Something' You Is (VILLAGE TALES EP. 7 )

A local farmer decides to take a wife, but didn’t allow for what came with her. 

He hits upon a plan to ensure who gets the farm when he’s gone will be those who deserve it.

Our village, as you know, is little more than a hamlet but has many of the facilities afforded to small towns for which we have to thank the Blythe estate. Besides the estate we are surrounded by farmsteads some rented, others privately owned, some of which do well, others do no more than scrape a living. Of the latter some years ago, one such was Todber’s Farm, a farming family with a history going back a century or more. The story goes that Michael Todber’s wife died during the sixties and for several decades ran the farm singlehanded due his only son being killed in a motorcycle accident. At seventy-six he decided that he could no longer manage the farm on his own and decided to look for a wife. There being no eligible women to marry in the vicinity, even if they wanted to, he decided to advertise. He received several applicants all about his age, all had delusions about the country life, all were horrified at the state of the farmhouse, dismayed by the dilapidated sheds, the rusting machinery, and the arduous farming duties that would be expected of them. Along with the curmudgeonly Farmer Todber, a bucolic paradise it was not. 

‘Farmin’s not sumtin you do, ‘tis sumtin you is,’ was how Michael put it, and he put it rather often.

So it came as a surprise when Michael announced he was to marry Beth, a forty-something hearty looking woman with straw blonde hair and a ruddy complexion.She seemed ideal, at least Michael though so. The difference in age provoked some comment, the women of the village thinking it was disgusting and their menfolk wishing him the best of luck.

‘A fine buxom wench,’ was how Michael described her. As soon as they were married they would be joined by her four sons, all apparently used to the farming life and thrived on hard work.

Michael and Beth were married within the month. After the brief ceremony in the morning they adjourned to The Old Drum and Monkey, which as you know is our local, and there were joined by most of the village. Several people asked about Beth’s sons but all she would say was they were as thrilled as she was and couldn’t wait to start work on the farm with their new father.

A week or so passed before we heard that Michael, and the new Mrs. Todber, were off to Lyme for a week’s honeymoon, her four boys having arrived to look after the farm. So we thought, that was that. Until a few months later,

‘Blimmin’ townies’ was the first clue we had from Michael that things were not going according to plan. As a part of the marriage deal he had adopted Beth’s four sons, none of which had any experience in farming and showed no inclination to learn, in fact no inclination other than to treat the farm as a holiday camp and abuse the farm machinery as well as anything else that came their way. Beth herself rather than being a stalwart daughter of the soil had spent two summers hop picking as a child, and that was it.

Michael spent his evenings in the Drum bemoaning his predicament. Then one evening he announced, 

‘She’s gone!’

‘So you’re on your own again, Michael?’ Someone asked.

‘I wish I was, she’s left those good for nothing sons of hers, and as I’ve adopted the blighters I casn’t get rid of ‘em.’

Another month passed and then we heard the news that Michael had disappeared and was feared drowned, perhaps having taken his own life. His clothes had been found on some rocks near Lyme and the coastguard had no luck in finding a body. At the boarding house where he had been staying, he had left a letter addressed to his ‘next of kin’. It was presumed to be a suicide note.

Over the next few weeks there appeared to be quite a lot of activity at Todber’s farm. The boys were selling anything they could. Much of the old machinery rusting in fields had been sold for scrap, or auctioned to collectors. Fields were ploughed several times over, hedgerows and verges had been cut back, and the contents of sheds and barns piled into the yards. Passers by reported that hardly any area had not suffered some kind of reckless ‘make-over’.

Then, out of the blue, much to the relief of the village, Michael returned but was unable to remember where he had been for the previous few weeks. Dementia was presumed and Michael underwent some examination in hospital. Meanwhile his adopted sons began fighting amongst each other the result of which was two of them leaving to follow their mother, swearing never to return. The two that remained began to make a go of the farm. With Michael’s help that year, they sowed the fields and reaped an excellent harvest. Besides having more money in their pockets than they’d ever had, they had taken to the farming life with an enthusiasm which surprised even them.

A year later Michael was divorced and semi-retired. His two adopted sons had grown into fine young men, as well as keen farmers. Micheal never suffered a loss of memory again and in all respects was happy and contented. So one sunny afternoon sharing a pint or two I decided to indulge my curiosity and I asked what was it that changed the boys attitude, and why did two leave? He leant forward in a conspiratorial way and whispered,

‘Buried treasure,’ was all he would say at first.

After another pint or two and I was sworn to secrecy, he explained that it was an old story about a farmer leaving nothing to his feckless sons but his treasure buried in the farm. After digging over every inch in their search the soil was good and ready for seeding. The treasure was the crop that grew from their hard work.

I then asked him why two of his sons had left, and two had stayed?

‘They all four found out something, two were farmers, two weren’t. Remember what I says, farming’s not something you do, it’s something you is.’

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.