“Well, that’s one of our options, ain’t it, shug?” he said mildly. “If any y’all want to quit farming and cash out, sell to G. Hooks, I’m saying right now, far as I’m concerned, you can do it and I won’t say a word. You boys, ’specially you older boys, helped work this land out—I wouldn’t have half what I’ve got without y’all working hard back then, even before Annie Ruth died.”
By all accounts, Daddy’s first wife had been a harder worker than even he himself and she had imbued her sons with that ethic. Haywood and Robert and Andrew seemed shocked at the very idea of breaking up the farm, but Will and Zach, my mother’s sons, had speculative looks in their eyes.
I was really, really hating this.
“You said we had options,” I said hotly. “That doesn’t sound like much of one to me.”
Daddy smiled like the crafty old fox he is.
“What?” I said, feeling a small shaft of hope.
“Well, now, G. Hooks thinks he owns the south side of the creek,” said Daddy. “He don’t. We do. When I was buying from the Pleasant children and grandchildren all those years ago, I always bought both sides of the creek. G. Hooks’ deed may say something like ‘thence in common with the Keziah Knott line along Possum Creek,’ but mine says ‘to and
“You mean we can keep him off the creek?” asked Andrew. “Stop him from dredging out a fancy lake?”
“We could. But if we get horsey with him, he’s liable to forget about fancy and go for common. If he fills that piece with the kind of crackerboxes like Dick Sutterly built over on Forty-Eight, we could have hundreds of young’uns swarming over the creek anyhow. No, I was thinking maybe we tell him we can work with him, but then he has to maybe do some things like we want.”
The sound level went up as my brothers all started talking at once. “Well,
“Me neither!”
“Talbert’n go to hell ’fore he gets—”
“—put up barbed wire and fence the whole creek—”
“Twenty thousand a acre? You know how much that comes to?”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Seth, and the others gradually quit talking.
Seth stands halfway between us and not just in age. He hasn’t had as much formal education as Adam and Zach and I, but he reads and ponders and keeps his mind more open than some of the older ones. He respects where they’re coming from, though, and he’s always been a conciliator. The boys listen to Seth. I do, too.
“In exchange for access to the creek, maybe we can get G. Hooks to agree to a buffer zone, so we don’t have to see and hear everything over there,” he said. “If we agree to lay back a few hundred feet on this side of the creek, and he lays back the same distance—”
“A greenbelt?” I asked.
“Huh?” said Robert.
“Like a park or a wilderness area,” I said. “Instead of building right up to the creek, make him leave a wide strip of trees and bushes where people can walk or ride bicycles or have picnics.”
It was just like down at the coast. I might not like to see our homeplace changing, but Daddy was right. Best we could hope for was to have a say in
“Something like that could increase the value of land over here,” said Adam. “If Talbert does a good job over there—”
“Yeah,” said Will. “And no reason to say we couldn’t form a development company ourselves someday.”
The older boys were looking hostile again and Jess touched Seth’s sleeve. “I don’t want to give up Silver Dollar, Daddy.”
“Nobody’s asking you to give up your horse or anything else,” Seth said. “We’ve got plenty of time, plenty of land. We’re just talking out loud right now.”
Annie Sue opened the door and a blast of cold November air swept across the room. “Aunt April says tell y’all it’s almost two o’clock and everybody’s started coming in over at the homeplace.”
The mention of food, and a Thanksgiving feast at that, eased the tension that had built up in this room.
“Well, y’all think on it,” Daddy said, as we stirred to go.
He looked down at his great-grandson asleep on his chest. What we were talking about would affect the rest of little Bert’s life. Years from now, when he was an old, old man, would he and his cousins remember this day? And would they bless it or curse it?
Daddy touched that smooth cheek with his workworn finger.
“Y’all just think on it,” he said.
—«»—«»—«»—[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away][A 3S Release— v1, html][September 28, 2007]
