?I wanted to get this done before I start the field work,? he said, ?to help protect the paint.?

?Protect the paint? From what??

?The sun," he explained. "Sun' s hard on the paint. Fades it."

I had to admit that the tractor did look nice. The red parts were bright and shiny, like an apple that's been polished, and the white parts looked as clean as puffy clouds drifting across a blue summer sky.

?The sun would fade the paint?"I asked. "Like the sun faded Mom?s curtains in the living room??

The curtains had been white with gold and brown patterns that reminded me of leaves drifting to the ground on a warm fall day. Mom said she liked the curtains because they were pretty and were made of heavy cotton and would be easy to wash. Except that after the first summer, the curtains didn't have gold and brown patterns anymore. They were mostly just white with pale brown streaks.

Mom said the streaks made her curtains look like they were dirty, so the curtains had been replaced with something Mom called "drapes" that were the color of ripe corn. Yellow was my mother's favorite color. Mom said if the sun faded her new drapes she was going to give up and leave the living room windows bare.

By the smile on Dad?s face, I could tell he clearly remembered the episode with Mom?s curtains.

?Yes, kind of like that,? he replied.

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out another rag and held it up.

It was a piece of Mom?s curtains.

"Mom's letting you use her curtains to wax the tractor?"

"Well, I don't know if she knows I'm using them to wax the tractor. They're not much good for curtains anymore, but they make dandy wiping rags."

I watched as my father rubbed a few more spots on the engine cowling. A breeze rustled the maple branches arched high above our heads. The maples didn't have leaves yet, but they were covered with fuzzy red buds that would soon turn into leaves. From the other side of the barnyard fence, one of our cows bellowed. "Mooooooo!" she said.

I turned toward the barn and saw a dozen of the cows standing by the fence, watching us. Most of our cows were black-and-white Holsteins.

Dad looked up and saw the cows too. "I guess they know it's almost time for their supper, don't they."

He climbed off the stepladder and turned to me. "Since they all seem to be expecting it, I suppose I'd better put them in the barn and feed them. And you should probably go in the house and change out of your school clothes."

"What's Dad doing?" Mom asked when I walked into the kitchen a few minutes later. She sat by the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and an oatmeal cookie and the newspaper spread out in front of her. We had lots of newspapers at our house. One that came once a week, and one that came every day. Mom was reading the one that came every day.

"How did you know I was talking to Dad?" I asked as I set my books on the table.

"When you didn't come in the house right away, I poked my head out the door to see where you were," she replied.

I might have known. My mother hardly ever missed anything that went on around the place.

"Dad just got done waxing the tractor," I said.

"Dad's waxing the four-sixty?"

"With Turtle Wax. And he used your curtains."

Mom frowned. "My curtains? What in the world is he doing using my curtains?"

She paused. "Oh?you mean the curtains I put into the rag bag. I knew he was doing something with the tractor, but I didn't know he was waxing it."

The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach suddenly reminded me I still had not yet eaten a snack. "What's for supper?"

"Meatballs and gravy and mashed potatoes," Mom said. "I suppose you're hungry right now, though, aren't you."

"I'm starving."

She turned to look at the clock. "I don't think you're starving in the literal sense, but we won't eat for at least an hour, so I suppose a couple of cookies would be all right."

Last weekend Loretta had baked a batch of oatmeal cookies. I reached into the canister on the counter. Usually my sister made ordinary oatmeal cookies, but this time she had added coconut.

After I had finished my cookies, I went upstairs to change my clothes, and then a little while later, Dad came in the house.

"I hear you've been doing y our spring cleaning," Mom said.

"My spring cleaning?" Dad replied. "Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. We paid good money for the big tractor and it doesn't hurt to keep it looking nice."

"I also heard you used my curtains."

"They're not much good for curtains anymore," Dad said.

My mother sighed. "No, they're not."

Dad grinned. "Especially not since you ripped them up into rags."

Mom turned and made her way over to the table, grasping the back of one of the kitchen chairs to keep her balance. It wasn't so much that Mom sat down. She collapsed. The polio hadn't left her legs with enough strength to allow her to sit down gracefully.

"Roy," she said to Dad after she had settled into her chair, "since when do you have time to wax the tractor, of all things?"

My father shrugged. "What else am I going to do on a beautiful spring day when I can't get out in the field yet? Those curtains were just what I needed to do the job. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep them out in the shed to use for polish rags."

"Well," Mom said, "I'm glad my curtains are good for something."

Although that was the first time I saw Dad waxing the tractor, it certainly wasn't the last. In the following years on the first nice spring day, he would get the four-sixty out to wax it before he started the field work.

Every year, Mom and Loretta did their spring cleaning, too, washing walls and windows and curtains in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and all three bedrooms.

From what I could see, Dad had more fun than Mom and Loretta.

Instead of cleaning the curtains?he used the curtains to do his cleaning.

*********************

LeAnn R. Ralph is the author of the books "Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam" and "Christmas in Dairyland." http://ruralroute2.com

bigpines@ruralroute2.com