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MAGGIE AGAIN
John D. Husband
Chapter One
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The village of Cobblers Eddy, Indiana is just a collection of houses, shops and barns strung along a two lane concrete road and surrounded by rolling farmland that extends to the horizon in all directions. The west edge of town is defined by the West Fork of the White River about sixty miles before it meets the East Fork and flows lazily down the Illinois-Indiana border to join the Wabash. The few dozen residents of Cobblers Eddy are less precise about the village’s other boundaries.
They are equally vague about the swirl of water in the river for which the town was named. Most have never seen it by reason of indifference, or because it isn’t always visible. The eddy is caused by an underwater rock ledge that juts out into the river and can only be seen if the water level is just right. When swift currents hit the ledge, they flow abruptly back upstream for 50 feet or so, until they lose their momentum. That backward flowing water causes an eddy as it speeds past the downstream water — much as two rapidly moving weather systems spawn tornadoes when they swipe past each other. Provided the river is neither too shallow nor too deep, the splashing, ageless eddy is clearly visible. And anyone who cares enough to look can get a clear view of the bobbing leaves and sticks that accumulate in its vortex much as its namesake village has over time collected houses and shops — never growing noticeably larger or smaller and seeming not to change essentially with the passing years.
Whereas the river eddy may be rare, there are a thousand villages like Cobblers Eddy, maybe more, sprinkled across the North American continent — clusters of old sheds, weathered barns and neat clapboard houses that sprout along rural highways like tufts of grass in the cracks between city sidewalks. Most of these little villages were seeded some time in the 19th century by a remote rural crossroads that attracted a church or a feed store or a blacksmith shop and a house or two. Then perhaps a general store joined that small nucleus and maybe a barber shop, a few sheds, a barn and a machine shop to fix broken plows, John Deere tractors, and other farm machinery.
Without a major industry to attract new people, villages like Cobblers Eddy seldom grow large enough to support their own local governments. Instead they depend upon the county for road maintenance and emergency services. Once established, these little villages seem to freeze in time, neither growing nor diminishing. Successive generations move into and out of their ageless houses, work the distant fields, and milk the cows as the years tumble into decades and beyond.
Today, passing motorists see Cobblers Eddy as a sort of pastoral stereopticon, a three dimensional picture of old time America, its quaint values preserved uncorrupted by technology, rock music, fast food, and beer in cans. The motorists see white clapboard houses, rustic barns, and amber fields of grain sweeping in lazy rhythm to the wind, and they dream of simpler days. They catch a glimpse of clothes strung on a line in the back yard and of barefoot children with dirty faces frolicking about unattended and think they have had a privileged peek into the past.
They smile wistfully, perhaps, and drive on by.
It’s a timeless place, this Cobblers Eddy, isolated, self sufficient, unchanged, and unchanging. |
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Chapter Two
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New York City, June 1984
“Death doesn’t scare me,” someone had once told Margaret Stone, “it’s those last few moments of life that I’m terrified of.” After 25 years as office manager for The American Equity Insurance Group on New York’s East 44th Street, Margaret felt the same way about retirement.
She wanted today to be over. Tomorrow had to be better. No matter that the paychecks would stop and she’d miss her friends and the routine. Anything had to be better than the agony and celebrity of being a departing faithful servant to the company.
Seated behind her desk in a cluttered 35th floor office, she swiveled toward the window and the splendor of the New York City skyline stretched grandly before her. She would miss that too. The view from her apartment was not nearly so grand.
The apartment. Surely she wasn’t going to spend her retirement years sitting in an apartment. She needed to be needed. What would it be like not to be responsible for anything or anybody? She spun back toward the clutter, dropping her hands to her sides at the sight of nearly 25 years’ accumulation of papers, reports, supplies, file boxes, reference books, catalogs, brochures, record envelopes, and cardboard cartons. There were also a safe, a broken hat tree and a mixture of other valuable, worthless or unidentifiable litter.
“Tomorrow,” she mused, “it will belong to the ages.” She tilted her head to read a pink phone message on her desk, scrunched it, and threw it near the overflowing wastebasket. “And ages is about how long it will take them to sort it all out,” she added.
“Margaret,” a soft voice intruded from the doorway. “Have you got a minute?” It was the boss’s secretary, Mildred Adams, a slim, straight, black woman in her early 30s who had been with the agency ever since she was graduated from high school.
“Oh Millie, come on in.” Margaret looked around. “Move those papers and you can sit there. No, put them over there. Or, no, here, give them to me.
“Now then,” she continued once Millie was settled, “What can I do for you?”
“This is a little embarrassing, but Mr. Mann asked me to see if I can take over your job.”
Margaret drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk and looked at the younger woman and smiled. “Oh you poor thing,” she said. Both women laughed. “Now he starts thinking of a replacement.” She looked at her watch. “I’m leaving in a few hours.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’m to be a replacement,” Millie said. “I think I’m just supposed to keep things going for a little while.”
Margaret shook her head. “Oh, that man,” she said. “Well, I think I can at least show you how to dazzle Mr. Mann with footwork for a couple of days,” she said, nudging an empty envelope box toward the file cabinet with slightly more force than necessary.
Millie sensed the tension. “Oh dear,” she said, “It all seems so arbitrary, so unfair. When you’re 65, they make you retire no matter how good a job you’re doing.”
Margaret raised her eyebrows. “I’m 74,” she said simply. “They just think I’m 65.” She gave Millie a mischievous grin. “But I keep the records. I could have stayed here until I was 90 if I’d wanted to.”
Millie relaxed into her chair and began to laugh. “Age is a state of mind. And you’re still too young to retire.”
“No, it’s time to retire,” Margaret said. “Past time.”
“What are you going to do? I suppose everyone asks you that.”
“Yes they do. And I tell them I’m going to travel, probably do some volunteer work, and maybe take ballet lessons. I’ve always wanted to take ballet lessons.”
Both women laughed. Then Margaret’s tone changed. “I really don’t have it figured out yet, Millie. I’ll probably do some traveling. I’m certainly due. I never go anywhere -- hardly been outside of New York for ages. I’ll go to Washington. I don’t suppose that’s really traveling, is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Travel has more to do with where you go than how long it takes to get there. And Washington’s a pretty place. Worth a trip.”
Margaret swung her chair toward the window again, then back. “I want to visit my son’s grave at Arlington. He was killed in Korea.” She stared soberly far into the distance for a moment. “Then I’d like to go back to Cobblers Eddy, Indiana where I grew up.”
“Where?”
Margaret seemed to snap out of her revere. “Cobblers Eddy, Indiana.” she said. “It’s a little itsy bitsy place no one has ever heard of.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
Margaret laughed. “Not very likely, Millie. It’s sooo small. You would never have heard of it.” She paused. “Oh my,” she said, “how long has it been?” She thought for a moment. “It’s been 58 years. Not once in all those years have I even heard the name of Cobblers Eddy mentioned. Not once. Why, it’s not even on the map.”
“But I did hear about it. Or read about it. Somewhere. Recently, too. Cobblers Eddy. I’m sure that’s the name. Positive. It’ll come to me.”
“I wonder if it’s still there,” Margaret said. “It seemed awfully fragile. Not more than a couple of dozen houses. Barns right on the main road. If they widened the highway, the whole place could disappear.”
As Millie watched the older woman, a trace of annoyance crept across her brow. “It’s there. Believe me. I’ve heard of it. Honest.”
“Did you really think I was only 65?” Margaret asked, tactfully changing the subject. “Why it’s been nearly 60 years since I left Cobblers Eddy. If I do go down there, I suppose I’d best make some long distance calls first.” She considered the idea for a moment. “If I go down there.” She contemplated the idea briefly. “Who on earth would I call?” she wondered aloud. She glanced at Millie and sat up straight in her chair. “Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Let’s go to work.”
She removed a fat, leather-bound account book from the shelf behind her and spread it out on top of the clutter that hid her desk. “This job is principally the processing of money and forms. Money in, money out; forms in, forms out,” she said. She showed Millie how to keep the books straight, make out paychecks, and order supplies. And while she was doing it, her mind drifted back through the years to the sunny, hopeful days of her youth in a place called Cobblers Eddy. |
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Chapter Three
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Cobblers Eddy, late Spring 1926
Some years before he died, Maggie’s grandfather planted lilac bushes in rows at either side of the one-lane gravel road that the county built over the hill and down through the center of what was now her father’s farm. By the spring of 1926, the mature bushes gave blossom to great puffs of lavender, their delicate aroma sweeping across the lush, green pastures below. As she reached the crest of the hill on her way home after slopping Mrs. Moss’s pigs, Maggie’s spirits were lifted by the perfume of her grandfather’s sweet legacy.
In spite of her half hearted attempt to stay cool by rolling up her sleeves, Maggie’s faded blue work shirt was darkened by small underarm crescents of perspiration. She rolled up the bottom hem of her tan, mid-thigh shorts. At the crest of the hill, she broke into an easy lope, her heavy work shoes kicking up scatterings of gravel as she glided down the hill. Maggie wasn’t running because of any pressing need to get somewhere. She was running because she was young. And strong. And full of life and energy. And because the day sparkled with beauty and the promise of spring. And she was running because she just felt like it. And because it was downhill and easy. Her long yellow hair and broad shoulders moved in easy rhythm to her long, graceful strides.
As she strode down the road, she saw the lithe form of her friend Tom coming up the hill toward her. When he spotted her, he began to run toward her. When they met, Maggie expected Tom to turn around and stride down the hill with her. Instead, he ran on past her up the hill.
Maggie stopped. “Hey, you goofer,” she shouted to him.
“Whoa,” Tom said. He kept running in place, then ran backward until he was facing Maggie. She took a playful swipe at him with a full swing of her arm. Tom dodged away.
“I was just looking for you,” Tom said.
“Well, you found me.” She looked around. “Where’s Alfie and Gordie?” she asked as they walked down the hill together.
“Doin’ their chores, I suppose.” Tom brushed the long, dark hair from his eyes. At 17, he was more sinewy than muscular — and very tanned, testimony to long and arduous hours spent on his father’s farm.
“Tomorrow we’re gonna have a picnic at Kocher’s field. Can you come?” he asked.
“Before my chores?”
“You mean before you slop Mrs. Moss’s pigs?”
Maggie bumped him with her hips, knocking him slightly off balance. “Well I didn’t think you’d have a picnic before my morning chores.”
“Sure, before you slop the pigs. We’ll go down to Mrs. Moss’s afterwards to help you with the sloppin’. Do you want me to bring a saddle?”
“What for?” Maggie asked. “You gonna ride Mrs. Moss’s pigs now?”
“I’m not gonna ride anything. I thought you might wanna ride Kocher’s cows.”
Maggie was incredulous. “Tommm,” she said, stretching out his name. “I’m not riding any cows.”
“Why not?”
“Why should I?”
“We did.”
“You mean you did. Alfie never rode a cow; neither did Gordie.”
“Alfie’s too small.”
“Yeah, and Gordie’s too big.”
“Gordie was born too big,” Tom said. They both laughed.
“But you’re just the right size,” Tom continued.
Maggie walked a few steps into the field at the side of the road just far enough to pull up a stalk of timothy hay. She stuck the stem end in her mouth. “Why don’t you ride them again if you’re so itchin’ to see them ridden?”
“I already rode `em. `Sides, I’m too big now.”
“Not for Echo, you’re not too big,” Maggie said over her shoulder as she turned off on the path toward her house.
Tom stopped. A twinkle came to his eye. “Neither are you,” he shouted back as he resumed his way back up the hill.
Echo was a very large cow. Jim Kocher had considered her a real prize three years earlier when he traded half of his corn harvest for her at the 1923 state fair. She was only three months old then and already approaching the size of a full grown cow. By the time she was 18 months old and mature, she was nearly as tall at the shoulder as a work horse.
Jim Kocher’s plan was to improve the quality of his herd by interbreeding Echo and her offspring with the rest of his herd. The normal way to improve a herd was to breed one’s cows to a prize bull. But Jim Kocher thought he had a better idea. He could never hope to buy a prize bull, but Echo seemed destined to mother a superior brood — perhaps including a prize bull. And even if the prize breeding bull were not forthcoming, he would still have a great cow, and all her progeny. For a time, it looked as though he might be right. Echo grew into a creature of elegance, dignity, and beauty. Her straight back rose several inches above the other cows. Then one spring day, Jim Kocher put a lead clamp in Echo’s nose and proudly led her up the dirt road, past the other farmers who waved with interest and, Jim thought, perhaps a bit of envy. They knew Echo was on her way to visit Kutch’s bull.
But there were problems. It was nearly nightfall when Jim led Echo back. No waves of envy poured forth from the farms he passed. It seemed Kutch’s bull was intimidated by Echo’s size and lack of cooperation.
Echo made several more trips to other bulls before she was finally bred to a bull in Sizerville. The scrawny calf that resulted nine months later had to be hand fed because Echo had very little milk to give and even less interest in giving it. The woeful little calf was sold, and majestic Echo, her proportions unchanged by the experience of motherhood, continued to swagger among Jim Kocher’s fat, unimpassioned herd. Her classic lines, nimble movements, and small bag of milk were in sharp contrast to the fat bellies, labored movements, and abundant dripping bags of the other cows. |
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