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The Barn out Back

1902

Washington City is unique in America for the full equality of its citizenry, the entirety of which is disenfranchised. Women, men, coloreds, whites: none of them have the right to vote for so much as the city dogcatcher, or even the President. It’s an odd thing for a town to live hip-deep in everyone else’s elected officials, without having a single one to call its own. The city is Congress’s plaything, and since not a single one of the esteemed gentlemen hails from the District, it’s an easy thing for them to bat the city back and forth across the aisle like a shuttlecock.

The one governor the city has ever known, Boss Shepherd, was good for the city but bad for Congress. Once appointed, he tore off on a three-year spending spree to bring a level of sanitation and basic services heretofore unknown to the population. Clutching L’Enfant’s city plan in one hand, he used the other to direct the installation of paved streets and streetlights, water, sewer, and the beginnings of the National Mall. Without his intervention, the city might still be living with the open sewer that long ago was Tiber Creek. But Congress was alarmed at the price tag and quickly showed the Boss the door, slamming it shut on the experiment of the Territory of the District of Columbia and any form of Washington self-government.

In its place, the neighborhood became the primary organizing force for demanding, cajoling, hectoring, or enticing individual Congressmen to coax their cohorts into delivering some minimal level of services. Of course, the new, tonier areas like Kalorama or Cleveland Park, with their built-in connections to wealthy senators, are awash in parks, sidewalks, and regular garbage pick-ups. Others have to try harder. Brightwood, one of the oldest of the uptown neighborhoods, grown from its days as the tollbooth on the Seventh Street Turnpike, learned this lesson early and well. It was the muscle of the neighborhood association that got Brightwood one of the earliest streetcar lines. Before electric was available, the hill up from downtown into the neighborhood proved a hardship on the horses, earning the car line the nickname G.O.P.: get out and push. But the electric to the cars arrived just in time to support Charley Beck’s dream of living on a farm plot out in the country and still being able to make it to work on time every day.

Brightwood Park is the scrawny little brother to beefier Brightwood, but benefits from the association. For example, when city water starts flowing into Brightwood at the turn of the new century, the Park gets to drink from the fountain too. Though the city water is never as sweet and clean-tasting as it is from the well, and the change from gravity to pressure-fed delivery blows apart a few solder joints in their old water line, Charley is happy to say goodbye to hand-cranking water up to the rooftop tank when the summer doldrums hit and there’s no wind to turn the mill. The galvanized bones of the old mill, disassembled bit by bit, serve for many years to prop up Charley’s laden tomato plants.

Another boon from pressurized water delivery is the sudden ease of transporting irrigation to where it’s needed, even into the far reaches of the back planting beds. This helps to smooth out the vagaries of the weather and bumps up production considerably, allowing Charley and Emma to squeeze an even more impressive yield from their slice of earth. Though the seasons are unpredictable—winter often comes and goes sporadically or never shows up or never leaves, and there are years when spring misses them entirely—Charley has a farmer’s feel for knowing when the season has settled down to business and it’s time to plant. No matter how beautiful the weather, Charley cannot be fooled into putting the tomatoes in ahead of schedule. For the vegetables, it’s produce or perish; no one has the space or time to waste with a balky or demanding plant. Even the flowers, for which both Charley and Emma have a weakness, are expected to provide payback: the lilies-of-the-valley that grow by the thousands in the side yard are picked, tied in fist-sized bunches, and sold for a quarter apiece to Cammack’s, the wholesale florist known citywide for his big greenhouses and excellent produce. The income is enough to pay the winter coal bill for the big, drafty farmhouse. Peonies go to the May altar in the new church, ants and all, but roses are allowed to exist for themselves alone, as long as they consistently bloom. The mystery of the wisteria is that in decades it never once sets a bud; Charley only tolerates it for the shade it offers the porch.

The Becks are not the only agriculturally minded residents to appreciate the rural character of Brightwood so close to the city. John Saul, who gains fame as a horticulturalist with a hand in landscaping the National Mall, has a forty-acre orchard just up Fourteenth Street that supplies the fruit and nut trees that Charley plants the second year at 741. There are apple and peach trees, walnut and butternut trees, all expected to earn their keep. Five Noir de Schmidt black cherries and three Montmorency sour cherry trees are breathtaking in the spring, but it’s their fruit that allows them to hold onto the real estate. The garden grows in size every year, finally pushing beyond the boundaries of 741 and demanding that Charley lease the farm plot far out of the city in Hyattsville. But it is Blossom that makes them build the barn.

They’ve been considering the barn since they bought the property. Long ago, to dissuade himself from putting it under cultivation, Charley stakes off the spot, levels it off, and tamps it down. They calculate the cost of upkeep of various animals against the savings on milk, butter, eggs, cheese, and dinner’s main course. That last may prove problematic, given that Lillie tries to adopt and mother every living creature she stumbles over.

They start with the chickens in the spring, but it isn’t until Charley pulls a trailer up to the gate and coaxes out their new tan-and-cream Jersey dairy cow that Emma gets around to applying for the permit to build. She asks permission to put up a two-story stable and chicken house, to be built by one Charles J. Beck. As with the main house, the permit for the barn is approved the same day, though this time it’s stamped with the correct date: August 20, 1902.

Initially, Charley plans to ask Joe to help him put up the barn, but circumstances conspire to make that awkward, so it is Mr. Reddy who steps in to lend a hand.

The barn is complete, fully outfitted, and snug against upcoming cold weather just in time for a fine stretch of Indian summer in late fall. But once it’s done, Charley’s evenings are free once again, so he has the luxury after work one particular day to stop with Joe at their old watering hole and reminisce.

“Oh, I think I knew I’d lost her almost as soon as she started working for the family. Her letters dropped off, and when she did write, it was all about them: how sad it was that the little infant’s mother had died, and how bad she felt for the handsome, heartbroken young father, heir to the family business and whatnot.” Joe smiles into his beer. “I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when she stopped coming down on the weekends and didn’t want me to come up, it wasn’t too hard to see where things were going.”

Charley laughs. “But it sure took a long time to get there! How many years?”

Joe nods in agreement. “I know. Four. It took that long to get the family to agree to let him marry the hired help. Poor Lil.”

“Well, even so, I didn’t know whether it would be uncomfortable for everyone, with Lil and little Theresa here all summer, and Morgan Blade coming by so much. I just figured better not to poke at that.”

“Well, no bad feelings on my part, for sure. But it was probably easier for Lil not to have me around. What time is it? I guess the big party’s over by now.”

Charley pulls out his watch. “Going on six. They’re probably headed for the train; Em said they were leaving directly for New York City to start the wedding trip.”

Joe lifts his glass. “Well, then, every happiness to the bride and groom. May they prosper.”

“Here, here.” They each drain off the last of their pints, and Charley beckons to the bartender for another round. “And how is our own little Master Joseph doing?”

“Cutting through a few more teeth, so noisier than usual. Anna rubs brandy on his gums at night so that we can all get some sleep. But I tell her I used to room with you, and if I can sleep through that, a little squalling out of our squirt isn’t going to bother me.”

“Still with the snoring.”

“Can’t imagine how Emma puts up with it.”

“She’s only tried to suffocate me a few times. Nothing drastic.”

The beers arrive, and Joe lifts his glass in another toast. “Here’s to a man’s own family, the greatest comfort that God ever invented.” He takes a big swallow. “But back to where we started, at the finishing of the barn. So how is the cow, anyway?”

“Oh, she’s a sweetheart. Good producer.”

“When do you figure on breeding her?”

“Done already. Last thing before they put her on the trailer. We ought to be seeing a calf sometime in mid-spring. We’re going to add a few pigs, too. Maybe some ducks.”

“Lord, look out, it’s Farmer Charley! You plan on doing your own butchering?”

“I don’t think Lillie will let me get away with that. We’ve already had a scene or two over the chickens. I told her she could stop naming them or stop eating them, her choice, but they’d still show up on the table. But for the big livestock, I can see I’ll need to ship that off somewhere else for the dirty work.”

“Oh, but she takes after you. I remember she used to drag that big watering can around the yard. She couldn’t lift it, but she’d tip it over to water the plants. A little farmer girl.”

“She loves it. Even in the cold and wet, she’d still rather be outside in her slicker and muddy boots she calls them. I’m glad to see it. I hope it’s an antidote for the other nonsense.”

“What other nonsense?”

Charley rubs at the back of his neck and considers his beer. “It’s the oddest thing, Joe. It’s like Emma’s afraid of Lillie growing up. She’s miserable that Lillie started school this year, because that means she’s not a baby anymore. But her solution seems to be to treat her like she’s a doll. At least once a week, there’s some new outfit she’s had made, and I swear each one is more elaborate and ridiculous than the last one. You should have seen this creation she was parading around in the other night. It was all ruffles and lace and ribbons and beads, and to me it looked exactly like she was being swallowed. And there’s Emma, all proud of how much money she’s spending, ticking off to me what everything costs—the more expensive the better—as though that’s the most important thing! She’s like a human abacus!” Charley seems a little taken aback by his own outburst, and downs half his beer in one swallow. “I reminded her that vanity is a sin, and she draws herself up and says, ‘Our baby isn’t vain!’ and I say, ‘I wasn’t talking about Lillie.’ She’s never had an ounce of vanity for herself, Joe, but with Lillie…good night! I can’t stand to think that she’s going to encourage her to become one of those empty-headed girls who flounces around in all her finery, acting superior! It’s, it’s…!” Charley takes a breath and sips some of his beer to calm down, then chuckles. “Well, it’s enough to make a fellow stammer.”

“It does seem surprising. I remember you telling me that you married the most practical, level-headed woman on Earth.”

“I did; she was. Now it’s like the whole world has shrunk down to this tiny circle with Lillie at the center. When McKinley got shot and died, she never once even remarked on it. If you asked her the most important thing that happened all of last year, she’d say it’s that the church opened in Brightwood.” He chortles into his beer. “The old Emma would at least have had something to say about T.R. being younger than she is. ‘When did they start letting schoolboys be president? I’ve got stockings that are older!’”

Joe laughs with him; the imitation is a good one. “Well, you’re still Lillie’s papa; she’ll listen to you if you tell her you don’t like flouncy, superior girls.”

“Well, and I’ve got her grandmother in my corner, too. She’s the second most practical woman on Earth, and she and Lillie spend a lot of time together. Maybe between the two of us and her being in school now, we can fight the flouncy.” But his laugh is half-hearted and his gaze is distant.

“Charley, you’re actually worried.”

“Maybe I’ll just add to your toast from before.” He raises his glass. “A man’s own family: his greatest source of comfort. And upset.”