‘Only you were in a dream, same as always,’ his mother said grimly. ‘You’re a good hard worker, Alec, I wouldn’t deny that, but you don’t always concentrate too good. Best get them sprouts right away, then bring the cows in. This evening we’ll make some butter; Dad can take that to market with him tomorrow. He brought in half a dozen rabbits earlier and they’re all dressed and ready and I’ve boxed up a few eggs, though the hens never lay good at this time of year. But it should be enough to pay the rent, especially if this damned rain lets up.’
‘Right, Ma. I’ll fetch the sprouts and then get the cows in an’ I’ll work like a perishin’ slave to do it afore Dad comes for his tea,’ Alec said remorsefully. The life of a tenant farmer was a hard one and he was well aware that his parents needed every bit of help he could give. Slogging out to the sprout field, he reminded himself of how he loved the land and everything to do with it. In summer, he revelled in the hard work, the heat of the hayfield, the constant, never ceasing round of daily tasks. Spring and autumn were bearable, and sometimes enjoyable, but he and his parents simply loathed the winter. Despite Mr Hewitt’s care, a field of winter cabbage had rotted in the ground because of the constant onslaught of the rain and the Five Acre, normally an excellent meadow full of sweet grass, had become poached and marshy for the same reason. Clark and Gable, the two mighty shire horses who shared the work of the farm, were apt to hang around by the gate at the lower end of the meadow and the mud there was so deep that only last week Alec had all but lost a wellington boot in it. He had managed to dredge it up from the depths, full of mud and small stones, and his mother had cleaned it up for him so that he was able to wear it once more, but now he avoided the lower end of the Five Acre, not wanting to risk a similar occurrence in which he might be unable to retrieve the boot.
He reached the sprout field, eyeing the long rows unenthusiastically. As each plant was picked clean, he cut the stem down with the knife he always carried, so he knew where he should start. The trouble was that the sprouts came to marketable size at different times, which meant that all along a row which had been mostly cut down there would be odd plants still waiting to be harvested. He knew he should really start on them, get them out of the way, but in view of the violence of the weather he decided against it. It can’t possibly rain all winter, he told himself, beginning to snap the sprouts off a particularly well-grown plant. The family never ate the actual sprouts themselves but used the bushy tips of the stalks instead, so Alec shoved the plant tops into the bottom of his sack as he worked.
By the time the sack was full, Alec’s hands were so cold that, mercifully, he could no longer feel them, and without the shelter of the sack across head and shoulders his ears, nose and chin were in a similar condition. He was glad to lean the full sack against the nearest hedge whilst he went across the field and into the Five Acre to fetch the cows home. The Hewitts possessed six cows and used their landlord’s bull to keep the cows in milk. Most of the milk was either sold locally, used by the Hewitts themselves, or turned into butter for market. Normally, Alec would have brought Patch out with him to fetch the cows from the top of the pasture, but he had not thought it fair to do so on this occasion because it would have meant Patch’s hanging around in the rain whilst he, Alec, picked the sprouts. Still, cows are pretty eager to be milked as the day wears on and their udders fill up, so Alec threw open the gate and shouted and presently the cows, a motley bunch, came surging out of the field, brushing joyfully past him and heading for the yard. On the other side of the hedge, Alec could hear Clark and Gable slithering and snorting as their great hooves met the mud and became mired to the fetlock, but he did not intend to let the horses into the yard, though he would bring them a bale of hay later and chuck it into the meadow where the mud was not so bad. Until then, the great horses would just have to endure the rain and turn their backs to the wind as they always did in rough weather.
Alec retrieved the sack of sprouts and hurried back to the farmyard in the wake of the herd. His favourite cow was Fenny, a gentle thorn-coloured creature who had caught his fancy at Acle Market some three years previously, when he had been a mere lad of thirteen. He had pointed out her many charms to his father and since she was undersized and going cheap Bob Hewitt had taken a chance and bought the wide-eyed, wobbly-legged calf, warning his son that if she did not thrive and prove a good milker she would have to be sold on. Fortunately, despite her small size, Fenny had always produced a high yield of very rich milk, and so far her calves had all been heifers. Mr Hewitt told his son that he thought Fenny was probably almost pure-bred Jersey, which would account for the richness of her milk and her small size, and the family thought themselves lucky indeed to own her.
The cows did not need to be persuaded into the cowshed tonight; they jostled and pushed in the doorway, steam rising both from their hides and their nostrils, each animal making for her own stall and beginning without delay to pull down mouthfuls of hay from the rack before her. Alec’s father came into the cowshed, his pipe clamped between his teeth, and grunted approval when he saw his son tethering the cows and then fetching milking stools and galvanised buckets from the end stall. ‘You start that end, bor, an’ I’ll start this,’ he said gruffly. ‘Your ma want to make butter so keep Fenny’s milk separate from the rest. We don’t need a great deal ’cos there won’t be many folks at market tomorrow if this here rain keep up. I reckon we’ll make it in the kitchen, sittin’ round the fire and a-warming our toeses.’
‘Aye, right you are,’ Alec said, taking his place by Fenny and burying his head in her warm flank. The rich creamy milk began to hiss into the bucket and Alec glanced sideways at his father, amused as always that the older man had continued to grip his pipe upside down. In wet weather he always did this to stop the bowl filling with rain, but he usually forgot to right it again when the rain stopped, though his wife and son often teased him about it.
The two men were experienced milkers and very soon they were pouring the still warm milk from their buckets into the cooler from where it ran into the churn, though Alec kept Fenny’s milk to one side. In summer, they made the butter in the tiny tiled room just off the cowshed which did duty as a dairy, but in winter the churn was carried into the kitchen and the three members of the family took it in turns to work the handle until the milk gradually thickened into butter. Alec’s mother would then add salt to taste and carry the lump of butter back into the dairy where she would divide it into half-pound slabs and mark it with a wooden paddle which had a relief of a cow on it. Then the butter would be neatly wrapped in greaseproof paper and kept on the cold slab until it was taken off to market.
The milking done, Alec and his father headed for the pump in the yard. It was a familiar routine; turn and turn about, they stripped and washed or pumped the icy well water up from the ground, and when they were both clean and respectably clad once more they made for the back door, eager to be in the warm. There were still jobs to be done, of course: pigs and horses to be fed, to say nothing of the poultry, though that was Mrs Hewitt’s task. The cows would have to be taken back to their pasture in the morning, the horses fed on bales of hay and some chopped mangolds, whilst the wild cats which thronged the barns would have a dish of milk and water put down for them and Cherry and Patch would wolf any scraps left over from the Hewitts’ own meal.
Indoors, Mrs Hewitt was waiting for them. At this time of year, they never ate until darkness had fallen, but after milking Mrs Hewitt always provided mugs of tea and a good-sized slice of cake. Sometimes it was an apple cake, sometimes a fruit loaf, and occasionally, when eggs were plentiful, a jam-filled sponge as light as a cloud and so delicious that it rarely lasted longer than a day, but whatever Mrs Hewitt provided it was always good and set father and son up for the tasks which lay ahead.
Today, it was a large slab of ginger cake, sticky topped and smelling of spices. Alec was halfway through his portion when he remembered the puppy and glanced around. He soon spotted it curled up in an old box stuffed with hay and smiled at his mother. ‘She looks right at home and I guess you’ve already fed her,’ he said. ‘I was going to offer her a bit of my cake but I reckon she need all the sleep she can get right now. When do you think I ought to go and tell Mr Drayton we’ve found one of his pups half drowned in a ditch? What if he want her back? Only she’d mebbe stray again; she need someone to watch over her, eh, Ma?’
Bob set his mug down on the table. ‘He won’t want it back,’ he said authoritatively. ‘His bitch had a big litter; this one’ll be the runt. He’s a hard man but he wouldn’t let a pup starve, so he’ll be glad if your ma will take this one on.’ He glanced across at the slumbering pup. ‘I dare say it’ll be more trouble than most, for them red setters are all scared of their own shadows and daft as day-old chicks, but if you and your ma want the responsibility I s’pose I’ll hatta go along wi’ it.’
Although the winter had been a wet one, spring came early. The trees which surrounded the Hewitts’ farmhouse were in full leaf by the end of April, and by May the grass was well grown and the Hewitts were looking forward to an excellent hay crop. Alec, trudging along the lane that led to the village, one warm May evening, was comfortably aware that the family were beginning to do more than just keep their heads above water. For as long as he could remember, his father’s ultimate ambition had been to own the farm and the land upon which he worked so hard, but because of the Depression such a thing-had not yet been possible. Only the previous day, however, Mr Hewitt had taken the pony and trap into Stalham and had come back with a satisfied look on his ruddy, weather-beaten face. Alec had met him in the lane and had turned back to open the gate. His father had driven into the yard and then gestured to Alec to accompany him while he took the pony from between the shafts and made all tidy.
The men worked together amicably, and once the pony was untacked and the trap manhandled into the cart shed Alec went to rub Feather, the pony, down, assuming that his father would leave him to do the simple task. Instead, Bob followed him into the stable. Alec would not have described his father as a silent man but as a man of few words, who seldom chatted or passed on gossip, so he guessed that it was important when his father remarked: ‘While I was out this morning, I decided it was time I took the bull by the horns, so I went into the estate office and had a word with Mr Mathews, Mr Rumbold’s agent. I explained as how I’d always wanted to own my own farm; I knew the estate wouldn’t want to sell our place but I wondered whether there might be another farm nearer the edge of the estate which they’d consider selling. Mr Mathews, he laughed, but in a nice sort o’ way, and said that Mr Rumbold wasn’t thinkin’ of selling anything, not after all the work he and his forebears had put in, drainin’ the marshes and settin’ up the Horsey windmill to pump the water into the mere. It was only what I expected, o’ course, but I must ha’ looked a trifle downcast because he suddenly said: “Have you ever thought of increasing your acreage, Mr Hewitt? Only old Mr Brown can’t manage his place no more and his son, Billy, int interested in takin’ on the farm when his dad goes. It’s hard up agin your land and I’m pretty sure Mr Rumbold would be happy for you to increase your holding by taking on Mere Farm. There’s a neat enough house, though it’s a bit run down, and your lad will be wantin’ his own home one of these days. I know the land int up to much,” he say, “but that’d be reflected in the rent, o’ course.”’
‘I say, Dad,’ Alec breathed, knowing that his face was shining at the prospect of increasing the size of their holding. ‘That’d be as good as owning our own place, wouldn’t you say? Rumbold’s always been a good landlord, not the sort to increase the rent just because a tenant increases the value of the land he’s workin’, and one of these days I’d like a place of me own. So what did you say?’
‘We shook hands on it,’ Mr Hewitt said proudly. ‘Mr Mathews, he’s a man of his word, and old Brown is leaving to go and live with his daughter in King’s Lynn when he’s done harvestin’. A’course, there’s forms to be signed and agreements to be reached an’ that, an’ old Brown will want us to buy the dead stock as well as the livestock, but I reckon it won’t fetch much and I don’t grudge giving the old feller a bit o’ pocket money for his retirement. Well? What d’you say?’
Alec knew that dead stock did not mean dead cows and pigs but was the term used for such things as carts, ploughs, harrows and so on, right down to a trowel for transplanting garden plants and the rakes and pitchforks used to turn the hay. He grinned at his father, glad that Bob Hewitt was a generous man and not likely to quibble over such things, for of course they were unlikely to need a good deal of the dead stock, though it could always be put by to be used when their own implements were worn or broken. ‘I think you’ve done real well, Dad,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I allus look forward to harvest, but it’ll be better than ever next year because we’ll be doubling the size of the farm. Poor old Brown. It’ll be a blow to him, surely? I remember you telling me once that he and his son Tom were grand neighbours and first rate farmers, but that was before Tom was killed in the war, of course.’
‘Aye. Tom’s death seemed to take all the stuffing out of his father – and he’s Mr Brown to you, young man – especially when it became clear that Billy waren’t interested in the land. Perhaps it were because he were always havin’ Tom thrust down his throat, or perhaps it was because Billy’s an idle young blighter, but I ‘member Mr Brown sayin’ he were downright glad when Billy took off and found himself a job as postman down Stalham way. He got more work out o’ his farmhands than he ever got out of his own son and that’s a bitter thing for a man to have to accept.’