The Heifer

by PATRICK MORGAN

EDWARD and Martia sat with me in front; Lex and ‘Toria, who had brought her windmill, sat behind, with the basket and the tools. “Where’re we going, Daddy?”

“To get plants in the woods,” I said over my shoulder.

“Jeepers, can’t we go to the dock?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we are going to the woods, — where you can earn some money.”

“How?” Lex felt better about the woods.

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Ouch, ‘Toria. Be careful with that windmill.”

“Sorry, Lex.”

Edward and Martia were discussing the lunch party we had just left. It was Edward’s first trip to Canada, and his impressions were heightened. He characterized the guests in slowly chosen phrases, using words with care, as a craftsman. These were, after all, his tools of trade, for he was a poet. His conversation was perplexing to the children, who caught neither his references nor his humor. They had asked especially if they might sit alone in the back seat.

The countryside was good to see and, since I had Edward’s bad ear, I felt no need to converse. I drove along the shore road, then turned up toward the mountains. The road was dusty and full of bumps. As we climbed we could see the farm lands stretching over the hillsides, up and up to the forest. We turned sharp left and passed a few houses. Some children waved to us. They had on shoes because it was Sunday. Then, as we approached the forest, the road petered out. It became tracks made by lumber trucks, and the ruts were worn deep.

Inside the forest, the afternoon seemed dark. I parked the car in a little clearing, and we piled out.

“How will you turn, Daddy?”

“We’ll see later. I can always back out.”

“How silent and stately,” said Edward, looking at the huge trees. “That one has the formidable silhouette of the lady who sat to my left at lunch. The one with the large hat. But she was scarcely silent.”

“Edward, will you take my windmill?” ‘Toria was a great one for pressing people into service. It was her way of including them in her orbit. “I might lose it,” she said. “Here.”

Edward took it unthinkingly. Suddenly he seemed conscious that he was a man holding a child’s toy. “I do not feel it is entirely appropriate,” he said looking at the thing, “for me to have this responsibility. Shall I leave it in the car, ‘Toria?” He started to put his plan into effect while ‘Toria was still considering its merits. She saw she was not really going to be consulted in the matter and her face set itself in a pout.

Martia, conscious of the error in timing, came to the rescue. “Let’s leave the windmill, ‘Toria, because now we are going to walk. Why don’t you ask Daddy about earning money?”

“Yes, tell us about the money, Daddy,” said Lex.

“All right. ‘Toria, you listen too. If you and Lexy can find me a white lady’s-slipper, — and it’s not easy, — I’ll give you a dime.”

“You will? Let’s go! C’m on, ‘Toria.”

“What’s a dime? Is that a silver?”

“Yes, it’s a silver. It’s ten pennies. It’s two cokes. Daddy, what do lady — what do they look like?”

“Take the basket and I’ll show you when we get to the place.”

We walked along a lumber road, then turned onto another. I found a wild clematis vine and Edward wanted to know its “identifying characteristics.” I showed him how the leaf stems curled around and clung to twigs; and the last half-faded china-blue blossom. The forest floor was a mass of pyrola, and smelled deeply of pine and spruce.

Martia and the children had found a lady’sslipper. And another, and another. But they were all pink ones (“Jeepers,” said Lexy). Then as we walked on and the spruce gave way to the pin gris, suddenly lady’s-slippers were everywhere.

“Now, Lex,” I said, “just find a white one. The best way is to look for pale pink ones. Then if you’re lucky you’ll find a white one somewhere near.”

The woods were open, so we turned off the lumber road and began to look here and there. The children crashed happily and excitedly through the forest. Martia was the first to find a white one, and we gathered where she was, to see it. The slipper was as white as buckskin and the sepals were translucent yellow green. It had strangeness rather than purity in its white, and it made the pink ones seem as overcolored as a bad painting. ‘Toria wanted to smell it. She nearly broke it in her effort. Lexy examined it critically and found the hole where the bumblebees crawl out after they have bumbled around inside the slipper getting nectar. Suddenly we were aware that Edward was not with us. “I saw him walk on when we turned off,” said Lex. “He always seems to do things like that.”

“He’s funny,” said ‘Toria.

“I hope he doesn’t get lost,” Martia said.

’Toria was in her dreamworld, squatting before the white lady’s-slipper. “C’m on, ‘Toria, we can find one,” said Lexy. “Hurry,” and they were off.

They did find one. It was a noisy discovery too. They entreated us to rush to the scene as though it might dissolve. In all, they found eight, with their mother’s help, and each time it was as exciting. The whiteness had a quality that made each discovery a true discovery. It was eerie and a little frightening in the dappled woods, exciting to a child regardless of the silver reward. It was always startling to see another.

I dug up three while the children picked a bunch of pink ones for their grandmother. I took as much earth as I could with each, but the sandy soil below the leaf mold fell away from their fleshy roots, so I wrapped each one in moss. Martia, apprehensive, went off to look for Edward.

Then Lex and ‘Toria got a good scare. As they wandered picking the pink ones, they suddenly flushed a partridge. It flew up with a great whirring noise right close to them. I heard it from where I was gathering moss, and called to them. They came to me rather out of breath, squeezing their bouquets in a strangle hold. We packed the plants in the basket and went back to the lumber road. ’Toria stayed very close to me. We could hear Martia calling Edward.

“Mummy’s calling him and he’s deaf. Why is he deaf, Daddy?”

“He got hurt in the war.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Daddy,” said ‘Toria, “do partridges make you deaf sometimes?”

“No, silly. Guns and bombs do.” Lexy had regained his courage. Besides, the car was in sight.

We packed the shovel and the basket in the car. Martia had taken the trowel. We put the basket on the back seat where Lex could hold it, so that the white lady’s-slippers would not get broken.

“Do you think Mummy will find Edward?” asked Lex.

“Of course,” I said, but I began to wonder how long it might take.

2

EVENTUALLY Martia and Edward returned. They had met by chance; he was thoroughly lost.

“Why, I had no idea how confusing a forest can be!” Edward said. “It is much more so than the New York subways.” Lexy giggled because he liked subways, and also maybe because it was nice that Edward wasn’t lost where partridges might blow up in front of you without warning. “Still,” he added, “I truly enjoyed my solitude.”

I thought I could turn the car. Everyone, even ‘Toria, helped with advice. In the end I had to back out to the open fields and turn there.

In a way, it was good to leave the woods. The open was reassuring and familiar. As we passed the little houses, the same children waved to us, and as we turned downhill, the light on the farm land was magnificent. It was late and the shadows accentuated the slopes.

“What did you think of when you were lost, Edward?” asked Lexy. “Of subways?” he added hopefully.

“I’m afraid I didn’t, Lex. I thought of my solitude and of how I might phrase its pleasurable aimlessness.”

“Didn’t you think of subways too?” I asked, detecting a disappointment in Lexy. Why couldn’t Edward give an inch? No wonder he failed with children.

The road cascaded down between fields and pastures. Ahead of us, a small boy urged a herd of cows on its way to keep a milking appointment. I was in second gear, for the road was steep, but as we came to the herd I put on the brakes and passed each cow with caution. They are unpredictable beasts, and a motorist must pay for damage done a cow on the road. I passed them all but one. This remaining one, a young heifer, now isolated from the herd, looked at our car in sudden fear, and skittishly jumped the fence.

Where it was level, I parked the car by the roadside and went back to help the herdboy. The older cows were ambling down the road alone; he was already in pursuit of his heifer. I crossed the fence into the pasture.

We drove her back toward the fence. But suddenly she turned and raced past me, down the narrow pasture. On the hillside she struck a bog, and her legs went floundering. It gave me time to get below her, and when she freed herself I drove her up to the crest of the hill again. Martia and Lex were now in the chase too. Edward and ’Toria were climbing the fence to join us.

The heifer could not get by Martia, Lex, and the boy above, nor could she come past me unless she again braved the bog. But she saw ‘Toria and Edward by the roadside fence; so, turning, she charged straight across the pasture and jumped into a further field.

It was disheartening. Doubly so when we approached and saw that she had now joined a neighbor’s herd of cows grazing in the company of a bull.

The bull was dark red, huge, and wore a wooden shutter over his eyes. This was the local emblem of viciousness in bulls. The shutter was loosely hitched to his horns so that when he tossed his head he could see under it before it fell back and blocked his vision.

The arrival of a heifer into his territory, he accepted as a windfall. He immediately deserted his harem in excited pursuit, tossing his head to catch an occasional glimpse of her. The heifer in virginal terror ran about the field, the ardent bull close after her. I waited by the fence to caution ‘Toria and catch my breath as I stared at this oddly reminiscent sight. It was Daphne and Apollo, acted by a Rosa Bonheur cast, with sound-effects and animation all in technicolor; a parody of Hollywood.

“On no account cross over,”I said to ’Toria, “and stay right with Edward.” Then I jumped into the pasture of the preoccupied bull, leaving them on the safe side, watching. The boy crossed over too, but the situation was clearly beyond control. The bull, bellowing, made a dismal racket. The heifer, wild-eyed, was losing ground. Then, spurred by panic, she raced once more toward the fence and jumped back into the comparative safety of the field from which she had come.

The bull in hot, blind pursuit crashed through the fence, splintering the rails. Around and around he continued his chase of that frightened heifer, but this time in the pasture where the children were.

Martia and Lex, like myself, were now left above the scene of action; Edward and ‘Toria, below and closer. I hoped Edward would put ‘Toria across the fence. I was too far to make him hear, what with the bull’s bellowing and the hoofbeats.

The herdboy was closest, and with a fence rail, broken by the bull, he smote the beast’s flank. The bull wheeled back toward the fence, the heifer fled on alone uphill. As he neared the fence, the bull veered downhill and charged along it blindly, down on ‘Toria and Edward.

Martia and I stood helpless, too far away even to see exactly what happened. The figures were all blurred together for a moment, and in the next the bull had again splintered the fence and crashed through to his own pasture. Tossing his head, he retreated toward his ruminating wives.

Meanwhile Lexy chased the tired heifer to the roadside. With what spirit she had left she jumped the fence to rejoin her own herd, now well down the road.

’Toria and Edward were apparently all right, for they began to walk back toward the car, hand in hand. Lexy ran down the road to join them. Martia and I stood silent and bewildered.

“What happened?” she said.

“Apparently nothing — I wonder why.”

“’Toria isn’t hurt, but she must be frightened.”

“It doesn’t seem so,” I said. Edward and ‘Toria had joined Lexy at the car. Both children were talking at once, giggling, screaming, laughing. We walked down field toward them. The herdboy waved from down the road. Except for the broken fence rails, there was no evidence of drama in the late afternoon serenity.

As we neared them, Lexy was saying, “Did you hit him on the wood-thing? Was it a big stone?”

“It seemed definitely small as I threw it, Lexy. But I was thankful to have found even that one, since your sister and I were rather pressed for time.” He had his arm around ‘Toria and she was watching him talk.

“Jeepers, it’s lucky you hit him.”

“It was a miracle, really, for my markmanship is notoriously poor. At least, the Army found it so. But at close range my chances were greater, even with a small stone.”

“It was big, big, big,” chanted ‘Toria. “And I saw him real close, Lexy.”

“Did you touch him?”

“Yes, and he smelled funny.”

“Well, I got the cow. Mummy an’ Daddy didn’t do anything. I got the cow and you got the bull.”

“We got the bull and you got the cow,” said ‘Toria. “Edward, will you sit in back with us going home?”

“Yes, Edward. Come on. Pile in quick. Here’s Mummy an’ Daddy.”

They all three piled into the back seat — quick.