Lake-stones

The story of a lone woman farmer and her work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lakestones

by Hans Lillegard

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Lisa Wagner walked out the door of a ramshackle farmhouse and gazed through a screen of trees to the lake below the farmhouse, a lake carved by once glaciers that had thrown rock onto its banks and across the fields. She crossed the yard to a corrugated aluminum tractor shed. It was the day of the year she dreaded most as she climbed up the old International Harvester, a tractor with a bucket in front that she used for odd jobs, and out of the peace of the shed, keyed on the engine creating a rattling and then an enormous roar. Today was the day she inspected the farm for lake stones since she had finished breaking the heavy earth with a disking rig. She thought about hiring one of the local farm boys to help with the heavy rocks, and her thoughts turned to men. Why didn’t she have a husband like most folks around her? She had dated while studying agronomy at the university, but had returned to a life occupied by her alone. She kicked the tractor into reverse, feeling an odd coexistence with the world around her, and raised the scoop a little backing the loud machine around and heading for the field. Why did she feel at peace with the universe? Why did she feel whole?

The tractor rumbled with a declaration that drowned out the questions. She glanced through the shallow screen of trees that revealed the lake below the steep banks that surrounded the waters. She felt anticipation toward the day’s work, a challenge that might swallow her up whole and grind her to pebbles.  She started down the ominous tractor track to the edge of the first field.

The tractor pushed into the soft and newly disked and fertile black earth until she reached the first rock she had uncovered. She lowered the scoop to join the level of the rock, a stone a foot in length and not much wider than her hand span. She made a simple plan, reminding herself that simple wasn’t necessarily easy and climbed down from the tractor. She thought again about her marital situation and wondered at her sanity as she dug her hands beneath the rounded stone, dyed the color of the earth, and pulling at the single heavy stone which seemed to weigh more than its size, heaved it with a wild joy into the scoop, a reason for lone pride. Why didn’t she feel lonely? She wondered, working and worrying at the thought for a moment. On the other hand, why did she feel satisfied?

Lisa moved on to the next soil black rock, and then to the next dirt-appearing rocks after that, all the time bending her wiry frame and throwing the weighty stones into the scoop of the tractor, counting coup on them. Her arms tensed and the work gained with muscle and weight as she moved to the next. The scoop slowly filled, seeming to take longer to lower and marry to the ground until time seemed to stop in an eternal battle between her self and the ancient ground-smooth rock. She finished the first quarter day having cleared half the first field. She sat in victory on the tractor letting the heavy vibration of the machine loosen the cords in her arms, back, and legs.

She thought again in that moment of a man to do the work, mentally collapsing at the thought of someone else to do the work. Why didn’t she stay at home with a family while other hands did the work?  She felt a keening need to bring a child into the world, a thought that arose rarely and was defeated by her independence. The feeling overwhelmed the internal debate as to whether she was lonely. She reached behind herself and opening a large toolbox welded to the tractor, pulled out a paper bag which opened to plastic baggies that opened to lunch, the appearance of roast beef sandwiches confirming the work and promising energy. The work had dug a gnawing pit in her stomach, and she ate the to two sandwiches she knew she would need and an apple before reaching back into the box again and pulling out a thermos of coffee that would add to the energy the food had created. It took half an hour to drink the coffee. Then she threw the tractor into gear and raising the scoop, let out the clutch so that the big machine ambled giant-like toward the next rock. She used a pry bar on it, the long metal staff heavy with iron that she used to lever a rock too big to lift into the tractor scoop.

            The distance between the stones increased as she worked further into the field, although their weight seemed to match that. The day continued on, the tractor a giant sloth that for a few moments would ease her aching joints and then sentence her to the next lump of rock. Falling into a reverie of exhaustion, she had to shake her head clear and then struggle another stone free. She finished the first field free at mid afternoon and started in on the second, which would be even lighter than the first, but that nevertheless threw out a bone grinding challenge to her depleted body. Her muscles ached out a question, Why wasn’t there somebody to help with the work? She had long since passed the thought that any one person doing the job would be spent. She had long since forgotten the question of whether she was lonely or just alone.

Time again began to slow, this time without budging. A free climber near the top of a thousand foot wall would have found more relief. In fact she knew she neared the great mountaintop of her own personal effort. Although she was too numb to remember the fact that she was making progress, or that there would be succor at the end of the field. The battle raged as force of simple human strength met the resistance of weight and distance, and it became difficult to tell which one would win.

Lisa came to the final rock and swung it into the scoop, which was nearly full. She climbed the tractor and sat in a daze for an interminable thirty, and then forty-five minutes. When she had finally come to herself, she raised the bucket and trundled toward a pasture opposite the field, which was empty of livestock, and parking the tractor, she dumped the rock on the other side of the barbwire fence, the tractor’s arms raised in victory, as were her thoughts. The feel of her aching joints returned. Why, oh why did she have to do this alone? She looked over the fields she had cleared and felt a distant pride as the world yellowed and started to inherit the character of nightfall.

She returned along the tractor road and drove the large red machine with a warm color that had befriended and encouraged he all day, into the cover of the shed. Her muscles had started to stiffen, seeped to granite from the stones she had lifted as she shut off the tractor and climbed with effort down its frame. She looked again at the lake, feeling a cool breeze from its waters. She realized that she had once again beaten the tradition of marriage and scooped up the same pride she had felt looking over the fields. The question of loneliness was answered for her and she felt the eternal and simple comfort of being alone.

              

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

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