The Swift Boys

The Swift Boys - Jonah, Noah, and Ned - were each born precisely one year apart but looked alike enough to be identical twins plus one. They shared the same temperment, all fire and competitiveness, a willingness to stand for what they believed, and a stubborn streak that at least in the early years, made their daddy despair and their mother give up hope. Nell often told people that they were bound to put her into an early grave with their obstinance and Marshall wore out more switches than there were trees on his farm with his efforts at discipline. The boys paid little mind, took their switchings and went on to the next disaster. They disrupted daily life, made mischief by setting the stock loose, laying waste to Nell's carefully put up preserves, tormenting the little girls at lessons, smoking behind the barn and cutting the lines to Marshall's lobster traps. They became a trio of terror in the town square - at their approach, villagers darted away and the one or two stores closed their doors. The boys hooted and hollered their way through childhood and in their teens discovered whiskey, fast cars and faster girls. This is not how I wanted to be a grandmother! Nell wailed to Nana over afternoon coffee and raspberry tarts, I should've drowned them at birth! Nana tsk'd sympathetically and added a little more brandy to the coffee. Now, now, she told Nell encouragingly, they're just young and high spirited, they'll soon get over it.

Shotgun weddings were not unheard of and Noah's was planned for one July weekend. The unwilling groom and the reluctant bride were wed quietly by the pastor of the Baptist church and moved into an extra room at the farm until a suitable place could be found. Nell recovered from her minor breakdown and took to her new daughter in law with little or no effort - the girl was naturally outgoing and willing to make the best of a bad situation, she helped with chores and turned out to be a passable cook - and after some time passed, even Noah began to appreciate her presence. The baby, a little girl, was born some months later by which time Marshall had finished and furnished a small cottage in back of the farmhouse and the couple moved in over one summer weekend. Jonah and Ned both helped in the process, more than a little bewildered by their brother's unexpected change of heart and their new status as uncles. Maggie was what Nana called a fetching child, full of smiles and giggles, well behaved from the first, and easily capturing the hearts of her parents and grandparents. Noah took to parenting and responsibility with an ease that his family found stunning - he joined his daddy's lobster crew and worked long, hard hours to learn and provide for his wife and daughter. He came home each night, lean and tall and tanned, and there he stayed while Jonah and Ned drank and caroused their way from island to mainland and back again, seldom spending the night at the farm and becoming more and more distant from their family.

The day that the hay wagon overturned and crushed Marshall's spine beyond repair, Nell was feeding the chickens and watching Maggie play in the yard. She heard nothing and Marshall lay in the field under a wagon wheel for several hours. When it was near dark and he hadn't returned, Nell went in search of him, not suspecting that anything might be wrong until she saw the team of half harnessed horses grazing around the wagon. Her husband lay unconscious at their feet, pinned beneath the wheel, his hands outstretched and bloody. Her screams were heard clear to the village and spooked the horses, alerting Noah who was cutting wood just beyond the pasture and came running but too late. Marshall died before they could pull him free.

Tragedy brings people together and grief can often bind them and so it was with the Swift boys. Their shared loss healed old wounds and divisions, gave them a new outlook on what mattered and how to spend a life without waste. They buried their daddy and comforted their mother, accepting the new burdens with determination and pride. They became the sons their daddy had always hoped for and their mother had mourned. They became men.