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Golden Corn—A Tale of Old Joe on the Mountain Top

Written by Terry Howard

"It's the first of May and there's snow on the ground." Old Joe had talked to himself all of his life. Now with his wife gone he was living alone in a house accustomed to keeping two or three and—on rare, brief occasions—four generations of Jenkins at the same time, so he talked to himself a lot.

He really should have taken in boarders but he didn't want strangers going through things. Besides, he only thought of it when he went to town which was mostly on Sundays and there was no call for talkin' business on Sunday. Come Monday there was always something that needed doing around the place, so he just never got around to finding boarders.

"And it ain't a late snow that fell in the night and will be gone by noon. It's still here from February. I oughta be plantin' the corn shortly. If I don't get it in the ground in the next two or three weeks it won't make, and if I don't get the tomato sets in the ground pretty soon, I might as well put them in pots and leave 'em." It was a repeat of a conversation he had with his wife the first spring after the Ring of Fire.

That first spring he ended up starting his corn in the greenhouse on the southern backside of the barn where the livestock and the sun helped keep it warm. "Mabel, I'm goin' to put some tomato plants and squash plants and some of everything else I started from seed back in January in five gallon buckets or whatever, to leave 'em as potted plants. It looks like it's the only way to guarantee something to can this year."

The big problem was the size of the greenhouse. It had been cobbled together out of castoff windows to get a jump on the garden, because a man like Old Joe wasn't wasn't about to buy sets in town. You couldn't fit a whole garden's worth of pails inside that greenhouse. He would set plants out when he could. But he knew if you wait too long, sets wouldn't transplant well. The corn plants were set out in June just as early as he was sure the freeze was over and the ground was warm enough. Some nights he still had to cover them because he was worried about frost.

"If it weren't for the wheat, I could just up and starve with this here 'Little Ice Age.'" He had heard that mentioned after church one Sunday and tried to look it up in the encyclopedia. He couldn't find it under 'little' or 'ice age.' As for starving, he could eat out of his cellar for well over a year. The habits of growing what you ate, minding your own business and getting by with what was on hand ran deep.

The Ring of Fire cut off his driveway. One of the highest limestone faces in the circle fell away not twenty feet out his front door. Almost all of his woods and nearly three of the six-, four- or five-acre patches his grandfather used to keep in row crops went missing too. The five-acre plot that he had kept in field corn or soy beans for years was now three and a half acres of wheat and rye and oats sown in a mix. It was mostly animal feed for the milk cows and chickens. He ground some of it by hand to make bread. The only corn he planted any more was for canning. What he planted for seed he grew in the green house for fear of losing it to a freeze. The other three pockets of semi-flat land were in pasture, hay and straw. They were too poor, too steep, or too rocky to be worth row cropping.

When the Grantville authorities came poking around right after the event he made it plain he did not want them on his place.

"Mister Jenkins, we are all going to have to pull together to get through the next winter. Everybody is going to have to pitch in and help," one of them had said.

"Well, I understand that. I promise you, anything I grow that the wife and I don't need I'll haul down and sell it in town. Never was much up here an' there's less now," Joe had answered.

"Well, sir, you might need some help, we've got—"

Before the man could make a pitch for him to take in some refugees, Joe cut him off. "Ain't needed no help in eighty years I know of and never heard of having any hired help afore that. We'll take care of ourselves, thank you."

On the way down the hill the younger of the census takers said to the older, "It's sure not easy to get up here. Truth to tell there isn't a whole lot here outside of two old people, two old barns and an even older house. With the old man being difficult, I don't think there's any need to mess with them unless we just make them move into the old folk's home. You know, I think he'd start shooting if we suggested it."

"You got that impression? Well, you're right. Just leave them alone. It's for the best."

"Yeah, but is it safe?"

"They'll take care of themselves."

"Well, I know there's not much up here but it might be needed."

"Kid, that old couple will get more out of this pile of rocks than anyone else. She's a regular down at the Baptist church, he's a member of the Legion, the Masons, and the Historical Society. Pays his dues and turns up once in a blue moon. You can be sure nothing up there will go to waste and he'd give you his second-best shirt if he thought you needed it—as long as you didn't ask for it. Just cross it off the list and move on. They'll do more than their share."

Joe had heard it all and snorted. Why did the young automatically think their elders were deaf?

****

When the garden came in that first summer, Mabel had him load three bushels of mixed veggies in the trunk of the car every Sunday. Joe grumbled about it. Mabel knew it was just for form's sake. "Joseph, we ain't gonna eat all that."

"I could haul it into the market."

"You could but you won't, 'cause it ain't worth the time. Besides, there's folks having a hard time of it in town." The last line settled it. Mabel didn't mention the full milk can in the trunk next to the veggies. On Saturday and Sunday the pigs didn't get the extra milk.

They'd leave it all in the church kitchen and every Sunday there would be four empties waiting for him to take home. The pastor and pensioners in the church ate well; what was left of the food went to the refugee center.

Come fall, Joe sold three pigs down to the slaughter house. He dressed and smoked the other two from that litter. One ended up in the cellar. The other one ...