When her father came up onto the porch and into the house from the grove, he seemed surprised.
“Didn’t expect you today, Virgil,” he said, and Jane noticed her mother shut herself down in the secretive way she sometimes did when she wanted to hide something from you. Jane went silent and tried to turn her ears toward their talk the way a dog or cat would when it heard something curious and interesting.
Uncle Virgil had a quiet, soft voice and an old country way of not moving his jaw or mouth much when he spoke so that his words somehow always seemed private and friendly. Intimate, like he was chewing softly on the words. Even when he was speaking of hard matters, such as a death or someone in trouble, he spoke in the same even voice, and somehow that carried a kind of authority, his expression consistently one of earnest interest, not like he was amused but like he took it all in stride as part of life. He had briefly been sheriff in the county and had been good at it but did not run for reelection, saying it saddened him too much to see all the hard things a sheriff has to see. But the experience had made him more even-tempered than he’d been before.
“Well,” he said then, glancing at Jane’s mother and straightening his gaze onto her father. “I had me an idea. I don’t know as you’d like to spend the money, but it’s a pretty good arrangement and likely to help everybody out should there be an accident.”
Her father just looked placidly back at Virgil, waiting, seeming neither impatient nor overly interested. He could be a patient man when his work had gone well and he wasn’t itching for a drink.
“What I’m talking about is something more and more farmers are doing these days, and that’s taking out accidental death and dismemberment policies on their tenants and sharecroppers.”
Her father still said nothing, although he leaned his head just slightly to the side and his eyes registered a combination of wary curiosity and heightened interest.
“I take it you want me to continue on,” Virgil said.
Her father nodded, only then taking off his field hat and setting it on the table beside a cup of coffee Jane’s mother had set in front of him on a saucer. He brought the hot black coffee to his mouth and took a careful sip, set it back onto the saucer. Virgil did the same with his cup. Her mother occupied herself with mending a tear in the shoulder of a shirt she had in her lap.
Virgil took some papers from his briefcase and set them on the table.
“Now, these here pay you, the one paying the premiums, if one of the people you take out a policy on should die as result of an accident here on the farm or anywhere else, or if they lose a hand, arm, part of an arm, or a leg, even a finger or two-three. Anything that affects their ability to continue to work for you.”
“How much is it for each policy?”
“Here’s the price of the monthly premium, you can see it’s not much. You could pay for it easy out of their rent if they’re tenants and their crop if they’re sharecroppers. You just get a little less, but if something should happen to them, well, then you get paid this”—and he pointed to some figures on the papers—“for a death, and this”—he pointed again—“if it’s a dismemberment. It’s more than enough to carry you over till you find someone else to lease the land or sharecrop it.”
Her father looked at the papers and figures, blinking a couple of times, seeming to study them and to think.
“It’s an investment, Sylvester, if you think about it. Against potential catastrophic loss. You do have to put some money in up front, but after that you can figure it out of your profit from these sections, just like you would any other expense. Now, I know for a fact you’ve had it happen before. Accident, I mean.”
“That fellow name of Whitehead. Saw blade caught him in the leg right where the big artery sits, he bled out on the spot.”
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Nothing anybody could’ve done. And you had to hire help to finish his crop. And still gave his widow a share of the profit.”
Her father nodded, still looking at the papers. He took a sip of his coffee, glanced at his wife, who got up and poured a bit more in to reheat it.
“And not to mention the poor Stephens woman helping her husband pitch hay and catches him right in the neck, that must’ve been a good ten, twelve years back.”
Her father nodded, sipped the fresh coffee.
“Ten,” he said.
“Now, if you look here,” Virgil said, pointing, “for just fifty cents more each premium, you get enough to cover a lost crop, should you not be able to get anyone in there to take it over in time, and still have money left over. I’d say it’s worth it.”
“And this all goes to me, something happens?”
“’Less you want to give something to the widow, or help out the disabled man, which of course some do, some don’t.”
“Let me think on it a little bit,” her father said.
“How many you got here on the place now?” Virgil said, although even Jane knew Virgil knew the answer to that. He was a good salesman, even to his own kin.
“Got the colored ’cropper Harris, and the young tenant Temple.”
“Each doing eighty.”
“Right. I do my forty in cotton, tobacco, and corn. Ten acres in pecan trees. Rest in cattle pasture and the woods here behind the house. I keep it for hunting, fishing, and just pleasure, you know.”
“Well, you don’t have to cover everybody. I’d say the tenant, maybe. Maybe just Harris himself, not his sons.” Virgil scribbled some numbers on a pad. “This premium every three or six months, your choice. Feel safer, protected from some fool accident, or one couldn’t be avoided, for that matter. Happens.”
“Happens,” her father said, nodding. “And what about myself?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Virgil said, scribbling again. “I can get you a discount on yourself, I’m pretty sure, you being the owner and taking responsibility for them that work your land.” He scribbled a little more.
Her father studied the new numbers a minute, nodded, went to the jar in the kitchen cupboard, and gave Virgil some bills and coins.
“All right, then,” Virgil said. “All I’ll need is for you to get their full legal names and dates of birth. You can tell them it’s like a liability policy on the whole place, as it is, practically speaking. This is completely legal, and as I said more and more common. Makes good sense in the farming business, all things considered. I can set up everything here, and you can fill out that information about these men when you get it, and I’ll come back by next week and get the papers.”
Then they both signed, and Virgil and her father stepped out onto the porch after Virgil had said good night to Jane’s mother.
Jane slipped out the kitchen door and crept through the breezeway to spy-listen on them there.
“I’m recalling that business up in Scooba,” her father said.
“Well,” Virgil said, “that was an unfortunate case.”
“I wouldn’t want anybody thinking I had anything like that in mind.”
“No reason anybody would, you got a spotless reputation.”
“Drinkin’ aside.”
“Well. You got a lot of company in that, I’d say. Now, like I said, this is becoming more and more common among your farmers.”
“Folks know I’m a good businessman, always aboveboard.”
“Yes, they do.”
“Anything was to happen, I’d hope nobody’d think anything underhanded gone on here.”
“No reason to think that. Besides, that thing in Scooba — I wouldn’t call a fellow dying of poison spasms exactly an accidental death. They got away with it for so long because that doctor up there was involved in it.”