The Haunted Farm

"Sweet Memory!  Wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail."  Samuel Rogers
  
     As I leaned on the dilapidated old fence, I fought back tears.  I was staring, for the first time as an adult at Grandpa's farm house.  
     The house sat, leaned and fell in the middle of the front acre of the farm, looking like an abandoned old woman...a lady who had once stood tall and straight and smelled of roses with brilliant hydrangeas on her skirt, pine trees in her hair and music in her soul.
      I closed my almost 30 year old eyes and reached out beyond the fence to touch her.  As my hand extended toward the house I felt ghosts flutter at my fingertips.  They weren't cold as you'd expect phantoms to be, but warm, frolicking spirits of children laughing and screeching as they ran barefoot on the smooth hard wood floors.
      I was one of them and at nine or ten years old, one of the oldest of the cousins visiting Grandpa's farm with my Mom and Dad.  We were "home" for some occasion and it was late summer or early fall. The family was so large that we had to stagger our visits so there would be enough beds for sleeping and space at the table for everyone.
     I heard one of my aunt's yelling, "You kids get on out into the yard to run...Mama!  Cain't you take them to the field with you til we get the house cleaned?  They're driving me plumb crazy!"  "I reckon," said Grandma, "but they'll have to work... cain't have 'em stompin' round in the wagon bed and scarin' old Tom!"  "Old Tom" was the mule.  We all loved and feared him at the same time.  He was big and strong and obedient only to Grandpa.  He was impatient with kids and dogs.  He'd been known to step on them if they got under foot.  So we loaded into the wagon amidst a cacophony of instructions from mothers and aunts and headed for the cane field with Grandma and Old Tom.  
     There Grandma organized us into a small army.  We filled the wagon bed with sugar cane in a short while then climbed on top of our harvest and struck out across the field toward the syrup mill.  We chewed the sweet stalks as we bounced along.  
     At the mill we found the second mule of the team hitched to a mill stone that crushed the sugar cane.  He was a more gentle creature than old Tom and tolerable of noisy children, so we jumped off the wagon and formed a circle around him.  We stroked his side as he passed within arms length.
     Grandpa was inside the mill house stirring the syrup which was cooking in a large vat.  When he saw us coming across the field he had scooped up chunks of rock candy from the sides of the vat.  Our treats were cooling on a board laid across the top.  This was our "pay" for helping in the field.  After a while we each grabbed a chunk of candy, hugged Grandpa's legs and waist, according to our height, then followed an uncle as he led us back across the field to the house.  We waved as we watched Grandma and one of the uncles take old Tom back to the field. 
     Back at the farm house we lined up to wash our hands in a wash pan on the porch before lunch.  Lunch was in the dining room and consisted of a platter of leftover biscuits and a pitcher of molasses which we washed down with a tall glass of fresh milk.
     After lunch the younger ones had their feet and hands washed and went to bed for naps.  Us older kids got to sit on the long back porch and shell peas, snap beans or shuck corn with the aunts all afternoon.  These were special moments when we could listen to them talk of old times, old friends and laugh together for hours.
     Back in the present, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arm drop onto the fence.  The sounds and smells and coolness of my bare feet on the wood porch began to fade.  I gazed once again at the pathetic old lady in front of me and tasted the salt of my tears as they trickled into my mouth.  Kelly, my own little girl, was tugging at my skirt.  "Mom, why are you crying?" she asked.   I looked down at her, speechless for a moment, then heard my voice squeeze by the lump in my throat as I answered, "Ghost."
     She looked at me a little scared so I scooped her up and walked to the car.  "I'll explain later."  I said,-- but I never did.  I couldn't explain it.  I really didn't understand it myself-- why the memory was so powerful that it caused me to cry, or why it was so profound that it couldn't be put into words.
     As I look at it through wiser 70 something eyes, I can now see more than I did that day.  I see that it was gratitude that washed over me.  Gratitude for a big family that gave us love and good values. And I see a longing for a simpler time but with this older, wiser insight, I know only one thing for sure, these memories are my priceless treasurers that I wouldn't sell for gold!  They will continue to delight and warm me for as long as I can think and remember because they are sweeter to me than sugar cane and rock candy.
    
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