hillwalker
06-02-2010, 07:10 AM
August 1962…..
…..that was the last time I rode the cattle trails – thirty thousand head of steer from the Rocky Mountains to the golden plains of North Dakota. My lariat was looped to my saddle, a wad of hard tack gathered fuzz inside my pocket and I shouldered a thirst for sarsaparilla as unquenchable as the mighty Mojave.
But as we reached the end of our five mile tramp, coaxing the dozen or so bullocks into the narrow track leading up to Plas-Madoc Farm, our way ahead was blocked. Harry Logs; weight finely balanced between his walking stick and the stone gate-post. Harry was a rounded, jolly man who resembled Captain Pugwash without the pirate hat. His bulging cheeks and dimpled chin were splintered by grey stubble and his protruding eyes were awash with brine and bore signs of pearling.
“Don’t take them up to the shippon, Joseph. Stick them straight in the paddock.”
Harry stayed put, monitoring the situation with a practised eye as the cattle, suddenly given the freedom of a field, began careering around like school-children at the end of summer term.
“You’ll come in for a cup of tea, won’t you boys? And have some of my sconses?”
Edith Wynn; Harry’s maiden sister, by contrast more sailing ship than sailor.
A hefty woman with long, white hair plaited like baling twine and hands as big as paddles. She wore a blue dress patched here and there with outcrops of darker blue, and an apron of hemmed sacking fastened about her wallowing waist.
“In you come, in you come.”
At home our shoes would have been left out on the yard but there was no need to stand on ceremony here. I followed Bryn and his father past the dusty plant pots positioned outside the house like capstans.
Boots were scraped at the door. Sticks were left to sprout in the porch. Then we entered the dark kitchen and queued to scrunch up along the wooden bench until we were wedged tight against the kitchen table like galley slaves chained in their traces. Harry Logs sank into an armchair; his bulk almost disappearing below the waterline.
Miss Wynn crossed the stone-flagged floor; a galleon heading West towards the kettle that had whistled us all aboard. At the pantry door a churn stood with a metal strainer on top – milk still warm from the udder seeping through the thick white scum that caked the grating before dripping into its cooling depths.
She returned with a cake tin.
“Fresh this morning. Reach to.”
Clatter of knife on butter dish; clink of jam spoon on jar. Damson jam with stones sharp as sharks’ teeth in the sand.
Jo ran his tongue around his ample gums.
“Busy then, Edie?”
“Duw, aye. All the chickens are laying well but some of the buggers are hiding their eggs at the back of the wash-house. And yesterday three of my ruddy calves started scouring…..”
Jo fired a cannon shot of laughter across her bows. His narrow slits of eyes and turtle nose disappeared under his flat cap.
Scalding tea was sluiced into each cup then she lifted the filter off the churn, lowered a metal jug into its depths, dropped anchor before hauling out a scoop of bubbling, foamy milk.
There was still no sign of Jo’s eyes or nose as his cavernous mouth sprayed crumbs in all directions. It was common knowledge that he kept a full set of dentures in a box in his bedroom – much to his wife’s annoyance. They emerged on special occasions like the Sunday school Christmas party or my cousin Heulwen’s wedding.
The only sounds in the kitchen came from four sets of jaws chomping sweet, crumbling scone and slurping tea like navvies; the three of us at table each with elbows splayed either side of his plate.
I would never be allowed such liberties at home but here I was one of the men; copying Jo’s every move as if he were guru. I had even taken to spitting the way he did until my father caught on and words were said. Whistling was allowed even though my Uncle Ifor tried to get me to stop - calling it common. But spitting was altogether different.
“And I was up at five this morning. On the yard before Harold here had the cows in for milking. Then I set-to sweeping the chimneys. Iesu mawr, that was a job and a half. We’d tried to fire the parlour chimney last week, see, but the ruddy thing wouldn’t stop smoking.”
She reached out to replace the butter knife in its moorings then straightened up again to reveal both palms.
“Black as the coal shed these were.”
Jo’s mouth. That laugh.
“I always end up the same. That’s why I was busy making pastry at eight-o’clock this morning.”
Bryn looked at me and I looked at him.
She lowered her face to share a whispered confidence.
“Harold likes his jam dollop.”
Upright again she began to inspect her hands.
“Soot everywhere, Duw. Gets under your nails, see; into every ruddy crease and crack. Up to my elbows in flour and lard….. mixing pastry….. But you can’t beat it, mam always said. Pastry’s the only way there is of getting your hands proper clean.”
…..that was the last time I rode the cattle trails – thirty thousand head of steer from the Rocky Mountains to the golden plains of North Dakota. My lariat was looped to my saddle, a wad of hard tack gathered fuzz inside my pocket and I shouldered a thirst for sarsaparilla as unquenchable as the mighty Mojave.
But as we reached the end of our five mile tramp, coaxing the dozen or so bullocks into the narrow track leading up to Plas-Madoc Farm, our way ahead was blocked. Harry Logs; weight finely balanced between his walking stick and the stone gate-post. Harry was a rounded, jolly man who resembled Captain Pugwash without the pirate hat. His bulging cheeks and dimpled chin were splintered by grey stubble and his protruding eyes were awash with brine and bore signs of pearling.
“Don’t take them up to the shippon, Joseph. Stick them straight in the paddock.”
Harry stayed put, monitoring the situation with a practised eye as the cattle, suddenly given the freedom of a field, began careering around like school-children at the end of summer term.
“You’ll come in for a cup of tea, won’t you boys? And have some of my sconses?”
Edith Wynn; Harry’s maiden sister, by contrast more sailing ship than sailor.
A hefty woman with long, white hair plaited like baling twine and hands as big as paddles. She wore a blue dress patched here and there with outcrops of darker blue, and an apron of hemmed sacking fastened about her wallowing waist.
“In you come, in you come.”
At home our shoes would have been left out on the yard but there was no need to stand on ceremony here. I followed Bryn and his father past the dusty plant pots positioned outside the house like capstans.
Boots were scraped at the door. Sticks were left to sprout in the porch. Then we entered the dark kitchen and queued to scrunch up along the wooden bench until we were wedged tight against the kitchen table like galley slaves chained in their traces. Harry Logs sank into an armchair; his bulk almost disappearing below the waterline.
Miss Wynn crossed the stone-flagged floor; a galleon heading West towards the kettle that had whistled us all aboard. At the pantry door a churn stood with a metal strainer on top – milk still warm from the udder seeping through the thick white scum that caked the grating before dripping into its cooling depths.
She returned with a cake tin.
“Fresh this morning. Reach to.”
Clatter of knife on butter dish; clink of jam spoon on jar. Damson jam with stones sharp as sharks’ teeth in the sand.
Jo ran his tongue around his ample gums.
“Busy then, Edie?”
“Duw, aye. All the chickens are laying well but some of the buggers are hiding their eggs at the back of the wash-house. And yesterday three of my ruddy calves started scouring…..”
Jo fired a cannon shot of laughter across her bows. His narrow slits of eyes and turtle nose disappeared under his flat cap.
Scalding tea was sluiced into each cup then she lifted the filter off the churn, lowered a metal jug into its depths, dropped anchor before hauling out a scoop of bubbling, foamy milk.
There was still no sign of Jo’s eyes or nose as his cavernous mouth sprayed crumbs in all directions. It was common knowledge that he kept a full set of dentures in a box in his bedroom – much to his wife’s annoyance. They emerged on special occasions like the Sunday school Christmas party or my cousin Heulwen’s wedding.
The only sounds in the kitchen came from four sets of jaws chomping sweet, crumbling scone and slurping tea like navvies; the three of us at table each with elbows splayed either side of his plate.
I would never be allowed such liberties at home but here I was one of the men; copying Jo’s every move as if he were guru. I had even taken to spitting the way he did until my father caught on and words were said. Whistling was allowed even though my Uncle Ifor tried to get me to stop - calling it common. But spitting was altogether different.
“And I was up at five this morning. On the yard before Harold here had the cows in for milking. Then I set-to sweeping the chimneys. Iesu mawr, that was a job and a half. We’d tried to fire the parlour chimney last week, see, but the ruddy thing wouldn’t stop smoking.”
She reached out to replace the butter knife in its moorings then straightened up again to reveal both palms.
“Black as the coal shed these were.”
Jo’s mouth. That laugh.
“I always end up the same. That’s why I was busy making pastry at eight-o’clock this morning.”
Bryn looked at me and I looked at him.
She lowered her face to share a whispered confidence.
“Harold likes his jam dollop.”
Upright again she began to inspect her hands.
“Soot everywhere, Duw. Gets under your nails, see; into every ruddy crease and crack. Up to my elbows in flour and lard….. mixing pastry….. But you can’t beat it, mam always said. Pastry’s the only way there is of getting your hands proper clean.”