Baby Breath revised, John Andrew Durler Sr. [best short books to read txt] 📗

close enough to see barnacles on their rough grooved skin. Sometime they dove, came up out of the water and belly whopped,
splashing tons of water in the air. Esau and Beth ate good food, working in the kitchen, and both gained weight.

One day, on deck, Esau glanced at the cover of a book a fellow passenger was reading by Upton Sinclair and he thought the name Sinclair was very American sounding. He dropped his papers overboard, along with Esau Litvak and became William Sinclair, because he thought Upton would not be believable. When they arrived at Ellis Island, he was detained for three weeks for not having a visa, but finally was given one for William Sinclair because he spoke and wrote perfect English.

They started their new lives under the rumblings of an impending war. He was fourteen when they married, legally, because he lied at Ellis Island and said he was 18. They got a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with the money they pooled, and furnished it from thrift shops and the Salvation Army. Beth became pregnant on the ship coming over, but that did not stop her from working. She Got a job in a dress shop, and William got one in a grocery store. Both were paid a dollar an hour, Beth worked forty hours a week, William thirty. Among them both, they made $70.00 a week off the books.

Work or her pregnancy never stopped their lovemaking. Eight months later Beth gave birth to a baby boy, they named Alex. Beth worked part time after the baby was six months old, and then, after his first birthday, she went back to full time. Adriana, the girl downstairs, babysat for 25 cents an hour.

William liked his job, working for Jacob Cohen in the corner grocery store two blocks away from their apartment. He starter bagging and weighing fruit and vegetables and writing the weight on the bag. He was instructed to write the weight an ounce more if the needle was closer to the mark, and if it was closer to the other mark, do the same thing. William did not think this was disreputable, because the old man always put something extra in the customers bag. When it was slow, he would have to go downstairs into the basement, and sort soda and beer bottles into their assorted cases, emptying the ones that still had liquid in hem, into a drain in the floor. Jacob's son who was there one day, after two months working, when William walked in, picked up his apron to tie it on and go to work. He was informed: "Jacob is very sick, and was taken to the hospital last night. He never told us he was coughing up blood, and I never wanted him to work here after my mother Hannah died . However, he was stubborn, and said his customers were his friends. We went over the books early this morning. He has not made any profits in the last two years. I'm not sorry to close this store and sell the building. Because he cared for you, and insisted that I give you your last paycheck in full, and an additional two weeks pay." He handled William an envelope, and said. "Leave the apron on the hook". He turned and walked back into the office.

A week later, William had not been able to find any work. He enlisted into the Army. Beth was upset, but he said it was the only way to make a living. She cursed him. "You inconsiderate bastard, you are leaving me, and going away to fight in a war, and maybe never coming back!"

"Beth. It is the best choice I have. I have no skills other than languages. The army will give them to me. You will have a steady monthly income."

She cried and pounded shoulder, chest and face, screaming "It is not fair," over and over, until William grabbed her arms, pulled her to him and held her, kissing her tears until she calmed down, and whispered, "I love you so much. However, there is no other way out for us. I will be careful, Beth, I will be very careful." Two days later, they made love on the couch.

Four years later, William walked in the bungalow Beth had moved into with Alex, now almost five years, and Florence Ann, who was conceived on the night he left aged three years and three months, whom nick named Flo Ann. William had seven thousand dollars, from savings, and mustering out pay. He bought a used car for $200.00. There was no work to be had there that would pay anything worthwhile. One day, he read in a newspaper, there were dairy farms for sale in upstate New York. They discussed it. Beth was excited. They loaded the car, left the furniture, bought a map of New York state from a gas station on Route 9 and headed for Delaware county that had the best deals. Driving and stopping for food and bathrooms, it took sixteen hours to arrive at the outskirts of Walton, at eight O'clock, on a Wednesday evening.

They found a hotel with a barbershop under it and checked in. The next morning, A local real estate broker was found and they started looking. The third property they were shown, was off Route 65, on Fish Hollow road, three miles from Hancock, and five miles from Walton. They crossed a bridge, drove down a rutted dirt road onto a patch of rounded pebbles. They faced a two story saltbox colonial house, with a wrap around porch. Up the hill facing the house was a red barn with an attached silo. The barn was built into the hill with another dirt road that started 20 feet from the patch of pebbles, and circled out of sight, behind the barn.

The house was completely furnished. It had running water and electricity. Upstairs had 2 bed rooms, a large bathroom, and up another flight of stairs was a walk around attic with a knotty pine tongue and groove flooring. Downstairs, had a formal dining room, a large eat in kitchen, another two bedrooms in kitchen, a small bathroom with a commode and a sink, a cupboard and a mud room.

Outside, there was a tool shed fifty feet from the barn. There were 30 cows in stalls in the barn, and two large workhorses. Moos, neighs, snorts and grunts filled the barn. The realtor said the cows had been milked and all the livestock fed. The farmer next door named Samuel Kellogg, took care of it. There was a concrete cooler built into the barn on four feet deep by five feet wide and eight feet long with a pipe running into it at one end, from a spring and out of the other end into a wooden trough 50 feet long and two feet wide in the barn yard that livestock drank out of, extending out into the corral, along the post and rail fence.

After being showed the house and barn, the realtor took them around its back and opened a large ten foot high, by eight foot long, set of doors, with a hasp and unlocked padlock on them. Inside there were stacks of hay on both sides, with wooden racks holding the hay, piled up eight feet high. A wood ladder was fastened to the wall at the front of the barn, going up to the top, and down to a chute, that had a rope attached. She explained that when hay was to be pitch forked down to feed the livestock, the chute was opened and tied to the large peg that stuck out from the side of a beam eight by eight inches that ran up to a notched beam on the ceiling. "This barn does not have one nail in it. The beams are notched an augured. Pegs were pounded in to hold it up, on all sides. The wood, I was told is Cyprus, that many call ironwood. You cannot drive a nail into it, no matter what you use or what size nail you use." Back at the car, the realtor explained, "there is an assumable mortgage on this property. With 20% down, there is no employment or credit check. It is a V. A. mortgage for $6, 500.00. The former owners signed the deed over to the bank and left. You need one thousand, and 50 dollars, to assume the mortgage, which is a 4% fixed rate mortgage with 15 years left on it. You will need three hundred dollars in title fees and closing costs. I have other buyers, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Two have looked at it, and three have appointments."

"We'll take it. Where do we sign? The realtor laughed, and said, "when we get back to my office, I will write up a contract, which you and your wife will sign. We take checks, or money orders. I will call the title company, and within three or four days you can have the keys.

The first year they lived on the farm, Beth had another boy she named, Sonny.


*******************

Four years later, at the end of August, 1950. The field to the left of the farmhouse was pregnant with timothy, rye, wheat and tall green grass that were starting to lie down. A trade deal was made with two men from Hancock, named Harry and Pete, to split the harvest. They would cut and bale the field into hay, and truck half to the Sinclair's barn and half to their barn. The field was half mowed that morning and the baler was hooked up to the truck and already baling.

Alex cooked, baked, cleaned, and not only watched Sonny, but took care of him. He changed, him, bathed him, groomed him, taught him the alphabet, how to count and played games with him and since everyone worked from sun up to sun down Alex did his chores before and after school, which was a one room school house on Fish Hollow road. He was his bedroom trying to get Sonny to take a nap. He could hear his five-year-old sister Flo Ann, out on the porch, playing with her dolls. She was supposed to be in here too, taking a nap, but she refused, saying she was big enough to be by herself. Alex knew if he tried to force her, she would scream at the top of her lungs, kick and squirm until mother or father came and gave Alex a slap or a reprimand.

Noises came from the field nearby; the roar of the truck's engine and the strange clack click clack of the baler. Between the rhythmic drone of the engine and the steady sound of the baler, Alex heard the muffled voices of his father and Pete, whose baler and truck were hired and his mother Beth. It was hot in the room, but cooler than the 90 degrees outside. Alex fixed everyone in his mind, determining where each one was. Harry, Pete's partner was calling from inside the truck. His mother and father were at the far end raking hay.

Sonny rubbed his eyes with his fists, "Alex, tell me a story."

"How about the Pied Piper?"

"No. I don't like that story. He took all the children away."

"OK, how about Tarzan and Cheetah?"

"Yes." Sonny said brightly. "Tell me the part where he rides
the elephant."

"Alex turned toward Sonny and started, "Once upon a time in the deep, dark jungle of Africa..."

Alex brushed Sonny's blond hair away from his