Page 21 - Contrast1960v4n1

The Field

EDWIN G. CLAWSEY

IWAS RAISED in the country, far from the city with its pushing,
crowding, sneering people. I've had very few friends from the
hours of my infancy. As a child I was forced to find companionship
other than in people, and I came to know friendship that wasn't
besmirched by behind-the-back hypocrisy.

I came to know the field when I was four years old. It was a
large square field-then. Its edges were lined with great old oak trees
and clumps of bushes. A good acre and a half. There were two gentle
rises at diagonal corners, with a tiny stream running between the hills
from the opposite diagonals. I spent hours, days, weeks, months in
the field. I ran and played with the dogs, the horse, the cattle. The
happiest days of my life, when called up, always bring along images
of the field as it changed faces. In the spring the field wore its lush
green face with pink blossoms in the trees and bushes, and a bright
golden and white carpet, all of which swayed and breathed and
soothed the cattle as they were kissed by the nipping spring breezes.
In the summer, the field wore its lazy face; the grass had reached its
height, and was waiting to be eaten by the cows, or to be romped on
and pummelled by a wild young thing who had no idea what life
was like. When swept by the summer storms the field had a passion
that couldn't be matched. The sky turned a lead gray as the rain
howled down from the heavens, and pounded the face of the field
like some nebulous monster. The trees bent and lashed in the wind,
and when one was under them he could hear them growling and roar-
ing their wrath at the atrocities of the wind which slashed these their
leaves with a hiss. The small stream rose, rushed and gurgled, speed-
ing pell-mell on its way, rushing and leaping as though it enjoyed
the very intensity of the storm; as though it were alive and a great
writhing, chained monster. The whole field seemed gripped by an
inferno.

And when the storms cleared? The field, the kind, sincere and
loving field was just as it had been-rumpled, battered, soaking wet.
One could still see and feel that this was the field of old.

In autumn the field wore its loveliest face. The grass was a crisp
golden brown quilt patched here and there by a lack-a-daisical sower
with red, yellow, pink and green patches from the shedding trees.
The tr)es hadn't lost all their leaves yet, and they stood out in their

14