Christmas with Tucker Read online

  For years I grumbled about it, as any kid would, but like hot days in February, I accepted that dogs were not part of the McCray landscape.

  Now this no-name dog was sitting in the truck and I didn’t know what to make of it. Part of me was excited, but there were other, unsettling feelings, too. At that point in my life, I needed the world to be arranged according to rules that I could count on, even when those rules were unpopular.

  In my life, the one rule that children counted on most had been broken: parents don’t leave their children. That rule I considered inviolate. For me, there was an obvious corollary, too: a boy doesn’t lose his dad in a tractor accident on a hot summer afternoon. My father, John Mangum McCray, was here one morning as he had always been, ate breakfast, went outside to work, and by that afternoon, was gone forever.

  Now this dairy cattle and dogs don’t mix rule was being broken, too. Deep down, I was sure that I would never be allowed to have a dog, and though I resented it, it was still one of the rules that I counted on to keep my crumbling universe in order. It was somehow frightening to see this rule broken. Which rule was going to be broken next? What had I done wrong to be the only kid in my school who had lost a parent? I felt as if I were being punished, but I didn’t understand why. Somehow, my father’s death spoke some dark truth about me. Surely, good kids didn’t lose their dads—only the unworthy and the undeserving are so fated. What had I done?

  There was more swirling around in my mind, too. I put my hand on the stock gate release and hesitated before pulling the latch. Surprises had lost their appeal. I just didn’t know what to do or how to feel about this most recent unplanned event. The latch release needed oil and it creaked as I opened the rear stock gate. I made a note to myself to squirt some oil on the hinge.

  Standing in the truck bed, hesitant but with his tail wagging, was a beauty of a dog. I had never seen Thorne’s dog up close. Though he seemed thin and needed cleaning up, he had long red hair and looked to be an Irish setter. I opened the door fully and reassured him. “It’s okay, boy. I won’t hurt you. Come on, jump on down.”

  He took very little coaxing. He ran at me full speed and jumped. Surprised, I scrambled backward and fell onto my backside. Instinctively, I raised my arms over my head to protect my face from an attack.

  This assault was not, however, of a violent nature. In fact, it was more a matter of his smothering me with affectionate kisses and trying to nuzzle me to my feet. The dog put his cool, wet nose to my face as if we were the closest of friends, cruelly separated but now reunited. I laughed and pushed him away gently. “Enough!”

  It was no use; he was back on me, demanding attention. I got up and took a few steps, hoping to gain some separation, but he chased after me, nipping playfully at my feet. He seemed to take great pleasure in knocking me to the ground so he could jump back on me and pummel me with canine attention.

  Trying a different tactic, I just froze. He backed a few feet away from me and started barking, demanding that I play with him. I started to run away, hoping he would chase after me, but he was so excited that he set out circling the house at full speed, his big, floppy, red ears going up and down as he bounded by me. I wondered if doggie Christmas had arrived early for this pooch.

  After two quick loops around the house, he decided to return his focus to running circles around me like an Indian war party, substituting yelps and excited high-pitched barks for war cries. I decided to take the offense and dove on top of him, knocking him down. Before he could recover, I jumped up and ran off. He rolled over, and we began a long game of tag, now both of us circling around the yard at a furious pace.

  We wrestled, ran, and played for nearly an hour, until finally the sun began to set. The dog seemed to have endless energy, so eventually I just collapsed on the ground and covered my face with my arms. He rested his head on my chest while I tried to catch my breath.

  The back porch door slammed as Grandpa walked out and calmly petted the dog as he rested by my side. He shaped a homemade collar and leash by making a slipknot in an old length of rope and looped it around his neck. “Come on, boy,” he said reassuringly.

  The dog followed my grandpa obediently. He was a totally different creature now—alert, quiet, and respectful—like he was working and not playing. Grandpa walked him around the yard for a few minutes. Then he led the dog toward me as if to reintroduce us.

  They stopped a few feet away from me and, as he was apt to do, Grandpa summed up the dog and my life in a few sentences. “He’s a bit older for a puppy, but he has great potential. You can practice with this dog for a month or so. Maybe, after Christmas, when you go to Minnesota, your mom will let you get a dog of your own.”

  “I’m not sure if I want to go to Minnesota.”

  “Your mother misses you. She needs you.”

  My dad wasn’t the only rule breaker. My mom had “left” me, too—albeit with my blessing—moving off the farm at summer’s end to be near her parents in Minnesota. My sisters were both in college there and Mom, wrapped in grief, simply couldn’t bear to be on the farm without my dad. Back in August, when she decided we should move, I asked her if I could stay for a while longer.

  I understood that she needed to get a new start on life, but I just wasn’t ready to leave. I asked to stay on the farm until Christmas, and she reluctantly agreed. It had seemed so simple, but I was beginning to realize that the plan had grown complicated as each passing day made me question what “home” really meant.

  “Don’t put me in the middle of this, George.”

  I took the homemade leash away from him. “The truck gate needs oil. I’ll do it.”

  “Dinner will be ready soon,” he said, as if he were relieved to change the subject, too. “It’s going to turn cold tonight. After you oil the hinge, you had better plug the heaters into the stock tanks or your chickens won’t have water. By the end of the week, it could start snowing, too.” He looked down at our new charge. “When you’re finished, please put Frank’s dog on the back porch, where he can stay warm.”

  He started to turn away, so I caught his attention. “Grandpa?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning back to me.

  “I don’t think Mr. Thorne deserves a dog if he is going to just tie it up all day.”

  Grandpa paused for a few seconds, considering his words. “I don’t know about that. All I know is that Thorne is gone for now. So I did him a favor. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did what I thought I had to do.”

  He stood there for a few moments longer, alternating glances between me and the dog. He seemed lost in thought. Finally, he turned away and walked toward the back porch of our old house, but not before issuing one last instruction. “George, if it snows on Friday, as much as they say it might, I’ll need you to help with the morning milking while I run the road maintainer. Can you do that?”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “Sure, I guess,” and walked off to do my work.

  Chapter 4

  OUR FAMILY owned and operated McCray’s Dairy, which would have passed to my father had he lived, and then on to me. Dairy farming sounds almost picturesque to city dwellers, but in reality it was a combination of some of the hardest things about farming. Keeping cows fed and watered was a giant task—and that was before you even got to the milking part.

  In the summer months, the cows foraged in the meadows around our farm for their own food, but to produce maximum quantities of milk, we also provided our small herd with grain year-round. The grain had to be grown, harvested, and stored. During the summer, we also put up large amounts of hay, which is just grass—cut, dried, and put into bales, which can be fed to the cows during the winter months when the fields are fallow.

  Watering a herd of cattle is no small task, either. It is essential that dairy cows have lots of water available to them. Each cow drinks between twenty-five and fifty gallons of water a day, depending on the weather. On a hot August day, even a small herd of dairy cattle would need a thousand gallons.


  Unfortunately, in the 1960s, rural water service was almost unheard-of in Kansas. Farmers had to find their own sources. We had two: our lake, which was really just a big three-acre pond, and the rainwater that trickled down through the roof gutters and that was stored in large underground concrete cisterns. When the cisterns ran out, which they often did, we had to buy water in town and then haul it to the farm.

  Nobody should have to work this hard, but Grandpa, like most small farmers, had a second job to bring in cash. When he wasn’t farming, milking cows, or attending to his old pair of Clydesdale horses, Dick and Dock, he was one of three county-road maintainers: he graded gravel and repaired potholes in the summer, and was charged with keeping the snow off the roads in the winter. Grading and farming went together well. There was more farmwork in the summer and less grading to do. In the winter—when there was less farmwork—there was typically more grading. Because it was not as physically demanding, grading was a good job for my grandfather to retire into. At least, that had been the plan until that day in June.

  He used a big piece of equipment that most people would describe today as a grader, but back then it was called a “maintainer.” He even had an official county designation, “Senior Road Maintainer,” but some people called him The Maintainer, or Big Bo McCray. To me, he was usually just Grandpa.

  When I came home from school, I had a specific list of chores that I had to do before dinner. My sisters had their lists, too, but when they left for college, a lot of their work fell to me. First, I had to find and chase stragglers up to the barn. Once all the cattle were near the barn, I shut a big steel gate that separated the barnyard from the meadows and fields that surrounded our farm. I put their grain in feed troughs, and made sure water was available for them while each cow waited her turn to be milked. Electric pumps moved the water out of the cistern and into large aluminum tanks we kept by the barn.

  While Grandpa and my dad did the milking, I fed and cared for the remainder of the stock we owned, which included pigs, chickens, and horses. I also was expected to clean out Dick and Dock’s stalls. Fortunately, their stalls opened out into an open-air paddock, where they spent most of their time and left most of their messes.

  The morning milking was a whole different matter. The steps were the same, but they had to be performed in the dark; the process started at 4:30 A.M. I doubted if I could brush my teeth at that hour, let alone function as part of the milking crew.

  I had been exempt from that chore so that I could be attentive at school. No one realistically expected any kid to get up at that hour. Now it looked to me like another rule that I thought I could count on was going straight out the window. It knocked me even more off balance. Most likely my grandfather and I were struggling with the same problem. How in the world were we going to get all of this done without my father’s help? For him, the answer was simple. We would work harder. For me, it was not so easy.

  On the surface, I felt some resentment at being charged with extra work, but the problem wasn’t just the morning milking. As I walked out to the garage to grab the oilcan from the toolbox, the feelings festered.

  After oiling the hinge and checking on my chickens, I stood by the back door and stared south out into the meadow, watching the few remaining leaves of autumn fall from an old oak tree and float to the ground like little yellow paratroopers. Fall was over; winter was beginning.

  The wind blew harder and I had to button my coat. I stood there trying to figure out what it was beyond the wind that was bothering me.

  There was still a melancholy feeling fueled by my grandfather’s simple request to help with the work that needed to be done. I sat down on the back porch steps and petted Thorne’s dog. Running my fingers through his fur gave me some comfort.

  As adults, we forget these confused teenage years. After we’ve addressed a problem or a feeling a dozen times, resolution becomes second nature. But at barely thirteen, it was all new and still very confusing. Most of us don’t get it right the first time. I was no exception. Destiny compelled me to try on the wrong attitude. Knowing how the wrong attitude fits and feels is often the first step in recognizing a better one when it comes along.

  At that young age, I could see only so far. Until we mature and develop the ability to get perspective on our problems, we’re left in an inevitably selfish and superficial place. That’s what makes those teen years so hard.

  What was on the surface, staring hard at me that afternoon, was a big question of fairness. First off, I had lost my dad. He was the person I looked to more than any other to show me the path through life. He was the sentinel rock at the top of the hill from which I could take my bearing even in the stormiest of weather. More than anyone else’s, when I tripped and started to fall, it was his strong arms that picked me up.

  On a deeper level, though I didn’t want to admit it, part of me was just plain scared. My grandfather expected me to do adult work—I already worked harder in one day after school than most of my city friends did in a month—and I was still not quite ready to give up being a boy.

  I began thinking about how hard my life had been on that farm. And now it was going to get worse.

  Maybe it was grieving, maybe it was sulking, or maybe it was just being a teenager and needing to get over my self-pity. Justified or not, I didn’t think it was fair that I had to do my own work plus half of my dad’s, too. And now, with Thorne in jail, I had to take care of this dog. I wondered if there was a limit to what was expected of me and if I had a say in a darned thing. No one asked me; I was just told what to do.

  Sitting there on that back porch, petting Thorne’s dog, I felt none of it made sense anymore. My mom was right—this farm life was hard—and things would be much easier for me in Minnesota.

  Mom had told me on several occasions that if I changed my mind and did not want to wait out the rest of the fall school term before joining her, she would send me a bus ticket. That was starting to make sense to me. Who could blame me for wanting to spend time with my own mother?

  The thought of being with her again caused something in my mind to click into place, like the tumbler on a combination lock, and I was able to go a little bit deeper into the problem. Being so caught up in my feelings of loss for my father, I failed to realize how much I was missing my mom and my sisters, too.

  Minnesota was starting to tug on me just as it must have tugged on her.

  The dog rested his head on my leg and finally seemed tired. After getting up, I turned my back on a vivid sunset and went inside, disgruntled and confused. Did I love the farm? Was it the last connection to my father and a lifestyle I had valued? Was it my future or just part of my past—another fatality in a barrage of rules that were no longer applicable? Leaving Thorne’s dog on the back porch, I opened the kitchen door, went to the sink to wash my hands, and sat down with my grandparents for dinner.

  Chapter 5

  “GEORGE, YOU’VE been awfully quiet tonight. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, I think so, Grandma.”

  I tried to gather enough courage to bring up the subject of the morning milking. “I was wondering how I can do the morning milking and get ready for school at the same time.”

  Grandpa set down his fork and gave me a sly smile. “Good question.”

  I pushed the point. “I don’t know if I can make it all work.”

  “Sure you can, George.”

  “How?”

  “Same way I did when I was your age.”

  “How was that?” I asked again.

  “It’s easy, George.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure it is, son.” He leaned back in his chair and pulled his suspenders out away from his chest, and then rested his giant hand on my shoulder and smiled. “You have to get up early. Getting up early is good for you. I’ve been doing it for nearly seventy years. These snow days aren’t likely to happen more than forty or fifty times this winter.”

  He gave a little grin and I knew he was teasin
g me. “Not really, George. It’s mostly just big snowstorms that can take a few days at a time to clear. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Truth was, I wasn’t sure I could do it or wanted to do it. I resisted the impulse to say “It’ll be hard to help with the morning milking from Minnesota” when the thought of leaving the farm and my grandparents behind became even more upsetting. That would be a very hollow victory for me. I lost my composure and tears formed in the corners of my eyes.

  I just stood up and walked out of the kitchen. The sound of a chair being pushed away from the table suggested what I already knew. My grandmother would be following right behind me.

  I turned around to face her and she clutched my arm. “George, we’ll get up and do the chores together. It’ll be all right.”

  I felt like a little boy and was angry with myself for losing control. At the same time, I needed some comforting and was glad to get it. I wanted to be like my father and grandfather, capable of so much, without a word of complaint along the way. I just did not know how to do it.

  “Thanks, Grandma, but I’ve been thinking.…”

  She looked at me patiently. “Yes?”

  I tried to swallow my words as soon as they came out. “Maybe it’s time for me to go to Minnesota.”

  There was a very brief flash of pain in her eyes and then she smiled in an accepting way. “We’re all mad, and sad, and frustrated, and it just comes boiling over sometimes. It happens to all of us.” She took my hand and with more love than I could imagine existing in any one person, said, “George, if you want to be with your mother in Minnesota now, we’ll make it happen. You go read for a while and relax. Make a decision when you’re feeling better. We wouldn’t want you to stay here if it isn’t where you want to be.”

  She patted me on the back and I retreated to my living-room fort: a brown sofa with the fireplace on one side and a stack of my library books on the other. I tried to rid my mind of the problem by escaping into a book. Somewhere between the beginning and the end of the story I was trying to lose myself in, another realization surfaced. There were only three members of McCray’s Dairy before it lost its strongest partner. My grandfather was struggling hard to take up the slack. If I left, it would be down to a team of one. It would be pretty lonely for him and I didn’t want to let him down. I wondered if Grandpa could run the dairy without me and doubted he could afford to hire anyone else.