The Old Barn (standard:other, 2947 words) [4/4] show all parts
Author: Kenneth Nash	Added: Mar 19 2006	Views/Reads: 2488/1867	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Parts Five, Six,and Epilogue

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

The skies filled with clouds, then turned an ugly russet brown. The
people of Hickory Ridge, and the surrounding farms, were familiar with 
the change in the sky and the, quiet, eerie feeling of the hot, humid, 
windless evening. 

The tornado ripped through the peaceful little community known as
Hickory Ridge. 

Most of the farmhouses had cellars. There the family would store their
canned goods from the garden for the cold winter months. The cellars, 
also, provided shelter in times such as this. 

Jacob felt the rain on his face, he could smell the hot, humid, air. He
searched the skies for a sign of the tornado that was sure to come. He 
could see the huge hickory trees bending with the wind as he herded his 
livestock into the old barn. He and Arielle, then, went into the little 
cellar beneath the wooden floor of the log cabin. 

Then they heard it! The loud, shrill, whistle of the wind, and then the
roar that sounded like a hundred locomotives as the tornado passed over 
the farmhouse. The few minutes seemed like an eternity to Jacob and 
Arielle as they huddled together in the cellar fearing for their lives. 
Then it was over! Jacob opened the trap door and made his way out to 
assess the damage done to his farm. 

“Arielle,” shouted Jacob, “the only damage I can see is a couple sheets
of tin blown off the roof of the barn and a lot of branches on the 
ground.” 

Arielle felt relief flood over her, and then, the fear for the safety of
their neighbors. 

The “old McCauley place” had weathered the storm.  The town of Hickory
Ridge did not fare as well. The twister touched down on Main Street, 
traveled about a mile, then lifted as it passed over Jacob's farm. 

The little school that served the children was without a roof. Pastor
McPherson's church was leveled and the General Mercantile sustained 
extensive damage. There was some rebuilding to be done, but the good 
folk of Hickory Ridge had pulled together before. 

Jacob's shul was still intact and he offered to let the community use it
as place of study and worship until the school and church could be 
reconstructed. 

The year was 1919. Jacob and Arielle were nearing seventy years now. He
had tried to work the farm for the last few years. But, Arielle's 
health was failing, and he needed to take care of her. They put the old 
McCauley place up for sale, and moved back to Pennsylvania to spend 
their last days with their children and grandchildren. 

(Part Six) 

He struggled as he pulled the little wagon up the steep, winding trail
that led to the little shack he and his ma called home. The wagon was 
loaded with dirty clothes that he had gathered in Wilburton. “It will 
be a lot easier goin' downhill after ma washes them!” thought little 
Johnny Wallace, age nine. “I wish I could get that job at the sawmill, 
but they said that I had to be at least twelve., Since pa run off, me 
and ma sure do need the extra money.” His mother, Lula Mae (Wallace) 
Bailey had married Thomas Bailey two years after Johnny's father died. 
She was a frail woman, with long black hair, and skin the color of 
alabaster. Her face was lined from years of worry. Thomas Bailey had 
been gone for over a year now. And that was fine with Johnny. “All's he 
ever done was yell and whup me when he was home,” mused the young lad. 

His ma watched as he pulled the little rusty wagon, loaded with the
townsfolk's soiled laundry, in front of their house. “Johnny, this will 
be the last load for today,” she called. “He looks so wore out. I wish 
he didn't have to work and help me pay bills. I wish he could go to 
school like the other boys in Wilburton,” thought Lula Mae. “When this 
load gets done, you can take it back down the hill and collect the 
money. I think there is enough for you to buy some candy for a nickel,” 
she said as she built the fire under the big black wash pot in the back 
yard. “Yes'um ma, thanks,” replied her son. 

The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, casting long shadows
from the trees that lined the lane, as Johnny pulled the wagon with 
freshly ironed clothes into Wilburton. When he got out of sight of the 
house he would push it till it got enough speed then jump up on the 
clothes and ride. “If ma caught me doing this she would whup me good!” 
chuckled Johnny. 

After the clothes were delivered, they lit the lamp and sat down for a
supper of cornbread and buttermilk. It had been a typically long, hard 
day. 

“Well, Mr. Mathis, just give me a chance. I will make you a good hand. I
just turned twelve,” Johnny told the sawmill owner. 

After three years of hauling dirty clothes in the little wagon, he was
anxious to do a man's job. 

Johnny Wallace worked at the Mathis Sawmill for the next six years. 

The year before he quit working at the sawmill, his mother died. He had
no reason to stay in Wilburton. 

Johnny met Morea Adney on an Indian Reservation just outside of
Wilburton. They were married the next year. In 1920 their first child, 
Julia, was born. She was a beautiful little girl with dark brown eyes, 
and coal black, curly hair. 

In the spring of 1923, Johnny, Morea, and Julia Wallace traveled with a
wagon train heading east. Johnny had learned to ride well, carried two 
six-shooters on his belt, and saved his hard earned money. 

There were three wagons in the “wagon train”. Little Julia didn't seem
to mind the hardships posed by the trip. She would play with the other 
children, and watch the women prepare the rabbit, squirrels, and other 
game the men had killed for supper, to go with the biscuits they baked 
in the “Dutch ovens”. 

John and Morea had always dreamed of having their own place. When they
arrived at Hickory Ridge they felt “at home”. 

The old McCauley place had been vacated for more than four years now.
The log cabin needed some work as did the old barn. But John and Morea 
were familiar with hard work! 

“I'll be darned if I am going to walk behind a mule and plow all day,”
thought Johnny. “Morea, I seen a picture of those new John Deere Model 
D Tractors. I been thinking about us gettin' one of ‘em..,” he told his 
wife at the supper table one night. Morea agreed and they set out 
looking for one. The one they purchased was green and yellow with metal 
lugs on the rear wheels. It was called a “Poppin' Johnny! 

The Wallace family used that tractor to farm with for over twenty years.


In the winter of 1925, Morea was pregnant with their second child, Bo
Wallace, Johnny's first and only son was born in March. He looked and 
acted like his father. 

Bo was a daredevil from the time he learned to walk. He loved being in
the shop “working” on the ol' Poppin' Johnny with his dad. He learned 
to drive the tractor when he was nine. “Bo, if you get that tractor 
stuck in the mud one more time you're gonna have to quit driving it!” 
his dad would exclaim. Bo would smile and say, “okay pa” then get it 
stuck again! He learned, from watching Johnny, how to “walk” it out of 
the mud. He would let up on the clutch until the front end raised off 
the ground, putting all the weight on the rear wheels, until it came 
out of the ditch. Morea would watch him, frightfully, as the water 
poured out of the radiator. “Bo you are gonna have to stop doin' that,” 
shouted his dad, “tractors have been known to fall over backwards and 
kill the driver.” Young Bo Wallace would smile and say, “okay pa.” 

John Wallace was content for the first time in his life. He had a good
wife, a daughter, son, the farm and tractor, and the old barn! 

When Bo was five years old, Anna, the second daughter was born to John
and Morea. She, too, had dark hair and big brown eyes. “Both girls look 
like their mother, Bo looks like me,” thought Johnny. “I sure am glad 
it ain't the other way around!” he chuckled. 

One day while he was hunting, John found a baby raccoon. The mother
‘coon had probably been killed. “It looked so scared, I had to bring it 
home with me,” he told his wife, as he put the snarling, tiny raccoon 
on the floor by the fireplace. “Coonie” soon became the family's pet. 
That is, to everyone except Morea. She despised the raccoon, because 
during the night he would be up getting into the flour bin, opening 
cabinet doors, and generally making havoc of her kitchen. Julia, Bo, 
and Anna loved his mischievous antics though. 

“Daddy have you seen my gold necklace?” asked Julia. “Honey, go check in
Coonie's hidey-hole” responded her father. “You know how he loves shiny 
things!” 

Johnny said with a chuckle “If I ever need some gold or silver, I will
turn Coonie loose! He will know where to find it.” 

John Wallace was a fun loving man. He loved to dance. And, he seldom
missed a barn-dance. Morea, was just the opposite, being quiet and 
reserved. She would go to the dances, but only to play one of the many 
stringed instruments she had mastered. Morea left the dancing to her 
handsome husband. 

Julia had married a young man named Paul Wilkerson, left the farm, and
moved to Hickory Ridge.  Bo grew into his teenage years and Anna was 
left to herself much of the time. She loved to go to the old barn with 
her dolls. She had an imagination, yet was quiet and reserved like her 
mother. 

One morning, while on her way to the barn with her dolls, she heard some
boys laughing and talking. The voices was coming from the old barn. She 
sneaked up to listen. “If daddy catches us smoking in here, he will 
skin us alive,” whispered Bo. Nathaniel Newton replied, “How'll he ever 
know about it? He ain't never seen us doin' it.” 

There was a silence, and then some coughing. “Where did they get that
stuff to smoke?” wondered Anna. As she heard the boys get up from the 
bales of hay, she ran for the house before they came out of the barn. 

A few days later she was at the old barn and noticed some onions that
her mother had hung up to dry. The once green sprouts were as brown and 
dry as tobacco. “So, that is what they were smoking!” thought Anna. “I 
think I will try it myself.”  She pulled down a large onion, broke off 
the brown stem, rolled it up and put the match she had brought from the 
kitchen, to the end of it and took a big puff!  After much gagging, 
coughing, and wiping tears from her big brown eyes, she decided that an 
eight year old girl should be playing with dolls instead of trying to 
smoke! 

It was in the midst of the greatest economic depression ever experienced
in the history of the United States.  Millions were out of work.  Men 
and families stood in bread lines, and soup kitchens in most of the 
major cities. Farm prices were at an all time low. Often, the farmer 
couldn't get enough from the harvest to pay the cost of planting. 

Bo Wallace was eighteen in the year of 1943. After doing his time in the
Army, he felt obligated to help his family financially. He had become a 
fine mechanic, after years of working on the old Poppin' Johnny, and 
the 1934 Chevrolet pickup that was used by the family. 

He left the farm to work in Hickory Ridge, and then later moved to St.
Louis Missouri, where he managed a repair shop. He regularly sent money 
home to his family at the old McCauley place. 

Anna was becoming a young woman at the age of thirteen. She made dresses
for the women and girls, and shirts and trousers for the men and boys 
of Hickory Ridge. By the time she turned nineteen, she had met, fallen 
in love, and married the dashing young Glenn Garrison of Bluff City. 

John Richard Wallace died, in his farmhouse, from complications of gall
bladder surgery in 1949. 

(Epilogue) 

The young man sitting behind the wheel of the pickup was tall with
unruly dark brown hair; his steel blue eyes gazed at the property known 
as the old McCauley Place. 

The Korean War had ended. And, it was time to start a family. 

The man limped from the truck. He looked to the left of the old barn
where the log cabin once stood. It was rumored that a lightning strike 
had started the fire that burned the house to the ground. The weeds had 
overgrown the charred remains of the floor. After Mr. Wallace passed 
away the property remained vacant for several years. 

His eyes focused on the old barn. “So, this is the barn that my
great-great- grandpa built. It must be 114 (or is 115) years old now,” 
thought Jeremiah Joseph McCauley. 

The roof, brown with rust, was partially collapsed. Rough hewn timber,
gray from years of weathering, split and broken, had fallen from the 
walls. The door hanging loosely by one rusty hinge was creaking from 
the wind. Weeds had grown high almost concealing the window and 
entrance. It sat alone in the field. 

How many winters had it endured? How many generations of families had
used it? What tragedies and happiness was encountered here? 

If only the old barn could talk! 


Tweet