“I don’t know.” I looked out across the clearing to the field. “Only thing I know is, I’m not going to sharecrop my own land.”
She nodded to that. “Well, one thing I know too. He ain’t gettin’ my garden.”
All the rest of that day I walked the forty, thinking on what I should do. Most of the land was cleared, a field plowed, and a crop in. Filmore Granger had himself a real money property now, not to mention the money he’d already made from selling off the timber. It pained me more than I can say, all that work Mitchell and I had done, Caroline and Nathan too, all the nights with not enough sleep, all the sacrifices we had made, and for what? To end up with nothing. What pained me most, though, was that I had let Caroline down, and Mitchell.
I figured Filmore Granger had played me for the fool. I knew he hadn’t just now heard about my intention to buy J. T. Hollenbeck’s land. Too many people knew about it for him not to have heard before. He’d heard about it, all right, a good while back no doubt, but he’d kept his silence to keep his timber coming. He had kept his silence until now so he could take back his land, with all the timber he wanted cut, and a lie spread so I could buy no more land, land that once was his. I ended the day at Mitchell’s grave and just sat there under the oak, talking to my friend, as if he could hear, and pondering what I should do. Night came and I did not even go in for supper when Caroline called.
The next morning, early, I set out for Strawberry, and Caroline with Nathan started gleaning the garden. Caroline figured to pick her garden clean and preserve every single vegetable that wouldn’t keep. I figured to go see the banker in Strawberry, then continue on to Vicksburg to see B. R. Tillman again and the other bankers. Though I figured it was useless, I had to try. I didn’t hold out much hope of getting a loan, but I couldn’t think of much else to do. The banker in Strawberry turned me down flat, pretty much as I’d expected, and the bankers in Vicksburg did the same.
The last banker I saw was B. R. Tillman, who sat back in his big banker’s chair and said to me: “Paul, I know about that deal you were trying to make to sell Mister Granger’s forty acres. Also know what Mister Granger’s been saying about you cutting down his trees. Know too you don’t have the money to buy that forty acres of Mister Granger’s and certainly not that two hundred from Mister Hollenbeck. Now, I told J. T. Hollenbeck he wasn’t using good business sense in the first place to let you have it, but him being a Yankee, he agreed to sell it to you anyway. Now, here you come to me again trying to borrow money to pay him for it.”
He took a pause. “I like you, Paul. I told you that before. You do good furniture work. My wife is still bragging on that chifforobe you made for her. But like I told you, that’s what you need to be sticking to, working with your hands, not trying to handle business. You stay to working with your hands, then you’ll do well by that. You didn’t take my advice before, but you best take it now. You let this here Hollenbeck land go. Settle up your dispute with Mister Granger. I told him you was a good boy and that you’d just gotten in over your head and no doubt you didn’t mean to chop his trees. You settle up your accounts with him, and if you still want to farm and raise a family, then you sign on with somebody and you sharecrop some land. You stick with what you know and don’t be trying to do things you just not suited for. Now, that’s the best advice I can give you, Paul.”
I told B. R. Tillman, “Advice wasn’t what I came here for.”
After that I went straight to the telegraph office and did what I hadn’t expected to do, and one of the hardest things too. I sent a telegram to Cassie and asked her, if she could spare it, to send me the money I needed. I told her that if she could spare me a loan, to send a bank draft to Strawberry within ten days. That’s all the time I had. I didn’t put much hope in Cassie’s being able to help me, but I was desperate enough to ask. I left the telegraph office with a heavy heart and went to Luke Sawyer’s store. There I bought several boxes of preserve jars for Caroline’s vegetables.
“Got a lot of canning to do, I see,” said Luke Sawyer as he figured my bill.
I just nodded.
Luke Sawyer eyed me over the spectacles. “How your crops doing?”
I looked away, then back to him. “I no longer have any crops. Filmore Granger’s taking back the forty.”
Luke Sawyer studied me with steady eyes. “I heard,” he said. Neither he nor I spoke of the obvious, that Filmore Granger had reneged on our deal. “So what you going to do now?”