O’Malleys

Alice O'Malley was the first woman I ever saw who smoked cigarettes and wore combat boots. She chugged into our neighborhood one cold day in March in the 1940s on a Farmall B tractor pulling an old corn wagon filled with fence posts, rolls of woven wire, old gas cans, machine parts, and other junk that should have been dropped off at the junkyard. She waved gaily to us and stopped on our drive to meet and greet us. She wore said boots, old overalls, a sheepskin coat and a sheepskin hood that was open and dangling and blowing about her face. I was astonished how much she looked like Beulah Witch, the hand puppet who starred in “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.” And her voice was quite like Beulah’s—high pitched and raspy and unpleasant. At intervals she stopped and pulled in a deep breath and worked it down into her lower body some way and then made a hoarse gurgling phlegm sound and brought up respiratory secretions and spat them on the ground, and went on with conversation as naturally as simply breathing. Her cigarette package was emptying rapidly.

She and her brother, Horace, had just closed on buying the bankrupt farm across the road and they were now moving in. Horace was getting in his machinery today, and Daddy was valiantly trying to see what Horace had without seeming to care. Alice kept him busy asking questions such as how to get the telephone hooked up, where to buy coal and chicken feed, and where to put the mailbox. We saw Horace over across the way. He was an unusually tall man with quite a belly. He did not acknowledge us nor wave. Daddy who had already met him said he had shifty eyes and Daddy supposed he was a crook.

As Alice visited us, Momma introduced her to each of us and Alice whipped off her old flannel “chore gloves” to shake our hands. The hand she extended had three fingers where four ought to be. One had just a stump, the end of which looked like a wienie, and it wiggled when the rest of her hand moved. I couldn't look away from this and so missed a lot she talked about. She did let us know that she was fully capable of doing the farming if she needed to. And that they had a sister and husband back home who would come and help them any time they could. She referred to her sister as “Syst” and her husband as Lazarus. Laz was disabled and was sick most of the time. He was now raising coon dogs for a living. They had two sons, Lazarus, called Lilaz, and a son named Morton, but the family called him “Mouse.” Both boys were not in school “quite yet,” Alice reported. They were “nervous” and didn't get along in school very well, but once on the farm, they'd do better. So here were the O'Malleys to live on their farm for the next 30 years and every year was a dilly.

Those first weeks, Horace went to work with an ancient bulldozer fixed up with different colored parts, and lots of rust. It sounded like a jet from over at Offutt when he got it out to shove things. Down came the brooder house, the smokehouse, and the old pig shed. That was fine with the neighborhood. But then he dredged out the poplar trees along the drive, and then the orchard with the good apple trees we all depended upon. Behind that was the evergreen windbreak to the north that surely kept the farmstead protected from the wind. The pile of trash now was growing and could be seen from space, my Daddy said. He said if the fool ever lit that up, it would burn the county down. But all was mostly quiet over there.

They got a telephone put in and the ring on our party line for them was two shorts. Ours was three, so we really couldn't be faulted for running to pick up when the ring started. And we did! The calls they got were from Syst who called to tell of her problems, and they were legion! Poor Laz had to go on full time oxygen in order to breathe, and he couldn't hardly smoke without coughing. Now he has the sugar diabetes as well. No, he couldn't eat any sugar, corn syrup, molasses, honey, and you know that fruit is just loaded with sugar. They talked about vegetables, but me and Laz don't eat very many of those. Meat though! He can have all the meat, I guess he can eat! But now on top of all that he has the “prostrate!” Syst told Alice there was nothing much to do for the prostrate! She was giving him Dr Pepper. ”Yes, it says doctor right there on the bottle, so ya know it’s good for ya!”

One night, Syst had another story to tell of her own health. She had just been to the faith healer to complete her treatment of heartburn, indigestion, and gas. The man had started her with the laying on of hands, and got her a good start. Then he had to go to adjusting her neck and back (and one thing and another), and she felt pretty good, and could eat good again. He worked on her for several weeks and finally got her straightened out. It took a lot of back adjustment and shoulder attention, but she was finally feeling stronger and could eat good again. But now looming on her health horizon was her rapidly emerging bladder. Yes, there was evidence it was scabbing over and would need weeks of treatment perhaps twice a week. And vitamins. The most expensive you ever SAW! But she was sure the boys would be cured up and ready to visit the next weekend so save them room at the table!

What was wrong with the boys? Syst told that they were nervous boys who didn’t get along good at school, and never learned to read ner nothing. They did love television, so Laz got them a set and they did watch television good and learnt from it. Right now Lillaz was pounding with a hammer at an old pan that was leaking, and Mouse was outdoors somewhere. She hoped he wasn’t in the hen house again because he got them hens so riled up they wouldn’t lay an egg for a week. But the good thing was they were coming up to visit maybe Saturday.

One evening, Bonnie and I went to the milking barn to see Momma who worked with Daddy to do the twice a day milking. Recently they had started using electric milking machines and learning to use technology was cool! Bonnie and I had just escaped Aunt Isabel’s permanent wave siege. She was bound to make us attractive despite our genetic and cultural obstacles. Our fine hair stood out in a frenzy of frizz instead of nice smooth waves and curls as promised by the Toni Home Permanent package. We each looked like an explosion of fuzz had occurred on our scalps. We were astonished to find Alice in the barn with Momma observing the procedure of milking. Momma was working her most difficult cow, Idiot. Idiot was the queen of the cows and a trouble maker. She was a huge animal used to having her own way, bamboozling Momma in every way she could come up with. Just now she was lifting her great hind foot and inserting it into the web of hoses that attached the teat cups to her. When she had it jerked off, the cups hissed and sucked and jerked themselves about on the floor causing panic to Idiot (who knew exactly what she’d done) and tears of frustration to Momma. Idiot hopped around in panic as Momma tried to retrieve the machinery without either getting stomped. Ole Idiot was a caution. She moved gracefully side to side to avoid standing on this terrible serpent she had created. I looked at Alice and she was looking at Bonnie’s hair. She stepped forward and took Bonnie’s head in both hands and buried her face in that fuzz-her nose running. Then with that wiggly finger stump she petted that hair and opened her mouth and tasted it! I was horrified. I grabbed Bonnie’s sleeve and we retreated out of the barn and home giggling and gagging all the way. I made Bonnie wash her hair immediately even though it said right on the Toni box not to wash your hair right away due to some danger or other. I didn’t care, I did not think it worse than having Alice’s germs in your head! We teased Bonnie the rest of the summer about Alice going by and looking for Bonnie and her lovely hair!

Then it was strawberry time. My Momma was the guru of strawberry culture in the neighborhood. Her Senator Dunlap strawberries were fine. None better. She worked all year for that two or three week harvest. It was worth it. Occasionally if someone she knew and felt was worthy, they might come and pick a certain area of berries-under Momma’s supervision and approval. So it was a surprise one day to see Alice and her sister Syst, and two little boys in the strawberry patch. Alice shouted to Momma she had seen other cars at the patch and figured the fruit was ready so she just loaded up the family to come and pick some for supper. She and Syst were picking red beautiful strawberries by the hand full, and then squeezing them down rather tight so juice ran down their arms to their elbows. Every handful they picked would make two of unsqueezed.. Still they persisted even though Momma cautioned them not to squeeze because they wouldn’t be so good. “We don’t mind! they assured us. We love good juicy berries!” The little boys wrestled and stomped and slugged and battered each other and rows of strawberries with great energy.

After their rape of the patch, Momma told them the strawberries must rest now before they set on any further fruit, so she’d give them a call when the patch was ready again. That has been 75 years ago, and they have not received the call yet.

Later that same summer, Horace and Alice appeared at our back door to report that the boys would be staying through the school year, because Syst and Laz were going to take a semi over the road to make some money. Syst was a certified driver, and Laz couldn’t be without her due to his needing oxygen full time, besides all his care. We were told that we would be in charge of the boys getting to school and finding their way there. We were very unhappy at the thought. We didn’t know the boys and certainly didn’t like them. Alice told us they would be in the school band so we would help them there too. I asked what they played and she told us that Lillaz played an accor-deen, and Mouse had a banjo but he busted it. She might could get him another if she got to Omaha soon. Both, she insisted, were musical. Lillaz played “Tinn a sea Waltz,” and Mouse knowed all the words to that “Mairzy Doats” song. We were relieved as we thought nobody would allow an accordion and banjo into the school band. Then, the semi job fell through and Laz and Syst came and picked up the boys and took them back home to our joy.

Some years went by with only small upheavals at the O’Malley estate. One May-first picnic was outstanding because it came to be known that Horace was going to light the burn pile in the barnyard. It was so dry that no farmer had planted crops until it rained so the seed would have a chance of germinating. If a spark got away, it could ignite fence rows and old crop stubble and burn the timber areas and hay stacks and bridges all the way to Northboro. We all knew this. Did Horace?

We watched that morning and saw nothing amiss, until Syst and Laz showed up in a new station wagon full of coon dogs. Hounds-yapping, barking, baying hounds. The boys were packed in with the dogs and Syst who brought the picnic food. By the time Grandma and Momma and Bonnie and I walked over there, Syst and Laz were yelling at the dogs and the boys and each other and sometimes at Horace. Syst had wrestled the kitchen table out to the yard and was placing bowls of food out. The dogs were bounding about and snatching food items off the table, causing dust to fly and dogs to pant and bark, and growl, and Laz to nearly pass out puffing and yelling. The boys fought and bawled and shrieked. And then we saw Horace go to the burn pile with a blow torch and squat down and light something underneath the massive pile. Soon a sliver of smoke drifted out. He went to the other side and poked around with his blow torch. A little breeze came up. Then he went all round the pile and shot flame into it from everywhere. At once the pile caught. The buildings burned a bright white hot flame, and the trees below them burned less bright, but very hot. Then the windbreak evergreens caught and flame rose to the sky roaring and swirling in the breeze-now more of a gale. Someone went to call the fire department, but Horace wasn’t deterred. He kept goosing up the fire with something like glee. We all looked for an escape route just in case. A fire truck eventually came with firemen and extra water and grim looks. They took old gunny sacks soaked in water to the fence rows and beat out flame. Then they went back and found more bright flames shooting up behind them. The flame did race for the stubble fields and burned many acres with all the neighbors coming out to see what was going on. By noon it was pretty much burned out though the burn pile smoldered next to the hay barn for weeks. Horace was not a reliable neighbor. Nor was Laz a dog trainer, nor Syst a cook. The dogs ran wild and were not curtailed nor settled down all that night. We heard them go by in a pack baying and howling at midnight. There were some gunshots out there. Farmers do not like to think of dog packs out where their animals are pastured. I did not hear of anyone finding a dog carcass, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. Local gossip said Horace had let the dogs out and followed along and shot them one by one and got rid of the carcasses. Most of the guys were a little afraid of Horace and wouldn’t have set out to irritate him further. Eventually it did rain and the fire was forgotten except in the minds of the people who lived through this one.

The next summer was equally dry. The pastures were barely green and the wells were not filling up. The great pasture in front of our house looked particularly sad and dirt and dust actually swirled up in little whirlwinds—a certain sign of dry weather. One night we heard the sound of the old semi coming up the road and we watched as the tailgate of the semi was prised open under the yard lights. Out stumbled and bumbled the worst specimens of bovine life anyone had seen. Here were a mix of breeds: white-faced, Angus, Brahman, Holstein, and more than you could imagine. Included were cows and bulls and steers and calves, some appeared to be barely alive, some seemingly bloated.

There were cows with grown calves at their sides. Some bumbled to the ground and ran into posts; obviously blind animals. They coughed and sputtered and moaned. One had only three legs. Most were lame. Yet they were turned into this pasture with one windmill pumping water into a tank at the bottom of the hill. We knew this well couldn’t fill the tank more than once and these cattle were going to do without.

For 36 hours the cattle milled around the fenced pasture bawling and nibbling at the weeds. Then it turned quiet. The hoard was leaning against the fences looking at the green grass in the ditches. They looked weak and desperate. And then they were through. There was one out on the road, and then there were five and then the entire herd was stumbling and coughing and some even romping up toward our lawn and garden and barn yard. They were rushing and panting and wild-eyed. Each of us got a big stick. I had the kitchen broom, and we guarded our property, shouting and swinging and turning the cattle back toward their pasture. They were in the barnyard dipping their dry noses into the cold water of our stock tank. They were looking up at the fruit trees sticking out their ugly tongues as they attempted to pick the green pears, and summer apples. They were rushing at the garden where the rows were pristine and neat and I did not know my mother knew such language as she evicted three steers away from her row of green beans. Daddy went inside to call O’Malleys and tell them to come get these animals at once. They did and it was morning the next day that it was discovered there were deep hoof marks in the lawn and orchard. Trampled peony bushes, broken new fruit trees just planted. That was the first time there was a breakout of livestock from O’Malley’s. There were many, though none so dramatic during the next years. Some were because the semi pulled into their farm and as many cattle as could be persuaded to board the truck were taken away to parts unknown. Some of the rest of the wild and useless herd still live and inbreed there and can be viewed by driving by. You’ll not recognize the pedigree.

I grew up and left the farm, but the tales kept on. Eventually Lillaz took over most of the farming. My folks still called him Lillaz, though most called him Laz. Horace had died in his 90s in the Clarinda Mental Health Facility. Alice was taken to Syst’s home to live out her life. It was told that Laz played accordion on Saturday nights over at Midway Station. My folks threatened to take us all to hear him for as long as they lived on the farm. They never did.

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