Chapter 1 of Sourland Farm — Rocky Farm Studio Books

SourlanD Farm

by Mary D’Amore

Chapter I

2001—I just got home from visiting my new landlord, the reclusive neighbor that I’ll be telling you about. This is a beautiful area! I don’t think that I could’ve found a place more isolated from society in all of New Jersey. Less than an hour’s ride from my New York apartment, no one would imagine that this is New Jersey, which New Yorkers always think of as that mass of highways and oil refineries on the northeast side of the state. This looks like the perfect place for someone like me who has such a negative attitude, not just toward people but toward life as a whole. I needed this escape into what feels like the wilderness, and I’ll pretend it is one – although it won’t take much pretending.

Hadley Moore, my new landlord, and I are a perfect pair to divide the isolation between us. A good-natured guy! He’d never know how much my feelings warmed toward him when I saw his dark eyes frown at me so suspiciously under his black eyebrows as I pulled up in the driveway. There was no mistaking his unwelcoming demeanor as he buried his hands deep into his jacket pockets when I introduced myself.

“Mr. Moore?” I asked.

A nod was the answer.

“Luke Legno, your new tenant. I wanted to let you know I’m here, and to make sure I haven’t annoyed you too much by insisting on renting Ponden Place. I heard through the grapevine that you’d had some thoughts …”

“I don’t let anyone annoy me, if I can help it. Come in.”

The “come in” was said with a clenched jaw, and seemed to say “drop dead.” Even the fence gate that he leaned on didn’t move when he invited me in. I think that atmosphere made me determined to go inside. I felt interested in a man who seemed like even more of an introvert, the unpleasant kind, than I was.

When he saw my Beemer parked in his narrow gravel driveway, he waved to a man doing some sort of work outside, calling as we walked toward the house, “Joe, pull Mr. Legno’s car into a space and bring up some beer from the cellar.”

“Here’s the only guy who works for him I bet,” I thought. “No wonder his grass has gone to seed and deer are the only hedge-trimmers.”

Joe was an older man, but tough looking and wiry.

“Who’s this rusticator?” he mumbled under his breath while taking my car keys from me and looking in my face so sourly that I immediately decided he was suffering from a bad case of indigestion and his wise-crack had nothing to do with me personally.

Sourland Farm is the name of Mr. Moore’s place. “Sourland” being a reference to its location on the Sourland Mountain, a large forest in the middle of the state. The highest point isn’t that high, but the way it rises from the surrounding farmlands has earned it the title of “mountain.”

I once read that the name, Sourland, is probably descriptive of the color of its shale rock, which is the color of sheep sorrel flowers, or so the book claimed. The English supposedly called the mountain Sorrel Land, then Sor-Land, which the Dutch in the 1700s pronounced Sourland. The mountain also had other names: Neshanic Mountain, Zion Mountain, and Rock Mountain.

Both my new place and Moore’s were on the north side of the mountain – Sourland Farm near the top and Ponden Place at the base. Driving to Ponden at dusk from business in Princeton, as I traveled up the back roads, daylight would change to a dark gloom going through the deepest part of the hollow, but as I crested the mountain and traveled down the north side, the sun relit the surroundings like magic.

Moore’s property was strewn with large boulders, which also covered most of the Sourland forest of shagbark hickory, black gum, and ash trees. Mine was more formally groomed and landscaped, with rolling lawns in the front, a few small fields in back, and from my top floor, a view of the mountain’s ridgeline.

Before entering Moore’s house, I stopped to admire a group of small stone gargoyles still occupying an old garden, mostly obscured by stiltgrass, and a statue of a little boy no longer peeing water into his font. These weren’t the typical yard chachkas as seen along the highway in front of garden centers, but more like those to be found in an outdoor antiques yard across the river in New Hope.

I noticed the date “1700,” and the name “Wm. Earnst” etched into a stone over the front door of the house. I would have requested a short history of the place from the cranky owner, but his attitude at the door suggested I should either come or go and I had no desire to aggravate him before I entered his inner sanctum. The ground was soggy under my feet as we walked. I stepped quickly inside.

The front door opened directly into the living room, without any foyer or entry hall. I could only make out a kitchen and living room downstairs, but I believe the kitchen must connect to some other section because I could hear voices and the sounds of cooking utensils coming from a more distant part of the kitchen or house. I didn’t see or smell any signs of cooking or food around the huge range, no doubt fueled by propane since no gas lines were likely available in this isolated area. One end of the kitchen had an old hutch filled with beer mugs, pilsner glasses, and both red and white wine goblets. There was also a stack of what looked like an old set of pewter plates. This was the space where I was ushered.

The ceiling of the kitchen exposed rough sawn beams of yellow pine, which supported a spider’s web or two in addition to a second floor. Above, what had to be the original fireplace, was a creepy collection of old hand guns and one rusty rifle, and for décor’s sake, three blue speckled canisters along the mantel.

The floor was smooth, gray flagstone. The chairs, painted green, were the kind you’d buy at an unfinished furniture store – one or two with arms lurked in the corners. In front of the hutch lay a big liver-colored pointer dog, surrounded with eight squeaky puppies. More dogs could be heard in other parts of the house.

The furniture was typical for a mid-century-bred northeasterner, one with a stubborn expression and strong legs in jeans and gaiters. He no doubt had been walking his property, which has been taken over by multiflora rose and its determined thorns. Such a man sitting in his favorite chair, a beer on the table next to him, is most likely to be seen in any country home on this hill, if you visit at the right time after dinner.

But Mr. Moore’s appearance is in contrast to his lifestyle. He's a dark-skinned, mixed-race looking man, but in dress and manners an “old money” WASP. He’s rather disheveled, but not looking out of place in his casual slovenliness, because he is tall with a good build, and he’s sort of morose.

Some people might think he’s a product of poor breeding. I have a feeling that it’s nothing of the sort. His affect comes from an aversion to outward displays of emotion or mutual kindness. He’ll secretly love and hate equally, and he’ll think it’s inappropriate to be loved or hated. Wait, I’m projecting my own personality onto him.

Mr. Moore may have entirely different reasons for keeping his hand to himself when he meets a new acquaintance than I have. Let me hope my personality is peculiar just to me. My mother used to say that I’ll never have a comfortable home or family of my own, and it was only just last summer I proved her right.

While enjoying a week of beautiful weather in Cape May, I saw a fascinating and lovely woman at a beach gathering of friends and family. In my eyes she was a beauty inside and out, as long as she didn’t notice me. I never said anything flirtatious to her, but if looks were noticed, the merest idiot would have seen I was smitten. She noticed me, and looked back at me – the sweetest of all imaginable looks. I could see her friends urging her to come over to me and say hello, which she did after much prodding and with much trepidation. And what did I do? As she walked toward me smiling, I withdrew coldly into myself, like a snail. At each of her steps I withdrew farther, until finally the poor woman started to doubt her own senses and, overwhelmed with embarrassment at her supposed mistake, persuaded a friend to head back with her to her cottage.

By this incident I’m now known among my friends and family as being a total jerk, how undeserved, only I can appreciate.

Now in Moore’s kitchen, I took a seat on the end of the old hearthstone. My landlord took a seat on the opposite end. I tried to lessen the discomfort of the silence by attempting to pet the mother dog, who had left her pups, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her teeth poised for a nip. My petting provoked a long, guttural snarl.

“You’d better leave the dog alone,” growled Mr. Moore in unison, stopping further aggressions with a stamp of his foot. “She’s not used to visitors.” Then, throwing some papers on a table and striding to a side door, he shouted again, “Joe!”

My landlord took his seat again, “How do you spell your name—L-a-n-e-y-o?”

“L-e-g-n-o,” I corrected; it’s Italian.”

Joe mumbled indistinctly from the depths of the cellar, but gave no indication of coming up, so his employer dived down to him, leaving me face-to-face with the brutal mother dog plus a pair of grim shaggy sheepdogs, who joined us and shared with her a suspicious watch over all my movements.

Trying not to be bitten, I sat still, and thinking they wouldn’t understand my silent insults, I amused myself by making faces at the trio. Some facial expression so pissed off the mother dog, that she suddenly broke into a rage and lunged at me. I pushed her back, and quickly jumped behind a kitchen table. This action roused the whole herd. Six dogs, of various sizes and ages appeared from different parts of the house into the kitchen. I felt my heels and shirt hem being bitten at, and defending myself from the larger combatants as well as I could with a broom I grabbed from alongside the fireplace, I began to yell for help from anyone in the household in restoring peace!

Mr. Moore and the old man climbed the cellar steps with irritating indifference. I don’t think they moved one second faster than usual, though the kitchen was an absolute storm of commotion and yelping. Happily, a substantial woman quickly appeared in the kitchen – with rolled-up pantlegs, tattooed arms, and flushed cheeks. She rushed into the midst of us, taking the broom from my hands, and used that weapon and her commands so effectively that the storm magically subsided, and there she stood, breathing heavily when Moore finally entered the scene.

“What the hell’s the matter?” he asked, looking at me in a way that I could hardly bear after my terrifying event.

“What the hell, indeed!” I muttered. “You might as well leave a stranger with a bunch of tigers!”

“They won’t bother you as long as you don’t touch anything,” restoring the displaced table and putting a bottle of beer in front of me. “The dogs are just doing their job. Have some beer?”

“No, thank you.”

“Not bitten, are you?”

“If I had been, I would have punched the biter in the snout.”

Moore’s face relaxed into a grin.

“Come on,” he said, “you’re agitated, Luke. Here, have a beer. Guests are so rare in this house that my dogs and I don’t know how to receive them. Cheers?”

I returned the toast, beginning to realize that it would be silly to sit sulking for the misbehavior of a pack of beasts. Besides, I didn’t want to give him further amusement at my expense. He, not wanting to put off a good tenant, relaxed a little and introduced what he thought would be interesting to me – a terse conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of my choice of rentals.

According to Moore, the people who live here love the mountain, and that held true for the settlers in the past – the English and the Dutch – to everyone else it was a place of terror. He said strange things happened up here. According to local legends, even the Native Americans had avoided it. The Lenni-Lenape trails tracing the Delaware, Millstone, and Raritan rivers, go around the Sourland Mountain – the mountain, too formidable for even Native American trails to cover, too feared back in those days for any except the bravest hunters.

I found him very knowledgeable on the topics we covered, and before I went home, I was so encouraged that I felt I would enjoy another visit. I worried that he didn’t feel the same. I think I’ll visit again, regardless. It’s amazing how sociable I feel compared to him!