Farming Fear (#188)

Farming Fear is one of the few digests with a reasonable setup that is able to deliver on that setup.

In Farming Fear, written by Stephen D. Sullivan — and yes, Officer Gus Sullivan makes his appearance, as disinterested in doing his job as ever — Chet and Iola are concerned about their grandparents. Dave and Marge Morton live on a farm outside of Bayport, the old Morton family farm, but things aren’t all relaxing and bucolic there: “shadowy figures” (2) are lurking around the property, the animals are spooked, and small tools are missing from the barn. Chet and Iola’s parents are on a Caribbean cruise, so of course Frank and Joe are willing to help! (Callie — who is definitely Frank’s girlfriend, according to Farming Fear no matter what Hidden Mountain, #186, says — is skiing with her family.)

Despite the book having a huge retcon — the Morton farm is owned by Chet and Iola’s grandparents, not their parents, and the latest generation of Mortons has never lived on the farm — Sullivan wants to link the book to the series’s past. The farm was founded in 1927, the year of the first three Hardy Boy books, and Dave and Marge have lived there since Bayport was a “tiny seaside village” (3). This ignores that Bayport has always had a population of 50,000; I imagine when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts they heard of a large but boring city down the coast. Since it’s winter, it’s vague what the Mortons farm, which is consistent with past depictions; I was never sure what Mr. Morton raised either. In Farming Fear, Dave and Marge have a lot of fields, which suggests they grow row crops, but the fields have a lot of ponds, which suggests they raise livestock. Yet Iola says they have only a couple of cows, and Chet says they keep the cows and some horses “for tradition” (9). The Mortons had horses and cows in the original canon, and the land contained a bog, but in Farming Fear there are no orchards and no vineyards, no mention of pigs or poultry; the only heavy equipment seems to be one tractor. What are Dave and Marge growing?

(Also retconned, inasmuch as anyone cares: Chet and Iola’s grandfather is Ezekiel Morton, not Dave, in both versions of The Crisscross Shadow [#32]. Old Mr. Smith has land abutting the Morton farm in both versions of the next book, The Hooded Hawk Mystery, and the Abby Sayers estate is next door in The Four-Headed Dragon [#69], but neither is mentioned in Farming Fear; I admit both are prime candidates to be bought out. An apple orchard is mentioned several times in the canon but isn’t mentioned at all in Farming Fear; according to The Melted Coins [#23], Chet and Iola’s father bought the farm, but Farming Fear says it’s been in the family for five generations. In The Pentagon Spy, #61, Mr. Osborn is the Morton farmhand, although Farming Fear does mention the Mortons cut back to one farmhand during the fallow months, so Osborn could be laid off for the winter. Or throwing pumpkin bombs in New York.)

Soon after Frank and Joe go with Chet and Iola to the Morton farm, a tractor charges them from the barn. The Mortons’ farmhand, Bill Backstrom, claims someone rewired the tractor to start up unexpectedly and jammed both the gas and brake, but … well. Later, when the kids go on a horse ride, someone shoots at them. Well, maybe someone shoots at them; they hear the crack of a rifle several times, but it’s not like they hear bullets whistling by or the smack of a bullet into a tree or rock, and the only person they see with a firearm is the Mortons’ crotchety neighbor, Vic Costello, and he has a shotgun, not a rifle. Could’ve been a hunter, for all they know.

The next day, the Mortons’ sheepdog, Bernie, is stolen. The Bayport PD sends a pair of officers out, but they aren’t very interested. Why should they be? The crime didn’t happen in Bayport. Shouldn’t the Mortons have called the sheriff of whatever county they are in? Besides, it’s winter, which means Bayport is never more than six hours from a possible blizzard, and the cops have better things to do than look for a missing dog. It’s probably a prank, according to Officer Sullivan: “Farm kids have strange sense of humor, sometimes” (49), which — as a former farm kid myself, with absolutely no ability to self-reflect — I have to say I resent.

Because officers Gus Sullivan and Julie Scott shrugged their way through the interview, the kids decide to investigate. They track snowmobile tracks in the Mortons’ motorized buggy, which is an old, stripped-down VW Beetle with no body panels on it. After Chet makes a Batman reference, they follow the snowmobiles to a ridge which marks the border between the Morton property and a neighbor, and the Hardys trigger an avalanche. Chet and the owner of the neighboring property, Leo Myint, dig the Hardys out.

After that … well, mysteries like Farming Fear makes me wonder about Frank and Joe’s efficacy. No, even though the initial problems are always ignorable — although maybe only barely — before they investigate, you can’t blame them for the increased violence and destruction. And yes, they solve the mystery … more or less. On the other hand, when Frank and Joe get involved in one of these vague cases, things escalate quickly. I mean, they get out of hand, fast.

Nobody gets stabbed in the heart with a trident, of course, but the two snowmobilers Frank and Joe catch in the barn that night attempt the American equivalent: trying to run them through with pitchforks. (Frank and Joe pursue them, but Frank drives the buggy into one of those pesky ponds.) A blizzard hits the area, knocking out electricity and telephone service. A realtor, Patsy Stein, keeps pressuring Dave and Marge to sell their farm so they can build yet another mall in Bayport. (Given commercial trends over the last fifteen years, I think Dave and Marge are doing her a favor.) Frank and Joe get treed by Vic Costello’s dogs, which he claims someone set loose. Someone tries to burn down the barn, and only with the help of Backstrom and neighbor J.J. Zuis do they get it under control. (For some reason, while putting out the fire, they don’t think to use the abundant piles of solid water, a.k.a. snow, to put it out.) The farm’s water tower is sabotaged, collapsing as the teenagers try to draw water for the night.

All this is dispiriting to Dave and Marge, who tentatively decide to sell out. I mean, they blame “foreign trade” and “market fluctuations” (130), but they admit all the problems are making the modern farming world less attractive to deal with. Iola and Chet are stunned, but Frank and Joe don’t give up. While the teenagers are pulling the buggy from the pond, they spot the snowmobilers, Chet and Iola go for help; Joe drives Frank after the snowmobilers. They discover the two snowmobilers are opposed to each other; one, driven by Costello’s son, crashes, and while Frank and Joe load the teenager onto their buggy, the other returns, firing a rifle. The boys flee, and in a story as old as time, the villain shoots a power line, causing it to snap and crackle, and accidentally electrocutes himself. Oops!

The boys unmask — unhelmet? — the rifleman and reveal he’s Leo Myint, who didn’t want the Mortons or Costello holding up the development because his industrial park is hemorrhaging money. (The other guy who tried to pitchfork Frank and Joe was one of Myint’s employees.) But it doesn’t matter, really; it could have been Backstrom or Stein or J.J. Zuis or J.J. Yeley or J. Jonah Jameson. As long as the Hardys caught someone, the mystery can end, they can recover Bernie the sheepdog, and the Mortons can back out of selling their land. (Although at one point I thought Joe might be behind the sabotage — the only time he gets to touch Iola is either when he pulls her out of the way of danger or when he’s comforting Iola with a “sturdy arm” [25].)

In any event: it’s a back-to-basics book, with plenty of emphasis on chores and winter sports and little concern with “investigating” or “thinking.” It could be better, possibly; it most definitely could be worse. As it is, Farming Fear is pleasant, and with only a few books to go, that’s nothing to sneeze at.