It was a busy time around Dunadry and the countryside for that matter, weeding gardens, repairing fences, repairing roofs and especially cleaning windows. The high school exams were over. For the students it was like being let off a chain. Some were going to be astronauts. Some were going to take over the family farm, but for others, it was a time of reckoning. For a few that were the comics of the class or didn’t take their schooling seriously, their marks showed just how far they had thrown the caber.
Phoebe was well satisfied with her marks. Ninety-three in social studies, eighty-nine in math; a total of ninety-two. Now the next act on the program was for her to get her applications in the mail. She was not concerned about summer work. She knows that she could get all the work that she was able to do. This being a special summer, the trick was to accept the best paying work as she required all the money she could muster as mum and dad we’re not in a position do finance her to any great extent although they would give the shirts off their backs if they thought it would help her.
At the church on Sunday, Nancy told Phoebe that Aunt Helen was coming down in two weeks. I’m sure, Phoebe, she will be expecting to have a pow wow with you. Is that alright”
“Nancy, I’m looking forward to it.”
Now the fruit season was beginning to perk up. The Gregson factory was lining up help for their strawberry pack beginning in a week. The superintendent had approached Phoebe and ordered her a job as conveyor belt inspector for thirty-five cents an hour. Well money was talking. How on earth would she face Dell when the going rate was thirty-five cents. She told Dell of her Gregson offer.
Dell said, “Well, Phoebe, that puts me on the spot. Well, Phoebe, we want you here in the strawberry patch at thirty-five cents and hour. We can’t afford to pay you more than the rest of the help. Well, Phoebe, here is the solution. We will keep track of all your hours for the season. We will then add the five cents difference to all of them hours and you will call it a bonus. So, between you and I and Nancy and the gatepost, it will be a company secret. And, Phoebe, that may not be all. We are going to be behind you, Phoebe, all the way.”
Phoebe and Nancy were now very busy directing the pickers in the ten strawberry acre patch, supplying boxes and markers, not to mention collecting the cash. It was the first picking so, by the end of the weekend, Aunt Helen would be down at the farm.
Come Sunday, sure enough, Dell and Nancy showed up at church accompanied by Aunt Helen. After the service, they took Phoebe home with them for dinner. At dinner, a lot of the conversation was as to how the berries were turning out and how did the blossoms look on different varieties.
Aunt Helen was just thinking just how could you get them to switch the conversation from berries to something of her interest.
Aunt Helen horned in. “You know, two weeks ago it was on Wednesday, Reverend Clarendon went over to the church pulpit to arrange some papers that he had there for the Sunday service. Coming down the steps, he tripped and fell down three steps. They rushed him to the hospital thinking that he had broken a leg. As it happened, he had only pulled a muscle. He was on crutches for two days.”
Nancy said, “By the way, did you speak to anyone concerning Phoebe?”
“Indeed I did. I mentioned it to Rev. Clarendon. He said that he would have to take it up with the choirmaster. A few days later, Mr. Gilson stopped in to see me. And I told him that Thanksgiving and the Christmas season was definitely a no-no. He said that he admired you for that. He thought seriously for a minute or so and said, ‘I was wondering, we are having a special service on November the twenty-first. We are going to burn our mortgage. It will be a very special service and a very special music. I’m wondering if that girl could handle that. Her being a girl out of town, we would have to get together and rehearse with the program. Maybe that would be a tall order for her.’ Mr. Gilson went on, ‘Reverend Clarendon will conduct the morning service and the Hon. Rev. Brownlow, moderator of the United Church, will take over the evening service. We would have to have that girl down here about a week prior to the service to see if she could settle in. She would have to have at least three practices in the empty church and at least two practices with the full choir. Our choir will be practicing at least twice before the service.’”
Helen said, “Well, at least it will be freeze up down here in this part of the country so there will be no interruption of the fruit harvest. Mr. Gilson, I don’t know what to tell you, I do know that she is the best I ever heard. Mr. Gilson scratched his head. ‘Well, Helen, if you arrange for her to come down here at for least a the service… You know, Helen, in a service like this I will have to have a stand in. What if you and I, one fine day, make a day of it and drive down there so that I could meet this girl. You know I only met her briefly that Sunday at church.’”
“Well, Mr. Gilson,” Helen said, “I will give it a lot of thought. I would think that could be arranged. It is a beautiful country. What day of the week would be convenient for you?”
“The early part of the week is best for me, but anyhow I will leave it up to you.”
Dell and Nancy, when they got the news from Aunt Helen, were elated.
“If we set a date or a certain day and Phoebe has to lose any time, we will see to it that her pay goes on just as usual.”
They passed the news on to Phoebe. Phoebe didn’t know how to take it.
“Suppose they landed here and we are busy in the tomatoes?”
“Phoebe, it’s not like that. Auntie will arrange a date that will be suitable for us all.”
After Phoebe had left, Dell said to Nancy. “Suppose that Aunt Helen and the choirmaster arrived here, do you suppose that Phoebe he would give the choirmaster a little sample of her talent?”
Nancy and Phoebe had all the berries cleaned up. They were having a lunch in the patch, beating the flies off with their straw hats. Nancy was gazing at the horizon, half in a trance.
“You know, Phoebe, we are bloody slaves to these farms. What’s the bloody answer? We have harvested this ten acres of berries. Now we have four acres of pick-your-own peas looking us in the face. The raspberries will be ready next week. After that the blueberries and cherries. Dell is working his head off in the hay. Then the daddy of them all is the fifteen acres of tomatoes. It’s like the old Indian said, White man works most of the year putting up firewood to watch it go up in smoke in the winter. Phoebe, never marry a farmer. It’s like that big ragweed by the fence bottom there.” Nancy burst out laughing. “How’s that’s for a sermon, Phoebe? Did you ever go past Rubsy’s Resort and see them city folk all sitting out in the shade drinking beer and eating ice cream and the kids wading in the lake while we here are sweating our bloody heads off? Which of us are the fools?”
“I know,” said Phoebe, “but if some of them people were caught out in a snowstorm, thet couldn’t make it. You rub them all out and start drawing them all over again. We can keep on dreaming.”
It was coming to that time of year when sixteen and eighteen hours day was not uncommon. Women were preserving for the cold and blustering winter which is sure to come. The June and July weather was getting up to ninety degrees and that is no picnic in a steel barn mowing away hay. Dell Sinton swears that sleep time is getting so limited that when he has to rise in the morning, the braces of his overalls are still swinging on the chair.
Nancy had a letter from Aunt Helen. In the letter, Aunt Helen said that if it were convenient for us, her and Mr. Gilson would try and make it down here on the last Saturday in August, having in mind the possibility of an interview with Phoebe.
Nancy said to Dell, “That presents a problem right there. The Gregson factory will be going full blast processing the tomato crop all through August and Phoebe is so honorable that she wouldn’t like to leave them shorthanded. This year, Phoebe is quality checking the tomatoes as they come out of the cookers. We will inform Phoebe what Aunt Helen has in mind.”
Phoebe told Nancy that there was a possibility that it might work out alright. “The factory might be closed that weekend as a tomatoes are tapering off. They won’t want to start the factory running unless there are two thousand crates of tomatoes on the platform. They may close up for that weekend and give the farmers time to deliver the crates. I should be able to let you know the Wednesday before the last Saturday. Mr. Gregson is generally around watching the operation and I’m sure that he won’t mind me inquiring.”
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