Read Online The Harrows of Spring by James Howard Kunstler - Free Book Online Page B

scrapie.”
    â€œWell that’d just be a goddamn lie, Jason—”
    Robert rapped on the table with his knife.
    â€œGentlemen, can we get back to the matter at hand, please,” he said.
    â€œSpending public money we don’t have on a business venture we’re not competent to run is the matter at hand,” Jason said.
    â€œYou can shut the fuck up now, Jason—” Loren said.
    â€œOh, nice mouth there, Reverend.”
    â€œâ€”before I kick your ass down the stairs.”
    â€œBig man!”
    â€œThat’s right. I’m a lot bigger than you are, so mind what I say.”
    â€œOkay. That’s it,” LaBountie said. “I quit this board. Goddamn thugs and socialists!”
    The others watched the portly veterinarian withdraw from the pool of candlelight and waddle across the big, dim room to the stairwell. They waited until his footfalls on the stairs ended and the oaken door of the main entrance slammed shut.
    â€œAs we were saying,” Robert resumed, and the others around the table burst into tension-relieving laughter.
    â€œBilderbergers?” Sam Hutto said. “I haven’t heard that one for a while.”
    Brother Jobe passed his whiskey flask around.
    â€œLookit, everybody,” Terry Einhorn said. “I’m about out of sugar, salt, walnuts, peanuts, phosphate, saltpeter, alum, candle wicks, sisal rope, canvas, grommets, and a hundred other things our people need. Do you really want to go without for the rest of the year?”
    â€œHe’s right,” Todd Zucker said. “We can’t shut ourselves off from trade with the outside world. And we don’t have to.”
    â€œWho is going to crew this boat, exactly?” Ned Larmon asked.
    â€œIt doesn’t take navigational skills to run the river to Albany and back,” Robert said. “Bullock ran with a crew of four.”
    â€œWell, my bunch is good for fifty ounces toward purchase,” Brother Jobe declared. “I can’t spare any hands to sail it, but surely y’all can locate some town men looking for gainful employment off field and farm, and maybe a little adventure to boot.”
    â€œMotion to vote on proposal to raise enough silver to purchase a cargo boat,” Loren said.
    â€œAnd volunteers to build a crib dock on the river,” Terry said.
    â€œIn favor?” Robert asked. “Against.”
    The vote in favor was unanimous.

N INE
    Sarah Watling, daughter of Britney Blieveldt and Shawn Watling (deceased), had skills and responsibilities that would have seemed impossible for an eight-year-old back in the old times. She knew, for instance, all the steps to making a splint basket from a black ash log. She could slaughter, pluck, and butcher a chicken, and then roast it perfectly. One night a week she was required to cook the family dinner and it was her job to make corn bread every other day. She could sew well enough to make her own skirts and trousers. She could knit a pair of socks. And it was also her task to milk Cinnamon, the family cow.
    Cinnamon lived in the barn on Salem Street that once had belonged to Sarah’s grandparents Denny and Marge Watling, Britney’s in-laws (also deceased). The accompanying house burned down the previous spring. Only the foundation remained, with blackberries now beginning to creep over the dry-laid fieldstones. The barn behind it, built in 1889, had replaced an even earlier, cruder structure erected by a veteran of the Revolutionary War, one Dyer Goodsell, partner in the town’s first flax mill. It was Sarah’s favorite place because she felt it truly belonged to her. It came down through her father’s family and she was the one who spent the most time there, mostly alone. Sarah loved the forecourt with its old mossy marble pavement, and the Dutch door with its diamond-shaped windowpanes, and the old dark wood of the interior. The floor was made of chestnut planks four inches