It all started when I was 16 and my brother, David, gave me his car while he was in the service. I wrecked it and never paid him back. Eventually, David married Millie, and they raised six girls. Upon retirement from running their sanitation and septic business, they bought land. They built a new home, a large shed (I call it a barn) plus some small outbuildings for livestock.
After a number of years, David ended up with triple bypass. It was on his 70th birthday that I decided it was time to thank him for all he (and Millie) did for me in life. In my thank you, I mentioned totaling his car and never paying him for the loss of his car. Big mistake! David didn’t forget I owed him, big time.
Since David couldn’t do some work after his surgeries, I received a phone call from him: “Carole, do you want to work off the car you wrecked, plus interest?”
“Me and my big mouth,” I thought. “Sure, David,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Help Millie and I paint the shed,” he said.
“Gosh,” I thought. “He doesn’t know my own husband, on our recent move, only let me paint inside the closets.”
Later, I mentioned this to Millie, who assured me: “Don’t worry, you’ll be painting the undercoat. You can slop all you want. David will sit on a stool and paint as much as he can ’till he tires. Me and you will paint the rest!”
I have to admit, I did a damn good job of slopping that shed, alias barn. Millie and David finished the top coat.
About a year ago, David died in his early seventies. Now I’m 70. Millie is a few years older than me. I received a phone call from Millie.
“Carole, do you want to continue paying off the car you wrecked for David?”
“Drat,” I thought. “She didn’t forget.” I said to her, “Sure. What is it you want me to do?
“It’s almost winter,” she said. “When the kids come home their husband’s offered to cut the wood, but I told them I know how to operate the log splitter. I said I’d rather they do things I can’t do. My problem is I need a helper. I thought of you.”
I told her I’d help, but, like windows, I don’t do chain saws or use an ax. She assured me all would be safe. I arrived early on our October date. Upon entering Millie’s kitchen, she looked at ne dumbfounded.
“You’re going to get dirty,” she said. “You didn’t wear old clothes. You even have white sneakers on.”
“Millie, your old and my old are two different things,” I said. “These are my old clothes and sneakers. The difference is, you work in your old clothes and soiled sneakers. I don’t work if I can help it.”
“You’ll need gloves too so you don’t get splinters,” she said. “I’ll get some for you.” She came back with well soiled work gloves. I put them on even though I lost my hands in them.
We were finally ready to walk to the field where the infamous pile of wood was located. Millie had told me beforehand, she felt, it would take two days to chop the pile. To me, it looked like 2 weeks. David, before his death, had already chain sawed the long tree limbs into smaller stumps.
First, Millie explained how this hydraulic log splitter worked. It stood on legs, with a flat, waist-high steel board, on which the log was placed. A gear, which Millie operated, would move the immense ax towards the stump, cutting it into smaller pieces. I don’t know how anyone could even put a contraption like this together. It looked like a weapon from Star Wars. But, it did work!
While working, Millie told me, “Before David had bypass surgery, we chopped wood with an ax.”
Millie had always worked side by side with David. All three of us actually were raised on farms, but I never enjoyed work. I love books and writing.
“You know, Millie, whenever I used to see you and David working, I could actually visualize a neon sign above your heads blinking ‘work,'” I told her.
She confided, “I love to work. I want to die working!”
“Not me,” I said. “I prefer to die reading a book on my lounge chair.”
My job was to carry the stumps to the log splitter. Another job was to sling the wood that fell on my side into the back of the truck. The ’85 Dodge hydraulic dump truck had already been backed up near the log splitter.
I quickly learned my job, throwing one piece of wood at a time into the truck. Herculean Millie can throw two pieces at one time. I’m not jealous. She’s had more practice than I have.
After only five minutes, I felt the sweat run down my face and neck. It was the most I had ever sweated in my life!
I not only sweat, but I had a few problems with my oversized gloves. Whenever I’d lay a stump on the flat board, the inch or so of glove I didn’t have finger-filled, would catch under the heavy log. In the time I struggled getting my glove loose, Millie had already thrown another piece of wood from my side into the truck.
At some point, I realized the pile of wood, on the truck, was quite high. I told her, “You know those big tires on the back of the truck have already sunk two feet into the ground. Shouldn’t we stop?”
“No. No,” she laughed. “We can fill it as high as the boards that surround the wood.” It seems, just like the old clothes, her version of high is different from mine.
I believe we were working two hours before she said, “It’s full now. Let’s get in the truck and I’ll drive it back to the house.” I never let her know how close I was to a collapse. Once near the house, she backed the truck to the end of the sidewalk. I told her I thought we’d just dump it nearby.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It goes on the back porch so it can dry out before I use it this winter.”
Our next job was to place the wood in the wheel barrow and push the wheel barrow on the sidewalk to the back porch. I told her, “I never lifted anything more than a nine pound baby. I know I can’t push that wheel barrow.”
She laughed again. “No, I’ll push the wheel barrow.” I watched in awe as she lifted up the arms of the wheel barrow and pushed it down the sidewalk, around a very tight curve, to the back porch.
Once there, we both stacked the wood along the wall of the house. Back to the truck again and again and again. At some point, the wood, still on the truck, was too far back to reach. I asked, “Should I climb up on the truck and throw the wood towards you?”
“No. No,” she said. “There’s a hydraulic lift on the truck. I’ll get it going and the wood will fall far enough for us to reach.”
After the last wood was taken to the porch, she asked, “Are you ready for lunch?” I didn’t tell her I had been ready two hours before that. She is what I call a workaholic, and she makes me very tired.
After a 30 minute respite, we went back to the wood pile, finishing one more load. Alas, back at the house, we only had a few more pieces of wood to stack when the handle broke on the wheel barrow. Millie and I carried the last four trips worth of wood in our arms. Of course, she was able to carry the most weight!
When I realized our jobs were done, I asked if she doesn’t save some of the kindling that lay on the ground. After all, I felt, they’d help to start a fire. She said she did save some.
“That’s good.” I said, “It beats using wooden clothespins to start a fire. In my first marriage we had a coal stove for about a year, before we could afford a furnace. My father taught me how to make the coal fire. One morning there was no fire when I went down to the cellar. I looked around. No paper. No twigs. I heard once, a woman’s place is ‘to keep the coal’s alive.’ It was then I spied my basketful of wooden clothespins. I had no choice but to burn them. It saved my day!”
Millie just shook her head.Before I left, I told her, “If we’d have been on a pioneer trek across America, I’d go with you. I know you’d know how to do everything and get us there safely. And hopefully, you wouldn’t ask me to work too hard!”
“I wouldn’t, “she said. “I know your limits!”
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to everyday stories.
