The cast of vendors that accompanied Sat trips to the market was a slew of rough and tumble characters, which were comical enough in their own regard, but when joined by my father created a drama every Saturday. One of the earliest characters was “Huber” a dutch farmer from the Holland Marsh who had 7 children. Huber was a tall, lean man, who always looked dirty, worn and weary, whether it was first thing in the morning, or late at night.
His work ethic was legendary in market circles, as he hand grew all of the vegetables himself that he sold, and toiled the rich soils of the Marsh to make a living for himself and his brood.
Huber’s children would accompany him every sat and thurs (school be damned) to the market. His daughters would manage cash transactions, his sons would reload tables and occasionally be pushed around in rain barrels.
Huber had a farm of goats for producing cheese. The milk of his goats was of the highest quality, and he only fed them organic grass, leftover vegetables and my fathers bread. Huber would take leftover loaves every week, buy them from my father at next to nothing, soak the bread in water and feed it to his goats. They would soak the breads overnight to feed to the goats. Even then, this soaking did not soften the cornbread, and the goats were left with indigestion and produced gassy milk, or so Huber claimed. My father, thought it was nothing more than a ploy by the dutch farmer to get cheaper product from him. I think it partially was.
Usually, the bread left over was corn bread. The texture of corn bread that does not contain additives is dense. Cornbread by its very nature is not a loaf of bread that rises naturally, as the sugars within it do not react the same way to water and salt. My father’s corn bread, cooked in a break oven, was doubly hard. Huber was forever complaining about how he had to soak the corn bread. His concerns were double because the bread often served as ammunition by his wife who chased the goats back into the field when they escaped. He was forever chastising his wife for this, lest she hurt the goats he loved more than his own offspring.
One sat, Huber came in and plainly told my father that he would no longer buy his bread. My father thought this was a joke, and said “yeah, Yeah”, but being the inquisitive and nosey child that I was, I asked him why “Mr. Huber” will you not buy our bread any more?
Huber, firstly looked at me with a confused look on his face, but proceeded to tell the following story,
In the morning they would lay it out in the field where the goats grazed. Occasionally, a run away goat or two and his wife who managed the goat operation would chase them back to their field pen.
His most prized male goat, sire to half his flock, was also his craftiest. This goat seemed to escape more often then all of the other goats combined. It was a white goat, with a long beard, that resembled a village elder. This goat had a particular panache for escaping and eating his wife’s bed linens. Many a sunny afternoon, he could be found gnawing on the end of a bleached sheet, only to be chased back to the poorly constructed pens by Huber’s wife.
On the particular afternoon in question, his wife had already re-penned the Machiavellian goat twice that day. Having had enough of the goat, she got a rope and tied him up to the fence inside the pen.
Having finished, the farmer’s wife proceeded to bleach and starch her bed linens. She had a relative coming from Holland, and was pulling out her wedding sheets, a crocheted, lacy affair, to put on her guest bed for this relative.
After washing, bleaching and starching the weary woman hung the sheets out to dry in the fresh marsh morning air.
Being the wife of a farmer, does not afford one much time, and so she went about the rest of her day, making food for her 7 children, washing, mending, and cleaning.
Halfway through the afternoon, Huber’s wife proceeded to go check on her sheets-for fear of leaving them out too long, lest birds leave their droppings on her precious linens.
Turning the corner into the field she froze. Imagine this woman’s horror, upon seeing her best sheets, being gnawed by the white goat. He leisurely chewed upon her laced linens, gnawing at the slow and leisurely pace that a goat does, having not a care in the world. Huber’s wife’s anger surged within her, she yelled, and ran at this goat, wanting to tear the beast apart. Passing the pens along the way, she grabbed the first thing she saw, a loaf of corn bread soaking in the pan to be fed to the goats later that afternoon.
She screamed, the goat did not even flinch. She ran at the goat, and threw the loaf of bread with every ounce of strength and hatred that she possessed within her for the animal and his shameless deed. The yellow loaf was hurtled through the air, came flying straight at the evil goat, and hit him square in the head. The goat froze for a moment, unaware of what had happened, but then wavered upon his spindly legs, and fell over with a “thunk”, his four legs giving out at once, and falling to the ground sideways, sheet still in its mouth with all the grandeur and drama of a Hollywood hero.
The goat was dead. The prized sire of Huber’s spawn never chewed another linen, nor escaped a pen. He never got up again. The loaf of corn bread, ballistic in its accuracy and strength, had killed the goat upon impact.
Huber’s wife I am sure received some reprimand for her action. Even retelling the story a week later, Huber was moved to near tears over the loss of this prized animal. As he finished the story, he pulled himself together and said, “This is why I no longer buy your bread”. My father, laughing till he cried, piled a box full of bread and said, “Huber, for these story I give you box of bread, please feed it to yoru children and not your goats”. Huber was not to moved, but reluctantly agreed to the free box of bread and desserts. His offspring wooped for joy at something to eat besides vegetables. I carried the box of bread over to his fruit truck. Looking at the truck, I noticed that it said Weber and family farm. I thought for a movement, and realized for the last 5 years, I had been calling this man Huber, when his name was Weber.
I confronted my father,and said, “ You know his name is Weber not Huber” why do you all him Huber?
He looked at me, in the classic Luigi Longo look that does not understand the rest of the world and its logical thought processes, and said “Ya, his name is Huber”---this was the closest he could come to pronouncing “W’s”.
Rumour has it that Huber got rid of his goats later that year. Shortly thereafter he left the market scene and closed up his farm altogether. While the harsh reality of farming the marsh got to him and his family, there is a part of me that thinks that the death of his prized goat was a loss he never got over, nor did he ever fully forgive my father for making the world’s hardest and deadliest loaf of corn bread.