Family Land (1988)

mmmmmwMm Family Land by Robert Morgan Dew was so heavy the weeds and spider webs in the garden seemed hung with Christmas balls. It pained her to look at the nettles between the rows of corn and okra, but at least Scottie had rototilled the baulks once since school was out. The real source of her guilt was the weeds around the squash and tomato vines, where the tiller could not reach. Scottie would do any job where an enfine was used, but the hoe work and and work were her responsibility. 70 Daddy would help if she asked, but he had enough to do in his own garden, and driving his pickup to the rest home every day. She tried to pull a few ragweeds at the edge without getting her moccasins wet or dirty. Her hands and forearms were quickly soaked by the shaken dew and she wiped them across her face. She had not gone to bed last night, but must have dropped asleep on the couch around two, for the last thing she remembered was Gary Cooper struck by lightning in Sargeant York and reforming his ufe. She had wakened, slumped on the cushions, at five and walked out to the garden just as the sun rose over Tryon Mountain; she'd left the patio door open in case the phone rang, or the children woke. When she married Clint, Daddy had been silent, but she knew he disapproved . She thought it was because Clint was from town and didn't want to farm and would not attend church. She liked him for just those reasons, for she meant to work in town, to stay away from farming, and to give less time to church activities than her parents had. She shared with Clint a love of sports cars and speedboats. He was company champion at both bowling and baseball. His favorite story was about the coon hunter who was stopped by the preacher and asked why he hadn't been attending church. "Reverend, all my dogs is saved," the hunter said. Within a year she had admitted to herself that Daddy was right. It wasn't only that Clint had no interest in the land Daddy had deeded them, except to sell it, nor that he refused to drop by Mama's and Daddy's even on weekends. It was the way he went off with the bowling team and the baseball team at night and on weekends, so often and so long she began to wonder if he had a girl friend. Once he had been locked up for D & D, and she got her cousin to drive her to the jail to make bail, hoping Mama and Daddy would not find out. But of course it was printed in Monday afternoon's paper. The weeds around the corn had grown so big they tore out the corn roots when she jerked them up. She should take the hoe and cut them off and then cover the stumps with dirt. The hoe was in the basement, but she did not want to walk back across the wet grass to get it. Two more trips across the lawn and her moccasins would be soaked and she had no other slippers to wear in the house. As a girl she had taken care to leave her field shoes on the porch when she came back for dinner. The rest of the family wiped their shoes on the grass and stomped a few times on the porch, and went on in. She couldn't stand to wear the dirty shoes on the linoleum floor even though it was rough with grit. One of her consolations as she picked in the muddy bean rows, cool rain tapping her shoulders and back, was the thought that she could shed the clog-thick mudsoled shoes, and after washing her feet in the pan on the back porch, put on the new slippers she'd bought at Woolworths . As she bent and searched the wet rasping vines, she pictured the school clothes she would buy in Greenville in August. The phone was ringing and she threw down a weed stalk and ran...