something else. He wrote it down for me, and hung it up on my wall. On the very day I was born, they tell me. I didn’t catch on to the whole of it till a good spell later. Sixteen years. And then it still wasn’t the old man that told me; it was his wife, my stepmother, the girl he brought from back East . . . But I’ll get to that directly . . .)
They found Jonas had taken the money from the feed store and left them with little more than the building and what meager stock was on hand and the house across the river. The stock was mostly seed, nothing that would bring in cash until spring, and they made it through that first winter largely on charity from the most well-to-do family in the county, the Stokes family. Jeremy Stokes was unofficial governor, mayor, justice of the peace, and moneylender of the county, having been granted the positions by that old unwritten decree: First Come, First Served. What he had first served himself to was an enormous warehouse left empty by Hudson’s Bay. He moved in; when no one ever came around to move him out, he turned the warehouse into the town’s first general store and worked out a nice deal with the shipping line that steamed every two or three months into the bay, a sweet little deal whereby they received a little something extra for the privilege of selling to no one but him. “It’s on account of I’m a member,” he explained, but never made it clear of exactly what. He talked vaguely of some obscure union in the East between the steamboat men and the merchants, “And I propose, friends and fellow pioneers, to make all of us around here members: I’m a generous man.”
Generous was hardly the word. Hadn’t he fed that tragic Mrs. Stamper and her brood after their old man left? The goods had been delivered for seven months by his oldest boy, a thin, pale drink of water—Bobby Stokes, who not only enjoyed the distinction of being one of the few white natives of the county but was as well the only member of the town ever to take a cruise all the way to Europe; “None of the doctors around here,” Aaron once remarked, “could really appreciate the quality of Boney’s cough.” Delivered daily, for seven charitable months, “And the only thing father asks,” the boy said after the term of generosity was up, “is that you become a member of the Wakonda Co-op.” He handed a sharpened pencil and a paper to the mother. She took glasses from a black coin purse and studied the document for a long time.
“But . . . doesn’t this mean our feed store?”
“Just a formality.”
“Sign it, Mama.”
“But . . .”
“Sign it.”
It was Henry, the eldest. He stepped forward and took the paper from his mother and put it on a plank. He put the pencil in her hand. “Just sign it.”
The thin boy smiled, watching the paper warily. “Thank you, Henry. You’re very wise. Now, as shareholding members this entitles you folks to certain deductions and privileges—”
Henry laughed, an odd, tight laugh he had recently developed, able to cut off conversation like a knife. “Oh, I reckon we’ll whup ’er without certain privileges.” He picked up the signed paper and held it just out of the other boy’s reach. “Probably without being members of anything, too.”
“Henry . . . old man—” The other boy blinked solemnly, following the paper’s teasing movements, then began reciting in unconscious parody of his father, “We are founders of a new frontier, workers in a new world; we must all strive together. A unified effort will—”
Henry laughed and pushed the paper into the boy’s hand; then stooped to select some choice rocks from the river bank. He skipped one out across the wide gray-green water, flashing. “Oh, I reckon we’ll whup ’er.”
His failure to be duly impressed by the offer made the other boy uneasy and a little irritated. “Henry,” he said again softly and touched Henry’s arm with two fingers thin as icicles, “I was born in
They found Jonas had taken the money from the feed store and left them with little more than the building and what meager stock was on hand and the house across the river. The stock was mostly seed, nothing that would bring in cash until spring, and they made it through that first winter largely on charity from the most well-to-do family in the county, the Stokes family. Jeremy Stokes was unofficial governor, mayor, justice of the peace, and moneylender of the county, having been granted the positions by that old unwritten decree: First Come, First Served. What he had first served himself to was an enormous warehouse left empty by Hudson’s Bay. He moved in; when no one ever came around to move him out, he turned the warehouse into the town’s first general store and worked out a nice deal with the shipping line that steamed every two or three months into the bay, a sweet little deal whereby they received a little something extra for the privilege of selling to no one but him. “It’s on account of I’m a member,” he explained, but never made it clear of exactly what. He talked vaguely of some obscure union in the East between the steamboat men and the merchants, “And I propose, friends and fellow pioneers, to make all of us around here members: I’m a generous man.”
Generous was hardly the word. Hadn’t he fed that tragic Mrs. Stamper and her brood after their old man left? The goods had been delivered for seven months by his oldest boy, a thin, pale drink of water—Bobby Stokes, who not only enjoyed the distinction of being one of the few white natives of the county but was as well the only member of the town ever to take a cruise all the way to Europe; “None of the doctors around here,” Aaron once remarked, “could really appreciate the quality of Boney’s cough.” Delivered daily, for seven charitable months, “And the only thing father asks,” the boy said after the term of generosity was up, “is that you become a member of the Wakonda Co-op.” He handed a sharpened pencil and a paper to the mother. She took glasses from a black coin purse and studied the document for a long time.
“But . . . doesn’t this mean our feed store?”
“Just a formality.”
“Sign it, Mama.”
“But . . .”
“Sign it.”
It was Henry, the eldest. He stepped forward and took the paper from his mother and put it on a plank. He put the pencil in her hand. “Just sign it.”
The thin boy smiled, watching the paper warily. “Thank you, Henry. You’re very wise. Now, as shareholding members this entitles you folks to certain deductions and privileges—”
Henry laughed, an odd, tight laugh he had recently developed, able to cut off conversation like a knife. “Oh, I reckon we’ll whup ’er without certain privileges.” He picked up the signed paper and held it just out of the other boy’s reach. “Probably without being members of anything, too.”
“Henry . . . old man—” The other boy blinked solemnly, following the paper’s teasing movements, then began reciting in unconscious parody of his father, “We are founders of a new frontier, workers in a new world; we must all strive together. A unified effort will—”
Henry laughed and pushed the paper into the boy’s hand; then stooped to select some choice rocks from the river bank. He skipped one out across the wide gray-green water, flashing. “Oh, I reckon we’ll whup ’er.”
His failure to be duly impressed by the offer made the other boy uneasy and a little irritated. “Henry,” he said again softly and touched Henry’s arm with two fingers thin as icicles, “I was born in
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