Chapter 4 Version 1
1961
“Look” said Stanley as he drove up Northampton Street
turning his head toward the field to the left. John craned his neck and then
stood up to peer over the dashboard as there were no seatbelts. He wasn’t sure
what he was looking for and saw nothing but a buttery brown open field.
The white Ford station wagon pulled off Route 10 to the
right and parked beside the brick building at 168 Northampton Street housing
the lumber and hardware store for Zywar Bros. general contractors. It was late fall and the air was crisp and
clear. John spent many days here helping. He knew a piece of quarter inch
plywood could be easily moved by him and his father but another piece of three
quarters inch plywood was pretty heavy. Sometimes eight foot two by fours need
to be unloaded from the flatbed dump truck or railway car and he would be
brought along to help. He liked how the smell of the pine, spruce and fir
lingered in the air especially if the wood was damp or freshly cut. The smell of
the wood drew John to head for the open garage door where the spruce framing lumber
or pine boards were cut to size. He was not allowed to use the table saw or the
radial arm saw yet. But he could use any of the hand tools on scrap wood, did
some painting, and was allowed to score and snap window glass using a glass
cutter.
”Hold on there” said Stanley as he exited the driver side of
the car. Stanley walked around to the
passenger door and bent down to pull a long object from under the front bench
seat of the station wagon. To John’s surprise, it was a rifle or shotgun.
Stanley opened the glove compartment and slid four shells into his jacket
pocket.
“Come on,” said Stanley as he nodded his head toward route
10. The two walked across the street, over the fence, and into a field on the
way to the woods some hundred yards from the road. As they entered the field,
Stanley loaded the gun.
Stanley was an outdoorsman. He already had taken John
fishing to the Chicopee River and the Westfield River Gorge in the Berkshires
so an outdoor sporting event with his godfather was already an occasional
treat. This was the first time John was invited to go hunting.
When Stanley was in his teens, he had his own trap line down
the “dingle” from his house at 112 Ferry St. to the Manhan River. He skinned
his prey and sold the pelts. One day he trapped a skunk and was sprayed badly.
Stanley smelled so bad his mother wouldn’t let him in the house so he moved out
to live in a cardboard box down by the railroad tracks. This lasted as long as
the nice summer weather did. By that time the skunk smell had subsided but the
independence of living outside stuck with him. By the time Stanley reached
eighth grade he knew he had enough of school and went to work in the factories
where he learned be an electrician.
John and Stanley walked slowly through the cool Forest. The
reds, yellows, and golden brown of the deciduous leaves still had the
springiness of wet noodles carpeting the forest floor so that their movements were
quiet. A few weeks later and just such a walk would be more like stepping on
crisp potato chips but for now the leaves were silent. Stanley stopped and put
one hand to his ear. Without saying a word he indicated that he wanted John to
stop and look and listen and observe. It was peaceful in the woods. John had
seen deer in the field and turkeys once but the forest was quiet today with no
wind and no sound. A peaceful calm existed without even the usual sound of
birds to intrude on the serenity. Stanley walked on with John in tow.
They walked until they came to a depression in the woods.
The hole was about 36 feet across and three feet deep and stretched for his far
as John could see both to the right and to the left. This was an unnatural
feature like coming across a stone wall in the middle of the woods–a remnant of
ages past. The 1820s and 1830s was the age of canals and it spawned a
renaissance in canal construction. This was a section of what remains of a
canal built to go from Northampton to New Haven down the west side of the basalt
highlands of the Metacomet-Monadnock Ridge. It was far enough from the Manhan
River to avoid the large ”dingles”–the ravines caused by erosion of the Manhan
River’s feeder brooks. One of the major feeder tributaries, Broad Brook was a
large tributary but not large enough to be navigable as it eroded it’s way from
the base of Mount Tom to the Manhan. Broad Brook itself had its own tributaries
with their own secondary dingles. The relatively rich farmland that the brooks
cut through were Eastampton’s first draw for settlers. The steep descent of Broad
Brook’s flow into the Manhan became the second attraction. In 1847 a dam and
mill was constructed by Samuel Williston at Cottage Street creating a pristine
millpond - Nashawannuck Pond - that
provided waterpower for his factory that made buttons. Williston had a virtual
monopoly in the button industry and branched out into making other products
like the new stretchable suspenders. A second dam on Ferry Street created the
Lower Mill Pond also known as Perfume Pond to the locals due to its smell. The
smell unfortunately was not of desirable perfume. Neither Indian nor white man
wanted their name to be associated with this pond and it was not a potential
fishing site.
There was a flash of
gray across the old canal. Stanley dropped to one knee and raised his gun.
Squirrels are crafty targets. They use the tree as a shield always moving to
the other side of the tree trunk away from potential hunters. This was a tactic
the squirrels might have learned from woodpeckers. But this squirrel was far
enough away on the other side of the canal that it froze in place allowing it
to become an exposed target. Stanley took careful aim. John waited for the sound
of the gun. And waited for the sound of the gun as Stanley aimed motionless
beside him. The seconds ticked off as the squirrel overcame his catatonic state
to scurry around to the other side of the tree trunk. The moment passed and the target was lost.
”Well, you almost had a squirrel tail to put on your bike”
said Stanley.
The idea of attaching a squirrel tail to his bicycle was not
appealing to John. He said ”I probably wouldn’t do that.” to Stanley.
After thinking about
John’s comment, Stanley said ”Well, then it’s good we didn’t kill the squirrel”.
”There’s no point in killing something for no reason” said
Stanley as he unloaded his gun.
They turned and walked out of the woods.
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