THE NEXT DAY a buckboard with an older man and a younger man came rattling by the house on its way down to the Temple cabin. In a little while it came back up, with Lacey sitting on the seat beside the older man, in full bonnet, and the younger man in the back with Lon Temple’s body still under the same counterpane.
Her father stepped off their porch and approached the wagon, which stopped and waited on him. She saw him speaking to Lacey, who would not look at him. The younger man in back was looking at her father with his mouth half open, as if he was thinking of something he might say but couldn’t come up with it. The older man looked at her father briefly, then turned his eyes straight ahead again. Then her father held a brown envelope up to Lacey, who sat very still for a moment. Then she took it from his hand, tucked it into her lap. The older man tapped the reins against his horse’s backside and the buckboard continued on up their drive and out of sight. Her father watched them go, then came back to the house. He didn’t say anything to Jane, and went inside.
In the kitchen he was telling her mother that he planned to let the Swede, a bulky older neighbor who’d given up farming his own small place but still looked strong as a horse, take over half of Temple’s place on half shares, and let Harris take the other forty acres, if he felt they could do it. Otherwise, she and Jane would have to help him finish it out if they could. Might have to hire a hand.
“Did you give her all the money, Papa?” Jane said. She set a plate before her father. He gave her a puzzled look.
“I borrowed against that policy to give her something,” he said. “The payment won’t come right away, takes a while.”
He picked up his knife and fork.
“I wouldn’t give her all of it, in any case.” He looked directly at her. “I would not have bought the policy just for that. Don’t you see that doesn’t make any sense?”
“What are you going to do with the rest?”
She had no idea how much it might be.
Her father ate a forkful of peas and speared a cut of ham.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Not like there’s anything you can call extra cash these days.”
Then he said, “You might need it someday.”
“Me?”
He looked at her.
“You might not want to end up spending your whole life on this place, girl.”
“Where would I go?”
Her father didn’t answer right away. He left off the cold peas and ate the ham with a chunk of cornbread, washed it down with tea.
Then he said, “That would be entirely up to you, now, wouldn’t it?”
HE FELT THE DEATH of that young man, the weight of it, more than any of them knew, more than he would let on. Now that he had the insurance money coming he realized he hadn’t truly thought out how he would feel on receiving it, blood money it was, no matter how you looked at it, no matter how much that. boy. brought it on himself with his temper and his foolish behavior, reckless. And thought, too, how it could happen to anyone, and how many times had he been on that tractor or on a mule-pulled rig with those same blades rolling behind him, and him with a snootful of mash? But now here he stood, about to get his hands on a stack of cash money, and he could feel it bring up in him the lesser part of his nature. Greed, pure and simple. But it wasn’t just greed for himself, now, was it? It was for them all. And for young Jane. He stood at the edge of the cattle pond, looking at nothing, but turned to look back up at the house and saw her there, playing in the yard with her hoop and stick, chasing the hoop around like she was the little tyke she used to be. Death could move and frighten the young, he figured, but it didn’t affect them the way it did their elders, who thought about it every day, and feared it.
He heard the thunk and thwack of the kindling ax out back of the house. Speak of the devil. He could picture his wife back there, working in a blind fury. Where she went when her own mind wouldn’t let her be. He wondered idly if one day she would ever, for whatever reason or none, take it to him, in his sleep or as he simply walked right in through the front door. He almost laughed to himself, imagining that.
The Infernal Voices of Reason
When the crash came in ’29, the farm soon felt the effect of it. Before it was over, they’d see prices for cattle and crops drop so badly that for some years they would live mostly on the garden, their own corn, the hogs and chickens. Chisolm increased the croppers’ percentages in an attempt to help them survive — to keep them from giving it up and leaving everyone all the poorer. He could see the worse times coming by 1930, so he scraped up the money to increase the product of his distillery, and this helped. He declined to charge more in hard times. Charged less for the younger batches. He managed to keep the little store he’d used to supply his neighbors and sharecroppers, even though it did less business. He even gave a little credit every now and then, taking the man’s word that he’d pay him somehow, when he could. He sold only the occasional cow, not nearly as often as he used to.
He’d always believed that a man could prosper at least modestly if he worked very hard and all the time. And so he worked even harder. And since he knew that if he was drinking he would not work as hard, he tried not to drink. Not too much, anyway. If you were drinking, you did not get to bed when you should. You could not get up as early as you should. You would not think clearly for much of the day. You would not pay proper attention to your animals. You would not spend time in the winter and on summer evenings mending harnesses, repairing machinery, taking stock of your stores and planning ahead.