Peter Cumming
81 Hillbrook Crescent
Kitchener, Ontario
Canada N2N 1J4
(519) 585-0868 (voice and fax) About 1575 words
I AND FARMER
by
Peter Cumming
© Peter Cumming 1995
Why I'm sad is because we had to trade Farmer for a sleigh. I like the sleigh, but oh, I'd rather have my Farmer home again.
Farmer is a horse. Grandad Malcolm says that Farmer is as big as an elephant, as strong as a bull, as playful as a puppy, and as stubborn as a mule. I don't know what kind of horse that makes him.
I do know he was my horse. I called him Farmer because he always worked so hard ploughing the potato field. Oh, Farmer, Farmer, my Farmer.
Today in school we had to make a speech about something. Mine was about Farmer. What I said was: "My name is Sarah McQueen and I am nine years old and I live on Entry Island in the Magdalen Islands in the Province of Quebec in the Dominion of Canada and it is the month of June in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty-three."
I took a deep breath. All those eyes were looking at me.
So then I said: "I live in the big white house beside the lighthouse on the top of the cliff at the edge of the ocean and the island is green and the ocean is blue and every morning I see the sun come out of the water in back of the house and every evening I watch it go down in the water in front of the house and every night I hear the wind blowing it under the island so it can come back up again."
I wasn't sure I could tell them the part about Farmer. They were all staring at me so.
But I tried. "What my speech is about is Farmer, my horse, and ever since March I'm sad all the time, and why I'm sad is because I and Farmer can't be together any more."
Well. I couldn't say another word because I had this tight awful feeling in my throat, just thinking of Farmer being gone. So I went and sat down.
Teacher had a funny look on his face. "Sarah has made one mistake," he said. "Does anyone know what it is?"
Nobody did. So Teacher said, "Your mistake is 'I and Farmer.'"
"I and Farmer?"
"Yes, Sarah, you shouldn't say 'I and Farmer,' you should say . . . ".
"Me and Farmer?" I asked, hoping I'd be right.
"Absolutely not! You should say, 'Farmer and I.'"
Farmer and I. Me and Farmer. I and Farmer. What difference does it make? All that matters to me is, in March we ran short of hay and we needed a new sleigh and we still had Farmer's mother, Peg, so one day Dad said, "We have to trade Farmer."
And when the ice bridge came, when the wind and tides squeezed ice cakes in between our island and the other islands, we all went across on the ice to trade Farmer.
It was clear and cold and sunny. Before we left, I sneaked Farmer a couple of carrots. Grandad let me ride him, but the others had to walk beside Peg. Sometimes, I'd press my face right into Farmer's throat just so I wouldn't cry.
Who we traded Farmer to was old Johnny Ferguson. I didn't like him much. He was old and grumpy and he came from the island called Grosse Île. His face was covered with short white whiskers. They felt like needles when he gave me a whisker rub.
I guess Farmer didn't like Johnny Ferguson much either. He wouldn't budge for him. He just snorted and tossed his head. It made me feel like laughing, watching Farmer carry on so. Then old Johnny hit him with a stick. I didn't feel like laughing any more. Grandad squeezed my hand and we went home. Peg pulled the new sleigh.
At home, I told everybody that I just knew Farmer was going to come home again.
What my dad said was, "You'd better stop thinking like that, Sarah, because even if he wanted to come back, he couldn't find his way down fifty miles of sand dunes. And even if he found his way, he couldn't swim across two miles of ocean. And even if he could swim across, we'd have to give him back—because we made a deal."
Well. When my dad talks that much, you know he means it.
What my Grandad said was, "Leave the girl alone, Angus. She'll get over it."
I didn't say anything. But I kept putting apple peelings and carrot tops in Farmer's pail all the same.
Now, it's almost summer. What I'm doing today is sitting in Henry's Hollow, minding my sister, wee Jennifer, and eating wild strawberries. It's flat calm on the water and the sun is oh, so warm.
I lie back in the grass and close my eyes. What I see is a giant with white whiskers sticking out of his chin like pins out of a pincushion. He has a big club in his hand and he's hitting me and Jennifer. I don't like that much so I open my eyes.
I stare up at the sky. The clouds are like the map of the Magdalen Islands that Teacher has been making us memorize all year. The fluffy white globs are the islands; their wispy tales are the sand dunes that join the islands together; and the blue sky is all the water in the ocean.
That cloud over there, the one away from all the rest, that one's Entry Island. And that one, way up, almost at the other end of the islands, that's Grosse Île, and that's where Farmer is.
I wonder what it's like in all those places. I remember Teacher telling us about them. . . . About Grosse Île where there are so many trees you'd be sure to get lost, and then some sand dunes that don't grow enough grass to feed a cat.
And after that, Point-au-Loup where the wind blows wild in a rainstorm, then some more sand dunes.
Then, House Harbour Island with its long red capes and big hills shaped like upside-down ice cream cones, and even more dunes.
And Grindstone Island with a high cliff somebody just fell off and died, and still more dunes.
And then it's Amherst Island with its red sandstone rocks, and the long Sandy Hook reaching out like an arm towards Entry Island, then two miles of ocean, and then home.
Oh, what I can't stop thinking for the past three months is, "What if?" What if Farmer could get away from Johnny Ferguson? What if he could run fifty miles? What if he didn't get lost? What if he found enough to eat? What if he could swim across the ocean? What if my Farmer could come home?
But all the time I'm thinking, I'm sad because I hear my father saying, "even if he could, we'd have to give him back—because we made a deal."
Well. What makes me jump practically right out of Henry's Hollow is Jennifer screaming. I'm supposed to be watching her and I'm sure the poor wee child has fallen over the bank and drowned herself.
But no, she's at the edge. Screaming as if the devil's sailing by. "Come, Sarah, come, oh, look, Sarah, look, look, look," and on and on like that.
I can't imagine what has excited the child so. But, . . . look indeed! Out in the water between us and the Sandy Hook, a great fat shape is pushing through the water. It looks like a walrus or an elephant, but I and Jennifer, we know what it is!
We run to the beach and, yes, Farmer, my own dear Farmer, drags himself out of the water and shakes half the water in the ocean over us. Now he is galloping straight to the barn. We are galloping after him and the wind is grabbing my hair and my breath right away from me.
At the house we are shouting, "Dad, Grandad, come quick!" And they are running and we are jumping up and down and pointing to the barn. Farmer is in his stall. He's eating the old carrot ends and apple peels.
What Dad says when he sees Farmer is, "Well, did you ever?" And what Grandad says is, "Well, I never." And what wee Jennifer says is, "It's Farmer, Daddy! It's Farmer, Grandad! It's our own dear horsey, Farmer!"
And what I say after a long, long time when my throat's too tight to say anything is, "Can we keep him, Dad? Please. Can Farmer stay now? Home? Here? With us?"
Well. Dad is looking at Grandad and Jennifer and me and Farmer. And he's looking out across the water at Sandy Hook and Amherst and Grindstone and House Harbour and Point-au-Loup and Grosse Île.
And what my father says then is the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world. He says, "Sarah, it looks like you and I don't have any choice. It looks like Farmer has made up his own mind about where he wants to be."
And what I do then is throw my arms around Dad and Grandad and Jennifer all at once. And then I press my nose into Farmer's warm, dark throat. You see, I and Farmer, we know he's home to stay.
THE END
