Mowin'

On an early Spring day a small, stooped woman with shoulder length gray hair waited near a plain, battered mailbox. She was wearing a long dark dress over black boots. Her homestead, a collection of gray weathered outbuildings and a large red barn collapsing in upon itself lay across a busy highway in Southern Vermont. A solitary goat munched grass inside a wire enclosure. A cow flicked a languid tail. The yard needed mowing.

I felt a pang as I sped by in a stream of cars, dust whirling. How long would she have to wait, I wondered. And why didn't I stop?

On my way back into town, I stopped at a farm stand and bought a dozen purple tulips tied with a pink ribbon. I turned into the dirt driveway, walked to the front door of the sagging white house in need of paint and knocked. There were some geraniums on the windowsill. The door was opened by a gray haired woman of similar stature to the one who had been waiting by the roadside. She wore a dusky blouse and a blue skirt that fell to her knees, a straw hat and glasses. Her eyes looked sore.


"Hi," I said.  "I'm looking for a woman who was standing by the road this morning trying to cross against traffic."


"Oh, you mean my sister Ruth," the woman said. "She ain't here. She's to market."


"Oh," I replied, disappointed. "I brought her these flowers to say I'm sorry that I didn't take time to stop."


The woman peered at me. "Ay-yup."


I handed her the bunch of purple tulips. 


"I'm Mildred," she said.


"Hello, Mildred, I'm Amy," I smiled.


"Ay-yup, people just race up and down; sometimes it takes Ruth near a half hour to get acrost the road. She's only goin' for the mail."


"I see," I murmured.


"It's just Ruth and me here now. Our cousin died last year. He used to help us out with chores and such."


"What sort of chores?" I asked. I straightened my shoulders. "Maybe I can help."


"Well, you jist missed the milkin,'" Mildred remarked.


"Oh, no," I said, having never milked a cow, but eager to try. "Maybe I could help with that another time."


"Uh huh," said Mildred.


"As a matter of fact, I'll be right back." I walked to my car and wrote my name and phone number on a piece of paper. I handed it to Mildred, who stood with the purple tulips resting in the crook of her arm.


"If you ever need help with anything, will you give me a call?"


"Ay-yup," Mildred said. "See, we plant marigolds over there." She pointed to an old tractor tire filled with dirt lying on the ground. Someone had cut a design in the rubber. "We save the seeds."


Mildred and I looked around her yard. "We keep some chickens, and I've got a goat, and my sister's got a cow up t' pasture."


"Whatever I can do," I said. "And please say hello to Ruth."


A few days later I was in bed recovering from a virus when the phone rang.


"The yard needs mowin'," a voice said.

"Mildred?" I croaked. "I'll be there directly."

I found the old push mower in a corner of the barn covered with an empty grain sack, and for several hours I dragged and shoved it around the sisters' yard through prickers and matted grass. Mildred planted marigold seeds. I coughed and dripped sweat, but when I quit there was a tidy area of rocky yard. 

I told Mildred good-bye, and promised to be back in a few days to finish up.


Two days later I got a hand-written note.

Hi Amy
We hope you are feelling better from our cold.
We are paying you $7 dollars 
for mowing of some our lawn 
for us.
One of our nephew mawed the 
rest. For us.