'Eli Swanson Stowed Away Two Whole Custard Pies'

Much of Saturday, when the temperature topped 97° F, we devoted to my youngest son’s Eagle Scout project at his former grade school. About twelve years ago I and a crew of other parents helped build an arboretum/garden, and it appeared that no one since then had maintained it. We picked up trash, pulled weeds, cut down vines, laid mulch and planted flowers. Another group painted the picket fence green and white (two coats). David raised a lot of money for the project and will have plenty left over to donate to the PTA.

Twenty-five neighbors (several of whom have kids in the school) and Scouts volunteered. Everyone dripped sweat. We didn’t have to assign jobs. People picked up tools and got busy. There was something old-fashioned and very American about the day. We dined on breakfast tacos in the morning and fried chicken and fruit salad at lunch. Boys turned the plentiful food into a competition, and I thought of the wonderful supper scene held after the barn raising in Willa Cather’s “The Bohemian Girl” (1912):

“The barn supper began at six o’clock and lasted for two hilarious hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies, and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, a ginger-bread pig which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest, but he disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of the evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before sitting down to the table.”