Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"Say, Pop, you ought to see the way the Frenchies farm! They got about
an acre each, and, say, they use every inch of it. If they's a little
dirt blows into the crotch of a tree, they plant a crop in there. I
never seen nothin' like it. Say, we waste enough stuff over here to
keep that whole country in food for a hundred years. Yessir. And
tools! Outta the ark, believe me. If they ever saw our tractor, they'd
think it was the Germans comin' back. But they're smart at that. I
picked up a lot of new ideas over there. And you ought to see the old
birds--womenfolks and men about eighty years old--runnin' everything on
the farm. They had to. I learned somethin' off them about farmin'."
"Forget the farm," said Minnie.
"Yeh," echoed Gus, "forget the farm stuff. I can get you a job here
out at the works for four-fifty a day, and six when you learn it right."
Dike looked from one to the other, alarm and unbelief on his face.
"What d'you mean, a job? Who wants a job! What you all----"
Bella laughed jovially. "F'r heaven's sakes, Dike, wake up! We're
livin' here. This is our place. We ain't rubes no more."
Dike turned to his father. A little stunned look crept into his face.
A stricken, pitiful look. There was something about it that suddenly
made old Ben think of Pearlie when she had been slapped by her
quick-tempered mother.
"But I been countin' on the farm," he said miserably. "I just been
livin' on the idea of comin' back to it. Why, I---- The streets here,
they're all narrow and choked up. I been countin' on the farm. I want
to go back and be a farmer. I want----"
And then Ben Westerveld spoke. A new Ben Westerveld--the old Ben
Westerveld. Ben Westerveld, the farmer, the monarch over six hundred
acres of bounteous bottomland.
"That's all right, Dike," he said. "You're going back. So'm I. I've
got another twenty years of work in me. We're going back to the farm."
Bella turned on him, a wildcat. "We ain't! Not me! We ain't! I'm not
agoin' back to the farm."
But Ben Westerveld was master again in his own house. "You're goin'
back, Bella," he said quietly, "an' things are goin' to be different.
You're goin' to run the house the way I say, or I'll know why. If you
can't do it, I'll get them in that can. An' me and Dike, we're goin'
back to our wheat and our apples and our hogs. Yessir! There ain't a
bigger man-size job in the world."
Un Morso doo Pang [1919]
When you are twenty you do not patronize sunsets unless you are
unhappy, in love, or both. Tessie Golden was both. Six months ago a
sunset had wrung from her only a casual tribute, such as: "My! Look how
red the sky is!" delivered as unemotionally as a weather bulletin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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