Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 37, No. 13, Mid-December 1992

As Ye Sow So Shall Ye... by Don Marshall

“Now look here, Kanine,” reproached Grippe in a voice meant to chill the heart of even the gentlest of well-meaning, honest, hardworking souls. His tone was designed to inflict damage, the inflection was meant to twist the blade of deadly content, so to speak, while the moderation was that of funereal softness and lasting horror. “You know how much I have bent over backwards to assist you and your family, what’s left of it, and that rundown piece of worthless property you so offhandedly refer to as your farm.”

Farmer Kanine slumped in the plain wooden chair, one of two that faced the scarred counting desk of banker Grippe in the painfully sterile office of the one and only bank in Downcast, South Dakota. The farmer’s skinny arms rested on his knees as he leaned forward. His palms alternately pressed upward in supplication, then desperately constricted into clenched fists.

“But you don’t understand, Mr. Grippe. Since Emma...”

“I well know what has happened since your Emma died. However, Mr. Kanine, you must admit that I, through Christian generosity, advanced you the wherewithal, headstone included, for her proper funeral and interment on the farm. In view of the previous year’s drought along with your unfortunate animals’ getting the blind staggers, I have been, shall we say, generous to a fault with you and your misfortunes.”

The rawboned, hardscrabble dirt farmer raised his head, the banker’s face blurred through tear-filled eyes. “I... I know you have, Mr. Grippe, but now, with my girl Jenny gettin’ so sick and havin’ to go to thet sanitorium, it’s...”

“Look here, Kanine, it is certainly no fault of mine that your daughter came down with consumption, though I wholeheartedly maintain that anyone with that sort of disease ought to be put away. Not as punishment, mind you, but merely as a precaution to the health and welfare of our more worthy citizens. However, that is not my problem.

“My problem, at the moment, is to collect the money, a substantial sum, I might add, that you borrowed against your... what you call a farm. Though it was against my better judgment, Kanine, I extended myself purely out of Christian charity.”

The black-suited banker leaned back, tented his fingertips, and, while obviously enjoying the pitiful spectacle squirming before him, waited for a reply. One, he knew, that again would be beggarly and which, he also knew, he would reject.

“If only I can get my wheat in, Mr. Grippe. I know I could pay you then. It’s a good crop. Prices are up right now and...”

“And just how do you expect to get this wheat crop in, Mr. Kanine?” It pleasured Grippe to tack on the mister in front of the farmer’s name, a longstanding habit, a joke, a cat tormenting a helpless mouse. “Because of your inept management of the farm... understand I say your inept management, I was forced to claim your draft animals, skinny as they were. Bad business, Mr. Kanine. Then, on top of that, I was forced, mind you, forced, to auction off your reaper, too. May I remind you all at a considerable loss to myself?” With his middle finger, he pressed upward on the bridge of his wire-rimmed spectacles.

“But you didn’t lose, Mr. Grippe. You know as well as I do that you bought the animals yourself, the reaper, too. It was almost new. The two horses, why they was in fine condition, Belgian draft they was and in fine condition.”

He stared at the bare wooden floor, clasping and unclasping his hands.

“And I was a good... I am a good farmer and a hard worker, too, and so was Emma, never complained. Jenny was a good girl, never really got a chance to get out and meet some of the nicer young fellers and go to barn dances and picnics and such.

“Mr. Grippe, don’t you worry none, I’ll get that wheat in. Yessir, I’ll get it in, yessir, I will, Mr. Grippe. You’ll see, yessir...” Slowly the beaten man got to his feet and turned toward the peeling varnished door.

“Mr. Kanine, I have not finished with you yet,” Grippe snarled while shuffling through the mound of papers in front of him. He knew exactly where the mortgage papers were and the stipulations set forth therein. It was simply his old habit of breaking an already broken man, a ploy he enjoyed immensely.

“I want to make sure you are aware of the deadline date on which, unless you pay off the mortgage in its entirety, you shall be required to vacate the premises immediately. I assure you, Mr. Kanine, that you have stretched my patience and my good intentions to the limit, the absolute limit.”

“Mr. Grippe, I will see that you get exactly what you deserve, you will be paid in full. That is a good farm, you know it, and right now it has a good crop and you know that, too, Mr. Grippe, and you know I’ll see that you get what you got comin’, Mr. Grippe. You know I will.”

“You will have to hurry, then. After all, you will have to do it by hand...”

The farmer quietly closed the door behind him.

“...by hand. Do you hear me? You damn well better have the cash ready when I come with the papers. Cash! Do you hear me? Cash!”

Grippe slammed his ledger shut, resentful that the farmer dared to leave his office without permission, denying him the customary pleasure of dismissing a client with a slam of the account book, a withering glare over the top of his spectacles, and an admonishment to the unfortunate individual pinned by debt to the wooden chair immediately in front of his desk... I expect full payment on demand. You may now leave. I have more important work to do than review your case again.

Though denied this dubious pleasure, Grippe looked forward to the impending foreclosure, another notch in his belt, another section of fertile acreage added to his holdings in Downcast County, South Dakota. Ha, close the door on me before I dismiss him, will he! Well, I shall be out there come next Wednesday noon. Oh yes, indeedy, I shall be out there.

Banker Grippe, mortgage papers in hand, stepped from his buggy, dropped the horse’s anchor weight, adjusted his string tie, then, looking for all the world like a shiny black cricket, skittled, almost hopped, across the field of ripe golden wheat toward the distant figure wielding a scythe through the lush stalks. Well, he thought with glee, gradually closing the distance between him and his prey, the old fool can cut all he wants for all the good it’ll do him. He can’t get it to market, no wagons, no horses. It would take him a month of Sundays to cut it by hand, anyway.

Best I put a stop to it before he tramples down any more of my crop. I’ll evict him now and bring in a crew first thing tomorrow. The fool was right, though, it is a good crop.

Grippe, underestimating just how large Kanine’s field was and how far his victim was from the road, found himself quite out of breath as he approached the engrossed farmer’s toiling back.

Kanine, intent on the task at hand, was oblivious to Grippe’s presence. His rhythmic cadence, timed to a two-step chant, moved him like an automaton mowing row upon row of the hardy red wheat: “No time to play, got to pay.”

A wide swing directed the two handled scythe in a clean horizontal sweep four inches above the base of the ripe stalks. With each swing, Zsssssst sang the razor sharp steel blade, step, step plodded the farmer’s feet. The hewn straws lay in perfect rows like dead soldiers.

“Row by row, got to mow.” Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

“Work my fingers to the bone, now’s the time to stop and hone.” Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

The sweating man paused, pulled a whetstone from the back pocket of his ragged overalls, and ran it expertly along the four foot curved blade.

“Here, you! Kanine! It’s time, do you have the money? Answer me!” shouted Grippe.

The grim reaper continued his chanted cadence, unaware of the intruder. “One two, button my shoe.” Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

“Got to keep my farm from harm.” Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

The farmer advanced, each two steps a different chant, every four steps a pause to hone the blade, body and soul dedicated to saving the farm and his daughter. The golden harvest would do both, he had to bring it in, nothing else mattered.

“I’m talking to you, damnit, Kanine. How dare you ignore me like this!” the mortgage holder shouted at the farmer’s sweaty back. “Did you hear me? I will not tolerate this rudeness, turn around this minute!”

Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

“Three, four, cut some more,” Kanine chanted. Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

“God damn you, Kanine, I shall not be treated in this manner,” shaking a fist full of papers at the man’s back. “I’ve got to catch the train for Chicago, here’s your eviction notice. I expect you to be off my property by next week when I return, understand?” He paused for breath. “All right, damnit, if you don’t have the guts to face me, then I’ll face you!”

Four long, determined strides brought Grippe directly in front of the toiling farmer.

“Here.” He thrust the papers under Kanine’s nose. “By God, you don’t igno...”

“Forced to borrow, brought me sorrow.”

Swing, ZsssZsZssst, step, step.

Horror stampeded across Grippe’s face, he stood as though frozen, then sensed a thawing sensation in his feet. He felt no pain when the blade swished through sinew and bone, only the sensation of standing on air, of slipping, sliding. His mouth flew open. His eyes bulged. He began falling faster, faster. Now screaming, his black cricket body toppled onto the harvested row; two skinny threshing legs sprayed the bearded stalks red.

The high-buttoned shoes, brimmed with their dismembered contents, quivered momentarily, then stood grimly aloof.

“Well, Mr. Kanine,” greeted the friendly wheat buyer at the grange, “...here, let me give you a hand with those sacks. I’m certainly glad all the fellas got together and lent you a reaper and wagon and such, you’da never got your crop in otherwise. Now, by gum, you can pay off that mortgage.

“Ya know, the old woman and me drove by your place t’uther day. She durn near died laughin’ at you way over in thet field tryin’ to hang up thet scarecrow. When you was tryin’ ta tie down thet one arm to the crosspiece, what with the wind blowin’ an’ such an’ thet scarecrow’s other arm swingin’, it shor looked for all the world like it was athumpin’ you on the back and head.

“An’ them legs, I have to chuckle jest thinkin’ about ’em. They was afloppin’ in the breeze as if they was tryin’ to run away. She said from a distance it looked just like old man Grippe.

“Ya know, you had ought to git rid of thet thing before he gets back from Chicago. Sure as shootin’, he’d get mad about it, and you’d end up in one big heap o’ trouble.”