Florence author channels childhood into first book

In fourth grade at Florence Elementary, a young Allen Mills was given an assignment to write a story. His teacher was impressed with his work.

“She said, ‘You’re a terrific good writer. You have a gift,’” he said.

As many boys are wont to do, he misinterpreted the meaning:

“I waited all year and I never got the gift,” he said. “I didn’t write much after that.”

After publishing his first book at 73, Mills may finally understand what his teacher meant.

Mills is the fourth generation of his family to cultivate a 280-acre farm nestled in a tidy valley in Florence.

After graduating from Otter Valley High School in 1963 and a brief stint in the National Guard, he worked for 35 years at General Electric in Rutland before retiring in 2000.

Today, the farm at the top of a long dirt road that bears his name is owned joined jointly between him and his three sisters.

Last year, his youngest daughter began asking him questions about his years on the farm and encouraged him to write down the stories he told her. Not having much experience in creative writing, Mills was reluctant to grapple with the finer points of English grammar. His daughter wouldn’t hear any of it.  

“She told me, ‘Forget all that; just write down what you told me,’” he said.

Even though he was retired from farming, Mills kept his early hours and did the bulk of the writing between the hours of 4:30 and 6 a.m. with a notepad and pen. His sister Kathy transcribed it onto a computer, one daughter edited and the proofread the manuscript. His daughter Vanessa provided the illustrations on the cover. The interior of the book also includes historic photos of the farm. It took him about six months to write a first draft.

THE WRITING PROCESS

Barnyards, Barefeet, and Bluejeans, which Mills describes as “a kind of history book” demonstrates how small family dairy farms were run in the 1940s and 50s, an era vastly different than the farming operations seen today in Vermont. Mills’s father Allen Mills Sr. usually had between 30 and 40 milking cows. Expensive machinery and large milking operations were nonexistent.

“The herd could be sustained on this one property,” he said.  

Growing up on a 280-acre dairy farm in Florence gave a young Allen Mills plenty to think about while he worked in the of his father. The majority of his work was outdoors while his sisters did the cooking and cleaning inside the farmhouse.

Mills’ childhood friend and constant companion during these long workdays was a huge draft horse named Dick.

Mills described his troubles and his worries to the horse, who calmly listened without judgment.

“Everyone needs someone to go to,” “Sometimes your parents don’t understand or sometimes you can’t tell them.”

In one instance included in the book, after the passing of his grandmother, Mills began to contemplate the role of death on a farm; how it works in a constant cycle of life and death.

“It’s something that you may not deal with every day, but it presents itself regularly,” he said. “You accept it and you move on. There really isn’t any end because it’s a continuous process.”

While writing, Mills decided to take an unexpected tact when recalling the stories of his youth; he chose his equine partner to be the narrator of the book.

“I think I needed that,” he said. “There was a lot that I had to say that a lot of people might consider boastful or bragging if I told from my own perspective. I think in that way he helped me out.”

When he wasn’t working, the pastures and surrounding forests held plenty of opportunities for exploration and mischief.

“There’s a lot of time when a boy could explore his curiosities,” Mills said. “Sure, I disturbed the bees, but half the fun is running away from them.”

These stories of his exploits found their way in as well.

“At the time you take it for granted,” he said. “As you mature you realize how special a place it is.”

Mills published the book through Northshire Books in Manchester, Vt. It’s also available via Amazon.com, Indiepress.com and Barnsandnoble.com.

Mills held a book launch event recently in the same barn featured in the book and was surprised by a crowd of 70 friends, relatives and neighbors that drove up the dirt road to meet him and celebrate the book in the farm’s 100-year-old barn.

A LIFE ON THE FARM

Though he’s in retirement, Mills stays busy. He keeps his early morning hours. After summer thunderstorms, he drives out in his 1974 Ford tractor to drag out the deadfall. After a recent interview, he said he was going to dismantle a hydraulic wood splitter that afternoon and “figure out what the problem is in there.”

When people enthuse that he lives on a road that bears his name, his comeback is always the same: “I say that only makes me older than dirt,” he said.

He also has ideas for subsequent books, including one recounting his father’s stories of logging during the Prohibition era, when he would cut and deliver basswood to a secret still in West Rutland and was paid in the booze produced. He also hopes to write stories from his deer hunting adventures.

The land continues to supply him with stories.

“In farming there are no endings, only beginnings,” he said.