Big Macintosh didn't say much.
It wasn't so much as him being mute or anything, or even really wanting to speak a lot, but more in the interest of simply remaining quiet. He had a sharp tongue and a sharper mind, despite what some might assume with his upbringings on the farm back home, and it was harder than stone to clench his jaw and jam his clever retorts back down his throat whenever they decided to try sputtering out. Keeping quiet was just his way of avoiding trouble, and doing so was what he really needed if he were to maintain the Acres for all his years of living. You couldn't quite buck apples off their branches or plow through rich dirt behind steel bars or in a crowded courtroom. Big Macintosh drank alcohol, but he did so in his house behind a locked door so as to not bother anypony, and Big Macintosh only got angry when there was something worthwhile to be angry about.
Seeing as how he could really handle anything that came to him either by brains or brawn, and his usual problems concerned either apple trees or his yoke, Macintosh never really got angry. Sure, there were a few times when Apple Bloom had done something wrong, and he had gotten a little heated, but he always growled at the gut feeling in his chest and apologized profusely almost immediately after committing the verbal attack. This broke his rule of remaining quiet, but it was worth it to feel better about himself. He liked to be quiet, and to be quiet you had to be happy inside, otherwise you'd go all stir-crazy and start hearing voices like Aunt Clementine.
Quiet stallions liked quiet environments, and peace and relaxation were things he always looked forward to at the end of the day. Applejack was usually back from some grand old adventure with the others, and would fall asleep really anywhere in the house from her bed to the downstairs welcoming mat. Apple Bloom needed more and more sleep in her growing years as school got tougher and tougher, and was coerced to head off and sleep right after finishing her homework. Granny? Well, she was just plain old, and she slept a lot on their recliner out in the main room. He'd been glad he'd gotten it and built it for her, but it was starting to become an excuse of hers to doze off.
Big Macintosh didn't really mind. With three mares sleeping, he could have some peace and quiet all to himself. He could sit down on the front porch and watch the sunset, or he could take a nice walk around the farm and have a conversation with himself. Big Macintosh may not have been crazy, but he had to admit that he talked to himself audibly, and not in his head like he assumed most ponies did. Something about actually moving his mouth and formulating words seemed to aid him in his ramblings, and he touched up on topics he'd otherwise not let other ponies know he harbored. There were things he had to say about the prices of farming equipment, and there were things he had to say about the mailmare who always seemed to be so late every day.
Then again, he'd heard that she had some kind of mental disability, so he couldn't rightfully get angry without seriously despising himself. It wasn't all too right to get so angry about such a little thing, and so he usually didn't. Her bright smile and even brighter mane served to only infect him with a good mood each time she dropped by, and good moods were admittedly pretty rare in his days. Big Macintosh never really got angry, but a good mood to him was something else untouched as well. Sticking a stalk of hay in his teeth, slapping on his yolk, and going about his day, he found that he was... all right, at best. He enjoyed what he did, but it wasn't something he looked forward to every morning he spent looking into the mirror. What he saw was just a red Earth Pony with duties to do and ponies to look up to him. He was simple in that, but the course he took was a bit more complicated.
Harvest was no exception. It came every year, around the same time, at the beginning of fall when the leaves started dropping and the apples started bittering. It wasn't so much the start of the cold weather as it was just too much time on their branches, but the Apple Family—and usually a group of friends—plucked them off anyhow. They'd all show up, scarves around their necks and light coats on their bodies, ready and willing to help out the local farmers do all they needed, and for that he could let loose a bit of a good mood. Help was something he was glad to receive, unlike his sister, and he welcomed it with a wide embrace and a small, almost absent smirk. Big Macintosh may have had good moods once in three blue moons, but it wasn't on a level like Pinkie Pie's. He was simply content with just nodding and grinning through the work at anypony who spoke to him.
It was how he'd met Cheerilee, actually.
He'd met her, well, first, back when his little sister and her friends had used that love potion on the two of them, but they hadn't talked all too much after that until the Harvest had sprung later that year. They didn't have a lot of opportunities to see each other, with her teaching every weekday and him working every day of the week, and their only deviations being on completely opposite sides of town, and so when she'd shown up alongside Twilight Sparkle that first fall day, he'd double-taked and about spit the water in his mouth onto the ground at the sight of her.
She was pretty; there was no other way to beat around the bush with it. But he was shy and kept to himself so he'd never thought of pursuing her. Now here she'd been, all smiles all the way to her flanks, and she was happy to help him out with whatever he needed for awhile. Applejack and her friends tended to keep close to the farm, citing that it made it a lot easier on them and helped them get inside and eat dinner quicker than he. It was a race he wasn't too sour to lose, but always felt great about winning. He never really minded his area, because he did a lot better and, well, a lot more work by his lonesome, but that year had taken a turn for the worse. Applejack had turned to Cheerilee, opened her mouth, and very simply asked her a question.
"You think that you and Big Macintosh could take the outer fields?"
At that, he'd frozen, and he didn't think he could blame the weather on it one bit.
Applejack had caught wind of the Crusader's little Hearts And Hooves Day scheme about a day after it had happened, and she'd about lost her wits as she fell to the floor and laughed until her stomach was in knots. Big Macintosh had pursed his lips, but said nothing, because he knew there was nothing he could do to stop his sister from teasing him. She'd brought up the teacher's name from time to time, always lingering on it and turning her head his quiet way, but he'd usually just shook his mane and walked outside to keep on working. He hadn't thought she'd go to a length like this, but now she was trying to set them up.
For the Element of Honesty, she sure could promise something so menial.
"We're gettin' a few stallions from down in Appleloosa to help us out. They'll be over there in a bit, so why don't you two get started?"
If Cheerile hadn't immediately turned around and clapped her hooves with excitement, she might've noticed Applejack's cheek-pushed grin and wink, one that Big Macintosh only narrowed his eyes and snorted at. If she was gonna try this, he wasn't gonna cooperate. Forcing them to work together on something neither was so keen on wasn't the right way to go about it, but then he'd never really known Cheerilee all too well. She was all talk as they trotted down the orchard toward the hills in the distance, her green eyes wide and glimmering in the light of the wayward sun.
She'd apparently been looking forward to helping out this year. Twilight had stopped by a week or two before at the schoolhouse after the work day was over and mentioned the Harvest to Cheerilee during their conversation. As it had turned out, farm work had been something Cheerilee was itching to try! That's what Twilight had told him later, at least. He didn't really believe her. If anything, Applejack had enlisted the help of her friends in her mission of love, and everypony involved had suddenly lost each and every single ounce of trust that he had to give.
The mission may have been part of a scam, but Cheerilee's enthusiasm didn't show it one bit. She'd wanted to know all about what they were doing that day; where they were headed, how many trees they were bucking, what kinds of apples they were getting, how many they'd be putting in buckets every hour, and all kinds of mathematical, theoretical nonsense he was very bothered he hadn't seen coming for the school teacher walking alongside him. Despite the company, Big Macintosh didn't say much, mostly restricting himself to one-word answers, hums, and curt nods with every question the mare had at hoof. She was doing a good job at seeming interested—at all—in what he did, but he knew a trick when he saw it, and so he had just kept on trotting toward his—their—destination.
This "their" thing bit him on the ass a lot more than he would've thought. A lot of times, he'd rear around and buck one of the trees without looking where he was hitting, narrowly missing the mare who was just curious about his methods so she could try them herself. Sometimes, he'd have to actually talk while he was working, continuing his answering of her questions whenever they came. These ranged from his form, crouched forward and forelegs like coiled springs in the dirt, to how he always got every apple in the trees, which he didn't really know. Once, he'd missed the tree by a foot, courtesy of Cheerilee pointing up at the branches and talking about the sturdiness of oaks, then had had to pass it off as a "practice buck". It had been a little larger of a tree compared to the others around it, and so he'd been able to safely explain that he wanted to make sure he was positioned right. The very obvious lie, in which he was very obviously fumbling on, didn't stutter the look in Cheerilee's eyes, and she'd smiled her smile and directed it at him.
He'd been too focused on not screwing up again to give her one back.
The asking and the answering and the determined bucking had gone by quicker than he'd thought up in his head, and dinner time came around before he could even realize Granny Smith was ringing the dinner bell. Beckoning Cheerilee alongside him again—mainly because she'd probably get lost—he walked back toward the farm and headed inside for a quick meal. Only when he'd opened the door for the mare did he realize she hadn't done any work apart from watching his own. He felt a frown cross his lips as he joined the rest of the group, eyeing them all cautiously while they ate their corn and beans. Not that he'd expected Cheerilee to do the other half of the orchard in tandem with he, but she'd been invited up here for a reason, and at the very least she could've tried knocking out a few trees or so in his wake.
"Seems y'all've almost got the entire west side cleared, Big Macintosh!"
At that, he'd stopped. He... hadn't. If anything, he'd gotten almost halfway down, if not even that. There was still the upper parts of the orchard to get, along with a few closer to the house that he'd promised himself to get later. Unless his sister was being generous with her words, he still had a lot of work left to go.
"Yeah, I swooped on over to see how far you two'd gone! You and Cheerilee are beating the hay out of us!"
Rainbow Dash wasn't the Element of Honesty. She was... Kindness, right? Or was that Pinkie Pie? There were six Elements, too much for him to keep track of, but he knew Rainbow Dash wasn't Honesty, and so she was just joking him with him right there on their dinner table. He'd been working the trees row by row, in a spiral, all day. To a bird's eye view, it'd look a lot more like he was just skipping out on work and was lagging behind like a colt. There was no way he was doing a good enough job under a watchful glance to merit a lead.
Cheerilee had giggled, and he'd almost spit his water out into his cup at the sound of it, but he choked it down and only shook his head when Apple Bloom had looked over.
"Ya dyin'?"
He'd had one of his trademark negatives on his tongue, but he was worried it'd come out all shaky.
The dinner flew by smoothly, with big talk coming from the ponies seated at the table, and Big Mactinosh was the first to get up and walk back outside to try and reaffirm how much more had to be done on his end. Opening the front door and standing on the porch, he'd craned his neck and looked to his left.
His jaw had dropped, but he picked it back up when Cheerilee creaked the floorboards next to him.
The entire west side—his side—was almost done. He hadn't gotten the middle area yet; he was waiting to do them after dinner because those trees were always a little harder to get, but they looked clean of those familiar red dots from where he stood gaping at them.
"Well, we still have work to finish!"
He droned out a very poorly thought over note, then shut his mouth when the mare giggled and began trotting over to the distant trees. The questions remained as they walked through the treeline, but they concerned the food they'd just had instead of the work he'd apparently breezed through. He didn't know which apples Granny used in the pie, and the beans were ones they kept inside their cellar in a big ol' jar Big Macintosh had bought a couple years ago, and Apple Bloom was a surprisingly big eater, but yeah, she was a growing filly anyway so it wasn't too hard to believe.
They returned to where they'd stopped working, and this time, Big Macintosh paid close attention to what the mare was doing. He'd been mostly staring at the ground, or the sky, or the tree behind him about to receive a brisk bucking, but now his attention was solely on the mare.
"So why do you wear that yoke all the time?"
This wasn't a yes or no question, and he couldn't feel good about giving a yes or no answer. He worked his jaw, got into position, minded where he stood and how he did it, and promptly bucked the tree behind him.
Then he realized why she'd been asking about his posture. At the exact same time as he, she crouched forward, pressed her forelegs against the dirt, and shot her hindlegs back into the surface of the apple tree to her rear. He about stumbled over when he watched every single apple fall off their branches and into the baskets below.
She didn't even break a sweat as he followed her path and bucked the next tree in line in time with her.
"Uh."
She looked over at him. Apparently, she hadn't been expecting an answer to come out of his mouth either.
"It was my pa's."
Cheerilee pursed her lips and nodded. She kicked another tree.
"It does look pretty ancient. I think I've actually seen that a fossil museum somewhere."
He couldn't stop the chuckle from vibrating his throat. She was successful in breaking his quiet, and so she celebrated with a chipper snicker.
The conversation, as small and meaningless it turned out to be, wasn't as one-sided as Big Macintosh was used to. He replied, for a change, with more than one word out of two that he seemed to know. By the time that ten o' clock came, and with it the few Appleloosa stallions that Applejack had promised, Big Macintosh and Cheerilee were just getting into a pretty heated, albeit short, argument about whether or not the wood buckets they were using would dent the apples.
"Quitting time!"
Then they trotted off as quickly as they'd arrived. They'd come, alright. Applejack always found ways to promise something in the smallest of ways, and, well, they technically did be over there in a bit. Big Macintosh and Cheerilee, slightly perturbed by the random stallions, rolled their eyes and began walking back over to the farm to part. Adjusting her scarf and swiping at her bangs, she'd occupied the short while they spent on their trot with a continuation of their argument. Big Macintosh found himself grinning wider than his nose as it grew more and more ridiculous.
"When the apples fall, they'll chip their skins on the wood. With a metal bucket, they'll clatter inside but be a lot better off."
It wasn't disagreeable, but he was much more content on just using a wooden one.
"Plus, they're easier to clean up if you get more than just apples in them, and they'll last longer."
Probably not for the second part, but he couldn't really deny the first. With wood, it'd soak up bits of water or other kinds of unwanted things, and it was a pain to wash.
He was almost upset when they finally cleared the treeline and found themselves walking past fences. If Cheerilee's long sigh was any indication, she was as well.
"I had fun today."
He raised a brow. Then he turned his head so she could see.
"It was pretty hard work, and now I'm all sweaty, but it was a great learning experience!"
He chuckled from down in his gut. Of course, the school teacher left this with a new thing to have learned.
He had raised a hoof to head back into the farmhouse, but her next words froze him solid.
"I was, um... thinking of heading over to the bar to get a drink before I head home. Would you wanna... come with?"
He didn't really drink outside of his house. He liked to be safe about doing it.
"I'm starting to think that wooden buckets are a much better alternative."
She was definitely lying. He had to actually convince her how much better they were to use for Harvest, and so he'd mulled about it in his head, hummed to himself, clucked his tongue, and finally replied with something familiar.
"Eeyup."
A week later, he was Cheerilee's boyfriend.
