of havin to wait around until the ground warmed up. Hughy made a mental note to call around to some of his neighbors and ask if any of them were plannin on buyin and plantin some of this amazin seed.
Hughy made the most of this time-off in the winter. He'd head for the barn right after breakfast and spend his days doin all the little jobs that he'd had to neglect during the busy farmin days of spring and summer. He'd tear apart whatever machine had broken down, repair and grease it and get it ready for the comin spring. A farmer's life in the county is ruled by the capricious seasons. Spring is the time when he puts all his thoughts and energy into preparin his land for plantin. Summer is the season that claims him body and soul because once the crops have begun to grow; he is their slave until they are harvested in the fall. And winter really doesn't leave him alone either because it's then that he must make his plans for the comin spring.
Every farmer has a favorite piece of farmin equipment that he loves for many reasons. Maybe it's because this piece of machinery is easy to use or maybe it's simply that it makes his life easier. For Hughy, the thing that he loved most was his John Deere manure spreader and that was because of the family history attached to it. The spreader had belonged to his grandfather, his father and now it had been passed on to him. There was somethin about that long, green smelly machine that he'd loved since he was a small boy.
The McHatten's had been farmers for generations and it was a well-known fact that they always took good care of their farmin equipment. His grandfather and father before him had taught him by example. "If you take care of your equipment, your equipment will take care of you," was their motto. When most farmers parked their tractors for the weekend and never touched them again until the following Monday, the McHatten's were different. They'd rise bright and early just like any other work day and spend the weekend repairin and cleanin their machinery for the coming week.
Hughy knew his machinery inside and out and there wasn't too much that he couldn't fix himself. Once in a while, the old conveyor bar on the manure spreader would jam and he'd have a hellava time gettin it workin again. Sometimes one of the blades would break and he'd have to call over to Aroostook Farm Machinery to get replacement parts. Because his spreader was so old, the salesman, upon hearin who was on the line, would put him on hold, hopin like hell that he'd jist hang up and call someone else to try to get the replacement parts for his friggin antique machine.
When he was done spreadin manure for the season, he'd wash the spreader carefully and oil all the movin parts. Then he'd walk all around the wondrous machine and check it over very thoroughly. If any of the paint seemed to be flakin off the sixty year-old machine, Hughy would sand down the area and then repaint the spreader so that it looked jist like new.
Hughy took a lot of ribbing from his neighbors about this old spreader. Sometimes, when he was dressing his fields near the State Road, cars would pull over to the side of the road and people would get out to have a closer look at the antique machine. Hughy would casually drive over and stop so that they could have a better look. He'd proudly and patiently answer all their questions about the spreader and he was never too busy to talk to them or have his picture taken with it either.
Every once in a while, he'd drive over to Presque Isle and stop in at Aroostook Farm Machinery and checkout the newest models. He'd walk around and even lay down on the ground to have a better look at the under carriage of the spreader. "Can't even come close to the one I've got," he'd say aloud to the hoverin salesmen. "Betcha this one won't last sixty years." He'd lift the price tag and glance casually at the amount that was printed there and with a snort, drop the tag as though it had burned his hand. "Fifteen thousand dollars!" The price would burn a hole in his mind. His spreader had cost only ah hundred dollars when his grandfather had bought it back at the turn of the century and it had paid for itself many times over. "A feller would be a hellava long time payin for a new one," he'd think to himself as he took the road for home.
The years went by and then came a day that Hughy would remember forever. It had been a hot, dry summer, the summer of sixty-seven and it had nearly been the end of his farmin career. Nothin seemed to go right that year and he should have had an inklin when in the spring the friggin snow hung around forever. He'd rushed but it was the second week in June before he'd finally gotten everything in the ground. Then, everything flew to hell! It seemed as though Mother Nature was all ass-backwards that year.
First, there was no rain for weeks and then it rained for weeks, then it turned hot, and then hot and dry. Then, when the potatoes finally started blossomin, he noticed that the seed that he'd planted wasn't the seed that he'd wanted. When he went out to spray one mornin, he noticed that some parts of the field had blight while other parts of the field were full of potato beetles. Another part of the field was full of wild mustard and in another part, the potato tops were all burned as though there had been a frost. He didn't know what to do first, spray, dust, pull the mustard or blow the whole friggin field to hell. So he did everything, he sprayed, he dusted and then he cultivated. He wouldn't have minded so much if the potato seed had been his favorite Green Mountains, but they'd sold him the wrong seed and he hated those jeezely Russets!
Fall arrived and the harvestin was finally done and he thought to himself that it was lucky he'd survived. It was his habit at the end of harvest to go out and dress the fields with fresh manure in the fall to get a little head start on spring. He hitched up his old Farmall tractor and backed it into the barn. He set the tractor on idle and hopped off to hookup the manure spreader. Then, he drove the machinery out behind the barn and spent the morning and afternoon loading the spreader and spreadin it on the fields.
Sometimes, the wind would shift direction and a strong gust would carry the manure in the opposite direction and small clumps would pelt him on the back of the head and all down his back. He'd shrug the stuff off and think to himself that it could be a whole lot worse. “Ah man gets pelted with one kind of crap or another all his natural life. If a man has to be covered with shit,” he thought to himself, "At least, this is the good kind."
Jist as he was about to spread his last load of the day, he noticed that his mother had stepped out onto her front porch and was waving for him to come over. Since the spreader was still nearly full and he would have to complete the job in the morning anyway, he stopped the tractor where it was right next to the road and left it there for the night.
At around seven-thirty that night, jist before he hit the hay, Hughy went out onto the front porch to have a last look around. He could barely make out the outlines of the tractor and spreader in the field down the road from his house and he felt a little guilty about leaving his precious equipment unprotected out there in the elements.
The next morning, he was up at the "crack of the crack" as they say in the county and he ate a quick breakfast and headed for the field. He looked up at the sky, checked the weather, looked to see if the moose had pulled down the fence again and checked to see if all the cows were there. He did everything but look in the direction of his farmin equipment.
When Hughy was about twenty feet away, his eyes saw, but his mind didn't register, the fact that his tractor had been moved and his manure spreader was gone! He couldn't believe it! He walked over to the place where he'd left it and looked down at the grass. Yes sir, he could make out the marks of a vehicle that had driven down into his field, hitched on his spreader and driven away with it! He was outraged! He wanted to find the rotten son-of-ah-bitch who'd stolen his spreader and wring his neck with his manure-stained hands!
Hughy left his tractor where it was and headed for the house as fast as his old legs could carry him. He grabbed the phone out of his wife's hands and called everyone he could think of in the county to be on the lookout for his spreader. Then he called the Maine State Police barracks in Houlton. When he told the dispatcher that he wanted to report a stolen manure spreader, the dispatcher laughed like hell until Hughy threatened to come down there and "pound the piss outta him." Hughy really got hot when the friggin dispatcher asked him if he thought they should put an "all points bulletin" out on his spreader. Hughy thought for a minute and said, “Go right ahead and do that because that old John Deere spreader was an antique and it's probably worth more than you make in a year!” The dispatcher didn't seem to think that everything was quite so funny anymore.
Hughy tried everything he could think of to find his precious spreader but it was not to be found. Finally, pissed-off, angry and sad, he made a huge sign and took it out and drove it into the ground next to his property on the State Road. It read:
WILL THE SON-OF-Ah-WHORE WHO
STOLE MY MANURE SPREADER
PLEASE BRING IT BACK
"YOU CAN KEEP THE MANURE!"
Copyright (1st Rights) retained by the author, Martha Stevens-David 2002. She can be reached at lmdmsd@megalink.net.
