By TOM KANE

Fictional accounts of life in the Upper Delaware Valley

POLLY RUNS WITH THE WOLVES

My friend Ed Fox, whose farm is at the far end of Ketchum Lake, down by the dam, was puzzled by his wife Polly's recent behavior. She kept telling him that she needed to be alone. When he asked her why, she couldn't give him a clear reason. All she could say was that it was like working in her garden. Only, this garden was herself, she said. She needed to pull out some weeds, uproot a lot of things, treat the soil and plant some new things.

When he asked her what those new things were, she said, "I don't know yet."

He was afraid to ask her if he was one of the things she planned to uproot. What he worried about was if she was getting tired of working with him on the farm. Polly's main job on the farm was doing the books and keeping records and helping with the less physically taxing tasks. She took care of their three children, who were all raised now, and did all the cooking and housework.

When Ed and Polly got married, they both decided that she would work with him on the farm. She wasn't a farm kid, but grew up in the town. She liked the idea of working on the farm.

Ed's mother, Myrna, never worked on the farm but was a teacher in the elementary school. Ed remembered how on their wedding day, she told Polly, "Don't go into the barn, Polly. It will swallow you up. It's a man's work, not a woman's."

The two of them ignored the warning. Now Ed was thinking it was a mistake. Maybe if she were a teacher or worked for a bank or for a local company doing the books, she wouldn't be entertaining these strange notions.

He saw one day that she was reading a book called "Women Who Run With the Wolves." He picked it up and started to read it. It talked about the "wild woman," some kind of mythological creature who was supposed to be deep in every woman's psyche but was stamped out by the culture and a controlling society. The more Ed read the more he felt that a lot of what the book was saying could apply to men as well.

He felt that his wild man was never allowed to express itself. He was raised the old fashioned way-with the hickory stick. That was the way all children were raised back then. Why now should the urge to free the wild in you only apply to women?

He got into one of the fiercest arguments they had ever had when he told Polly his reaction to the book.

"Boys are allowed to be wild and express themselves, but not girls," she said emotionally. "Look at our children. Russell and William were allowed to be wild and Amy was sat on."

"Who sat on her?"

"You did, all the time. It was a struggle for her. I never realized it until now. She's the woman that she is today because she has an enormous amount of gumption. More than the boys. That's why she's an oceanographic biologist and not working for the phone company."

"Well, if Amy was sat on, you did it too," Ed yelled back.

"I know. I didn't know better, but I do now... and I guess it's too late for her. But not for me it isn't."

It follows that now that the children were grown up and the two of them had more time alone, it would have made their relationship better. Just the opposite happened. When Ed mentioned to Polly that maybe they should sell the farm and retire, she only said, "That's not going to solve my problem. That would just make it worse."

Ed was afraid to ask her what she meant. In fact, he gave up asking her what she meant by the things she said because all she said was, "I'm not really sure what I mean. Time will tell, I guess."

Ed's beginning to think that he should retire even if Polly isn't excited by the idea. Maybe if things changed in their lives and there wasn't so much pressure, she might be different.

"I don't know what she's looking for," he said, "but I hope she finds it and soon."