A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [51]
“So,” said Pete. “I was at the feedstore yesterday, too, when Harold came in with another bright idea.”
We started grinning.
“What was that?” said Ty.
“He said he was thinking about changing his will.”
There was the briefest of silences, the briefest but the most total, and then Jess said, “Uh oh,” and laughed. We all knew what everyone was thinking, that Harold would change the will in favor of Jess (assuming that the present will favored Loren, which Harold, of course, had never actually said, but which had become what people “knew” Harold had done), but Jess said, “He’s probably going to leave the place to the Nature Conservancy so that they can restore it to its natural wetlands condition.”
Ty said, “What’s the Nature Conservancy?”
“They buy land and conserve it.” Jess looked at Ty in that merry but aggressive way. “Take it out of production, you know.”
“God forbid,” said Ty.
We didn’t say any more about Harold’s will, but late in the evening, after Rose and Pete had taken Pammy and Linda home, Jess lingered before stepping off the porch. He said to Ty, “You know that land you have down by Henry Grove? What’s the guy been growing on it?”
“Straight corn for the last four years. Before that he had some beans on it.”
“Fall plow or spring plow?”
“Fall. And there isn’t a house. I let him bulldoze the house and fill in the well about seven years ago. You could live in town, though. Henry Grove’s only a couple of miles away.”
“So he’s really worked the shit out of that land.”
Ty looked out toward the dim glow of Cabot on the western horizon, for a long moment, and ran his forefinger around the corner of his mouth. I could tell he was offended. Finally, he said, “It’s good land. Michael Rakosi hasn’t done anything with it I might not have done. He likes clean fields, is all.”
Jess smiled, also realizing that Ty was offended, and said, “I’m not meaning to criticize. If I did farm, I’d try some things. A lot of them probably wouldn’t work. I’d probably ask your advice all the time. I’d probably farm out of a book a lot. That used to be Harold’s worst insult, he’d say, ‘That guy, he farms straight out of a book.’ But for me, it wouldn’t be worth it, really, unless I was trying some of the stuff I learned out west.”
“Well, maybe.” Ty smiled.
At breakfast, Ty was mild but insistent. He kept saying, “People don’t realize that there isn’t any room any more for something that might not work out. I mean, when his income comes solely from the farm, and he’s got to make up his mind about the fuel and the time for another pass through the beans, or maybe getting forty-three bushels an acre instead of forty-seven. It’s all very well to talk about ten acres of black walnut trees, and then harvesting them for veneer in thirty years at ten thousand dollars a tree, but what about the lost production for that thirty years? It’s more complicated than people think, just reading books.”
I said, “Are you talking to yourself or to me?”
He looked up from his plate and grinned at me. “Hell, Ginny, this morning there’s a whole peanut gallery.”
“He wasn’t criticizing you. You don’t have to feel criticized.”
“Yes and no. He doesn’t feel critical, and he wants to be our friend, but he wouldn’t do things our way, and he probably wouldn’t have us do things our way, truth to tell.”
“Maybe, but there’s room for lots of ways, isn’t there?”
He sat back and wiped his mouth, then pushed back his chair and stood up. Outside, the day was beginning to lighten. He said, “Well, sure, in principle. I sometimes wonder how that principle works in action, though. Anyway, I am going to have another pass through the beans in Mel’s corner, because there’s a terrible stand of cockleburs that’s gotten all over in there.” He gave my arm a little squeeze and went out the door.
16
AFTER TY LEFT, it took me half an hour to get myself down to my father’s. Lots of little things needed picking up, and, in fact, our late nights were beginning to tell on my mornings. I knew Daddy would be annoyed at having to wait for his breakfast. Now that I was