Back down one of the old dirt roads I used to frequent, past the rotting remains of the home of a reputed “root woman”, just beyond a falling down tobacco barn, there lies an almost forgotten grave. While such are not uncommon around here, this one has a homemade concrete tombstone. Again, not unheard of, just a bit unusual.
But this one was for a mule.
Molly “served faithfully” for 20 years, according to her epitaph, and passed away in 1939. Molly, by the way, is the correct term for referring to a female mule. At first glance there was no way to tell if Molly was her proper name or if it was just a generic reference. Indeed, I have known at least three mules named Molly. This one earned a headstone, which made me curious. I found the quiet blackberry bramble 60 years after Molly went on to green fields and cool water.
It took some work, but I found out the old girl with the less than original name snaked logs out of swamps to build the family home, hauled a tobacco sled, plowed the fields and took the family to church. She pulled the wagon bearing the coffin of the man who bought her, as well as one or two kids. Their graves are at a church a few miles away.
Molly spent a year or so in retirement, from what I was told, before she laid down and never woke up. She wasn’t replaced by another mule, but with a secondhand Ford tractor that came with both lugged wheels and rubber tires. That tractor served its own two decades and then some. The descendants I spoke with weren’t sure what had happened to the tractor, but they remembered Molly from family gatherings and tobacco fields and the time she stood off a bear threatening the hog pen full of piglets. My historians were small children at the time, and one only knew Molly’s stories from hearing family members recount her adventures years later.
I thought of Molly at Southern Farm Days last weekend; the good folks with the Cape Fear Farm Heritage Association put on the show every year. Collectors of old tractors, farm implements, and other folks gather by the thousands. Some are there for the show, and to show off their beautifully restored equipment, while others are there for the fellowship or to learn how their grandparents and great-grandparents pulled a living out of the land. And yes, there’s usually a demonstration of plowing with a mule.
I was too busy to wander around as much as I wanted, but I had to give in to my lust for rust and check some of the machines on display. I was chided good-naturedly by one of the organizers for having given up on my own tractor project, but he understood that the new owner wanted it more than I did, and was better skilled at all the work the old girl needed.
I did get to see one gentleman of a certain age, faded cap creased just so, leaning on his walker while he explained to a little boy about the intricacies of a 1950s tractor that was similar to the one his father had purchased new. The tractor on display looked just like he remembered the one from his youth when it came home from the dealer, bought on time and prayer and the vagaries of the tobacco market, then driven home from town. The patriarch visited with the owner of the show tractor, who even let the little fellow in overalls and tiny Ariat boots climb aboard for a photo. I’m not sure how many generations of that family were there, but it looked to be at least three, if not four. All were content to move along at Grandpa’s pace, thus showing a patience and courtesy far too rare nowadays.
On the way in to work the next day, I spotted a huge sprayer tractor working its way across a field; the driver was in a climate-controlled cab, likely even using a computer to aid in proper spread and dispersion of whatever was coming out of the high-pressure jets behind the monstrosity. That particular field I know for a fact was once plowed by a farmer with a lone mule (later two) and the assistance of a brood of children. Where soybeans and corn now grow green and then gold, the field was once bright green with tobacco, suckered, chopped and strung by hand, then hauled to the auction in a Levergood or Thornhill wagon (until the family could afford a truck). Whether the operator I saw was descended from that original farmer I cannot say; in this day of corporate farming, I doubt it, but at least they’re still farming that land. It hasn’t become a field of toxic solar panels or been converted to acres and acres of cookie cutter homes.
The massive sprayer, which likely cost more than many farm families made in their lifetimes a few decades ago, was a big, soulless machine. That’s all it needs to be, of course, but it was just a machine. It’s even unlikely that it can be repaired or serviced by the farmer or a local mechanic. If it breaks down, I can about guarantee nobody could fire up a forge in an old shed and create a part from scrap metal on an anvil in the middle of a rainstorm. And I guarantee you it will never be treated like a beloved pet in its old age.
I am not so naïve as to think farming could be better if we went back to old tricycle Farmalls and Fords; the amount of farm production needed to feed the world makes the old ways impossible in many circumstances. And yes, I have done just enough old school farming (on and behind a Farmall, not a mule) to know there’s nothing romantic about hard, hot, frustrating work. Nobility, yes — but romance? Hardly.
But I do wonder if anyone will ever reminisce over a GPS-guided Massey Ferguson with air conditioning and a stereo; will a great grandson pose on an adjustable seat with lumbar support while his mom snaps a picture and his grandfather rests his hand on the lift levers?
When one of those massive tandem-tired tractors finally wears out after years of plowing an acre an hour, will anyone ever go to the trouble to pour a cement tombstone and write that it “served faithfully”? Likely not.
Even though the tools change, the heart of the farmer is still the same. A man I admired, the late George Upton, was the first cooperative extension director I knew very well. He always said that America’s farmers were the first environmentalists, and I believe he was right.
The man who remembers walking behind a mule passed the love of the earth down to those who laid awake nights worrying about whether they could pay for tractors; their sons and daughters did the same, although the tractors were newer, bigger and stronger, the methods more efficient. And although the farmers are fewer in number, the next generation does the same, fighting with environmental rules and taxes and weather and people who think food comes from the grocery store, all hoping that the season’s yield pays the year’s bills.
It takes a love of the earth, a love of seeing things grow, a love of the harvest, and a love of all that was passed down from those who, like Molly the Mule, faithfully served.
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