Chapter 30
I fell asleep early, and other than having Fran awaken me to take some antibiotics late in the evening, I slept like a baby, all night long. When I awoke in the morning, I felt far better than I had the day before, and one glance at the clock told me that I was recovering. It was just before six in the morning, but also just before sunrise, so it wasn't fully light outside.
As I moved to get to my feet, the cat, who had been curled up at the foot of the bed, yawned and stretched, then decided it was time for me to pay it some attention. I could only spend a short time indulging her wants though, nature was calling. Since I was alone, that morning's trip to the bathroom was a lot less exciting than the morning before. By taking my time with everything, I even had a sponge bath of sorts and didn't even hurt myself. So, I was already in the kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table with a freshly perked mug of coffee, before Mai-Lin came downstairs.
"Big Tom, you are awake already. Did you sleep well?" She smiled at me.
"I'm fine. Coffee is made and the kettle has just boiled, if you'd prefer to make yourself some tea." I grinned at her. "However, I've already washed this morning, if that's what you were thinking about."
"Thank you for boiling the kettle, but you are a mean man for washing yourself too soon. I had planned on being insistent with you this day." She giggled and blushed.
"Well, I think I'd rather wait for that until my belly feels better."
"Ah, but Lisa-Marie will arrive home at some time later this day and I will no longer be needed as an attendant to all of your needs and desires." She sighed softly as she checked the teakettle and turned the heat back on to bring it to a full boil.
"Oh, I'll just bet you could find a way to convince her to share." I grinned, then glanced up as Fran came into the kitchen. "Morning Fran."
"Well, good morning." She looked at me with raised eyebrows. "As sleepy as you seemed yesterday and last night, I'm surprised that you're up and around so early today."
"Oh, I'm actually feeling quite good today."
"I'm glad of that. I was worried about that twinge you felt last night when you laughed. I thought you might have pulled your stitches."
"Well, it doesn't feel like it. In fact I was thinking of dressing in regular clothes today and maybe even stepping outside for a bit. I'd like to get some fresh air and it looks like it's going to be a nice day to go outside."
"Just don't push yourself too hard or you'll end up back in that hospital bed" She warned. "However, I agree with you. Some fresh air might do you good."
We talked it over and she insisted that I wait to go outside until after David and Samson had arrived to help me down the steps, but I did ask her to go upstairs and bring me down some clothing. Then, while Fran was cooking breakfast and Mai-Lin was having her tea, I slipped away and managed to get dressed without their help. Dressing on my own was certainly different from before the operation. I had to be careful which way I bent or reached, but I managed it with only a tiny bit of discomfort. Fran was still cooking when I got back to the kitchen, but I didn't bother her. Instead I found a seat at the table and spent some more time opening a few of the letters and bills that had come in while I was under the weather. Mai-Lin had already gone out to work on the chores, but it wasn't long before she came back in, followed by Willy, who was carrying the milk bucket. One look at his face and I knew something was up; he was wearing a grin on his face that was a mile wide.
"Congratulate me, Tom." He gushed enthusiastically. "Last night Jean said she'd marry me, either later this spring or early this summer. We wanted check with you to make certain we didn't have our wedding too close to yours though."
"Way to go, Willy." I grinned and held out my hand.
I had to laugh. I'd never seen Willy so excited.
We discussed their wedding plans as we ate breakfast, and I warned him that I was leaving the date and time of ours up to Lisa-Marie, Pam and my Mom. That was one discussion I wanted nothing to do with. The only thing I was going to plan about the wedding was the honeymoon and I warned him that Lisa -Marie and I would be gone for at least a week then. He repeated that they wanted to plan their wedding soon, but they wanted to be sure it didn't interfere with ours.
We were relaxing with our coffee after eating when there was a knock at the door, and Triple Dub appeared with Jean.
"I found a hitchhiker on the road." He winked at me. "She said she'd had this local kid propose to her last night and was going to take him up on it. Her problem was that he'd run off on her. She claimed she needed my help to track him down, because she wants to hogtie him into taking her to town to talk to the priest about having the bans read. The way she was talking, I'm wondering if maybe they've got a reason for hurrying. Do you suppose that's possible?"
"Of course we've got a reason for hurrying, you dumb bunny." Jean turned and swatted him on the shoulder. "If I'm the first of Granny's grand-kids to marry and have a baby, I inherit another quarter section of land. Then I and my future husband could thumb our noses at Daddy."
"How many grand children did your grandmother have?" I asked quietly.
"Just Fred and I, but I don't want him to have that quarter section. It's the one right next door to the Martin's home quarter. Well, just across the road allowance, so it makes sense to me that we should have it if we can. It's not that I think Fred is going to get married and have kids right away, but I don't want to take chances." She paused and grinned. "Besides, I think Will would make a really good daddy, don't you?"
"Will? Don't you mean Willy?" Triple Dub grinned at her.
"I'm going to call him Will." Jean stuck out her tongue at Triple Dub. "A married man shouldn't have to answer to a kid's name."
I glanced at Willy and saw that he was blushing, but grinning widely too. Then I turned back to watch Triple Dub. I'd never seen him open up like he'd been doing the last two days and I certainly wasn't going to interfere in his byplay with Jean. It seemed he was finished with his teasing though and completely surprised me by pulling out a kitchen chair, spinning it around and straddling it, then looking at me intently.
"Mom and I talked a lot last night." He said quietly, then paused.
"And what did she say?" Jean demanded and I nodded, since he was looking at me.
"And, she thinks we should consider the idea of forming a company; you and Willy and I, with Mom, Jean and Lisa Marie either as silent partners, or something of that sort. She thinks we should farm the land this year, and if it works out, then we should see if the group can come up with enough collateral to buy out the two Freds, both senior and junior."
"Holy Shit." I stared at him open mouthed. "A buy out like that takes a lot of collateral."
"Wait a minute. You don't know the whole story. There's more and it's not bad news, but it's not good news either." He shrugged. "I didn't know it before, but Fred senior owed a lot of money to Gran when she died. Aunt Mattie talked her into lending him money three different times. However, he hasn't even been keeping up the payments on the loan. I guess he assumed that when Gran died the loan was forgiven, but he didn't even take the time to go to her funeral, let alone the reading of her will. The half section he and Emily Jean are living on belongs to her, free and clear, but the other half section, which is his, is mortgaged to the hilt. The three quarters that are split between Jean and young Fred have some taxes owing, but not much. Mom isn't sure, but she thinks it's all on young Fred's quarter."
"It is. I made sure the taxes on my quarter section and the one next door to it were paid last year." Jean said vehemently. "I used the money Daddy paid me for rent on my land to do it, then I put the rest in the bank. I made sure the money in the bank was in my own name and no one else could get at it without my signature too. Mom warned me about that, because she thought my crappy brother might try a smart one."
"But Mattie is still alive." I protested. "How can you have inherited the land?"
"It was from Grandpa's will." She said quietly. "He's the one who set it all up. It's kind of crazy, but Granny holds the title on the home quarter for me and collects ten percent of the income after expenses. It's the same on the quarter that my brother has, but she collects all of the rent on the great-grandchild quarter until one is born. At that time it reverts to the same deal and the new parent gets the majority of the income. When Granny dies, Fred and I inherit the titles outright, but if a grandchild isn't born by then, we split the great-grandchild quarter fifty-fifty."
"Jeez, talk about complicated." Willy said quietly.
"Yeah, I guess." Jean sighed. "I suppose I've got a crazy family. Mom has a half section of land. Dad owns another one. Fred is in line for at least a quarter. So am I, but if I get married and have a baby before my brother does, I'll end up having a half section. I don't know why Grampa set it up this way, but I don't think he trusted either his own son or his grandson very much."
"Well, while we're dragging out the family laundry, you might as well hear about my side of things." Triple Dub sighed. "I've got four uncles that all left home as soon as they turned eighteen; Mom was the only one who stuck around. She married a carpenter, but he and Mom made time to help Gran and Gramps whenever they needed help. As a result of that Mom and I were the ones who inherited the land. All my uncles got was a small cash settlement, and I think even that surprised them. I don't think they expected anything."
"Hey, any inheritance of money is unexpected." Fran said quietly.
"I suppose, but Mom and I inherited a working farm." He shook his head. "We were trying to figure it out last night, but what record keeping Gran did was rough, to say the least, and we got thoroughly muddled. You see we've got a section and a half of land that's all in one bundle. On that land, there's a house, barn, outbuildings and fences, then there's a ton of old machinery and equipment. What was stored away under lock and key by Gramps is probably all okay, but any that was out where Uncle Fred could get at it is a mess. Grams had several IOUs for stuff he busted and just abandoned wherever it broke. On top of that, we inherited Gram's mortgages against Fred's farmland, three of them. Theoretically, he owes us almost as much as the actual land is worth. Neither Mom nor I know what the heck to do about that, because he hasn't made a payment against it in the last two years."
"You mean Daddy hasn't paid any of what he owed Aunt Nettie for two years?" Jean asked in astonishment.
"That's right. We don't understand it either. After all, he paid the rent on Gran's property while he was farming it, but he didn't pay anything against the mortgage." Triple Dub shook his head. "For some reason he seems to think he can simply walk away from that debt scot free, especially now, since Gran is dead. When I talked to him about it, he simply ignored me and in fact, he seemed to act as if he'd inherited Gran's farm, not us."
"Oh boy." I sighed. "I think you've got a problem. Have you talked to a lawyer about it?"
"No, not yet." He snorted. "I hate to do that, but I guess we have to do something."
"I am sorry to interrupt, but I must know; will this mean that you are not selling me the house?" Mai-Lin asked quietly.
"Oh no." Triple Dub looked at her and smiled. "Mom thinks someone should use the house, but she knows I don't want to live in it, certainly not there. There's no change about selling the house to you. If I were to live around here, I'd want a little cabin, down on the creek quarter. Then I could put up a barn and corrals as a place to winter my horses."
"Thank you." Mai-Lin sighed. "I do not understand the reason you must tell us all of this though."
"Well, if Tom and Willy start to work together on our farm, Mom and I felt they should know all about it, because it does affect the whole deal." He shrugged his shoulders.
As he'd been talking, I'd watched his mood change. When he had come in with Jean, he'd seemed bright and happy, but now he looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Wait a minute, did Daddy sign a mortgage on the money he got from Aunt Nettie?" Jean frowned. "If he did, just take him to court."
I looked at her in astonishment and so did everyone else.
"You would take your father to court?" Mai-Lin looked shocked.
"If he owed me money that he'd agreed to pay back, but wasn't making payments? You can bet your little Chinese patootie I would, just as fast as I could find a lawyer." She snarled. "My father's nothing but a bully. He tries to push people around, but he gives in when he's up against someone who is stronger or smarter than he is. That's when he runs off with his tail between his legs.
I didn't know what to say since she'd shocked me with her vehemence. I think everyone else felt the same way, because there was a moment's silence at the table.
"I was wondering, Big Tom. When would we be able to move the house from Mr. Wilson's farm to my small corner?" Mai-lin said, breaking the short silence and thankfully changing the subject.
"First, we'd need to decide on a site for it. Then we need to run in any underground service, like septic and water lines. As well as that, it'll need a solid foundation. That means we'll have to wait until the frost is out of the ground and the soil has dried enough to handle the equipment. We'll have to get a backhoe to do that since the footings for the foundation have to be below frost level." I smiled at her enthusiasm. "The big problem will be getting the machinery in to do anything since it's so close to the creek and the ground there will be wet for a long time. Then to the weight of the house and the moving truck means we have to wait until the soil is firm enough to handle it. I'd expect it won't be moved until late spring or early summer, probably late June or early July."
"Oh, but that is so long." She frowned at me. "What is this frost level thing you mentioned?"
"That's how far down the ground freezes in the winter." I smiled. "As the ground freezes, the water in the soil expands. As the ground freezes deeper and deeper during the winter, the soil nearer the surface is heaved upward by the soil under it expanding, but it doesn't move the same amount all over. If you don't set your footings deeply enough, it can lift one portion of the footings more than another, cracking the concrete in the foundation or even changing the level of the whole house."
"But I must have my garden planted sooner than June or July." She protested.
"Well, I think you may want to wait on planting part of your garden until after the house is in place. After all, you are talking about a few acres of ground. You just have to leave room for the truck to be able to shift the house into place on the footings." Fran said quietly. "It's a little early to worry about that anyway."
What Mai-Lin's questions really did was to break up the discussion we were having, so all of us set out to do the things we needed to do that day. Triple Dub, Willy and Jean decided that they had to go check out the two farms and the buildings on them. Fran and Mai-Lin decided to order a few more seeds, then try to work out a planting schedule that Mai-Lin would have to follow. Meanwhile, I moved to the office to work on my studies.
I managed to get about two hours work done before I heard a tapping sound at my door and turned to see Mai-Lin standing there.
"Hi Mai-Lin, what can I do for you? And please, you're part of the family, so you don't need to knock when the door is open." I smiled at her.
"It is all right for me to talk with you, the now?" Her stilted use of English and her tone told me that she had something important to ask, even if nothing else had.
"Sure, I need a break anyway. What's on your mind?"
"Mama and Papa are being excited this day and have done much that I should tell you." She sighed.
"Hey, why don't you go to the kitchen and make yourself one of Fran's calming teas, and you could bring me a cup of coffee. While you're doing that, I'll tidy up this stuff I've been working on. Then we'll both sit down and talk." I grinned at her. "Whatever your folks have done, it can't be all that bad."
"Oh, what they have not done is not so bad. It is just that they go ahead of things so much. I wished to warn you, so we could slow them, just if they were stepping past what you would like done." She spoke very quickly, still sounding rattled. "I will go now, to get the tea and coffee."
Since I'd been sitting at my desk to study, I closed up my books after carefully marking where I had left off and then rose to my feet. That movement made me aware that I might be better off if I didn't sit too long, so instead of moving to a chair, I shifted the pillows and leaned back on the bed. When Mai-Lin came back and looked at me questioningly, I just smiled and told her that I felt like being comfortable, but she fussed around me for a moment anyway. I finally had to tell her to sit down and drink her tea. After a few moments I could see that she was much more relaxed.
"So, what have your folks done that has gotten you so excited?" I asked.
"Mama has called some men who have the job to move houses. They have told her that they think it would be better to move the house when the soil is still hard with the frost, as it is at this time." She sighed softly. "What they would do is to move it close to where it would end to be, but not so close so that it would be in the way when the holes that are needed for concrete are dug. Then later in the year, when all is ready, they would only need to move the house a short distance."
"Well, it makes sense, but it means that they need something solid to put it on when they get it to your acreage. How will they be able to tell if the area they pick will stay hard enough to support the house after the frost melts? It also means that Jean and Triple Dub have to clear out the old furniture quite soon. On top of that, we're close to spring melt now. What happens if they get the house up onto the moving trucks, then the melt comes? If they try to move it at the wrong time, they might get the whole thing stuck right in your driveway or even in the middle of your lot."
"We know this." Mai-Lin nodded her head. "Mama said they would come to see first. I would think they need to do many things and she said the move takes little time, it is like any big job, making ready takes more time than doing."
"Well, I can't see that it will bother me or anything on the farm in any way. I think Fran might need to be consulted though, since she might need to get in and out of her area, so I'll leave that whole business up to the two of you to settle. What I do think we should do before any of this goes ahead, is to have an official lease drawn up concerning the acreage though. I know Mama Tang didn't think it was necessary, but if you had a lease, that would make what you are doing on the acreage completely your business. It would sure help you, because it gives you a legal right to have things like hydro and phone service brought in. Otherwise, that all has to come through me and that's not a good arrangement."
"Mama found out that when she talked to the electric company to see to getting power connected to the garden place." Mai-Lin smiled widely. "She was not happy when they told her she could do nothing, but that you would need to make application."
"I can imagine that she was upset." I grinned. "She doesn't like things that don't go her way."
Mai-Lin just nodded her head and giggled.
"Well, it's really quite simple to make up a lease and won't cost much, but it protects both you and me from problems down the road. We can look at Fran's lease and see how that's laid out, then I'm not even sure we have to go through a lawyer. Fran might know though. Where has she gotten off to?"
"She has gone to town to pick up seeds that she and I ordered for plants we wish to grow. Oh gee, Big Tom, and that makes me think of something Fran said, I was wondering, could we make a cold frame to start plants in?"
"I would think so." I shrugged. "I don't know much about that sort of thing though. Fran could probably tell you all about them."
"Oh no, I know how one is to be built. Papa has one in our back yard. I wish only to know if there is somewhere here where I can build one."
"Mai-Lin there are nearly a thousand acres of land on this farm, if you can't find a corner to build a little cold frame, then I think you've got troubles." I laughed aloud. "Before you build anything like that though, you might talk to Lisa-Marie. I know she wants to have a garden and flowers around the house, so she might have some idea where she'd want it to go."
"Say, that reminds me, what day is today?" I asked with a frown. "I think that stay in the hospital has addled my brain. I thought Lisa-Marie and Andy were supposed to be home by now."
"Today is Friday, but were you not told that Andy's course was postponed by one day? She and Lisa-Marie are to arrive here sometime today."
"So today is Friday after all?"
"Yes."
"Okay, then I guess I'm not off on my dates after all. I expected them to be back yesterday."
"I see, I think Fran said that a teacher of the course was in an accident and late arriving, so the course was held back one day." Mai-Lin sighed. "I have more news on my family for you yet, if you do not mind listening."
"Alright, what else has happened that you think I should know?"
"Papa would like to buy one of your steers. He has found a butcher and a man who will inspect the meat to okay it for use in Papa's restaurant."
"Are you sure?" I frowned. "A government inspector?"
"Yes. Papa has found that many of the large restaurants in the city do this often times because they buy the special beefs." She nodded her head enthusiastically. "The inspector will charge Papa directly, instead of charging the packing plant, and the butcher will cut the beef to Papa's order. It is all legal and government okayed."
"Well, I guess I didn't know as much about that sort of thing as I thought I did." I shrugged my shoulders. "So where do I have to deliver the steer?"
"Oh, Papa will buy it here and the butcher will take it away in his pickup truck with something called stock racks." She frowned. "What are stock racks, please?"
"Stock racks are usually high wooden sides that are fitted to trucks for carrying animals to market." I explained. "Surely you've seen trucks with something that looks like a wooden fence that sits above the regular box of the truck, haven't you?"
"Those are stock racks?"
"Yes, they are."
"Oh, I thought a stock rack was something that the butcher would stretch the animal over or something."
"No, Mai-Lin, butchers don't torture the animals." I couldn't help grinning at the mental image of a steer stretched over a rack in a torture chamber. "The government makes certain that they kill the animals as quickly and painlessly as possible. Actually, it's been proven that the less pain the animal feels when it is put down, the more tender the meat will be."
"Oh, that is good to know. I would not want the animal to be made to feel pain." She glanced at her wristwatch. "Oh, I should start on lunch, if you don't mind."
"As far as I'm concerned, you can go right at it." I grinned. "I must be getting better, because I'm actually quite hungry."
"That is good news." She smiled, then taking both of our cups, she left to go to the kitchen.
I'd hardly gotten back to my desk when I heard a knock at the door and Mai-Lin inviting whoever was there to come in. As soon as he was inside, I could hear that it was Triple Dub and he came in to see me in only a moment or two.
"Hi, Tom." He smiled as he stuck his head in the doorway. "We've gotten both of the old tractors running, but we're using spare gas tanks and it's cold down there. We were wondering if we could bring them up to your machine shop to take the old tanks off. That way I could take the tanks to town and get them drained, then steamed out?"
"What, you've got the tractors running already. Wasn't there any varnish from old gas in the carburetors?"
"Nope, whoever put them away shut off the gas with a valve at the tank, then must have run the engines until they died. I guess Dad was a pretty savvy guy." He smiled sadly.
"Sure sounds to me like he was." I smiled back. "I'm surprised that you want to run them up here though, but if they won't be in David and Sampson's way, I can't see why not."
"Well, they've sat for years, and although the tires were blocked off the ground and the carburetors were drained, age and condensation have worked them over. We know there's water in the oil of the engines and some of the rubber fittings have deteriorated, so we want to go over them from end to end. David and Sampson, don't mind the idea at all. Actually they think it's a good one. Since they cleaned up and shuffled things around in your equipment shed, there's lots of room, but I guess you haven't seen that yet. They did that while you were in the hospital."
"How did they make so much room?" I frowned. "I thought the place was quite full."
"Well, they moved a lot of things and built a storage shed under the stand of your big gas tank to store flammable materials like oil and paint, which cleared a lot of room. Then they built racks and shelves on the walls for a lot of your hand tools and things. For the bulky, lightweight material, they used some of the building material that was stored in one corner of the machine shed to make a loft and stairs. It's built over the top of the workshop area. They even found the hardware to put roll-away doors on the front of the workshop. Now it can be closed up to keep it warm and relatively clean, but the doors can be opened up if you need to move in big repair jobs."
"Well, I think Uncle Silas was going to build a new garage out of that building material, but it would have been too small for us anyway. The material was too light weight for a bigger one though." I shrugged my shoulders. "I think this sounds like a lot better use for the material than I'd have put it to."
"I thought they said they asked you about that stuff when you were in the hospital." Triple Dub frowned.
"Hey, I might have been in la-la land about then." I waved a hand to let him know it wasn't important. "Right now, I don't even remember seeing them there, but that's probably because of all the pain and crap I went through. I'm not upset about it, that's for sure. Now let's get back to talking about these tractors and things. What all do you have stored down there?"
"I think there is almost enough machinery to farm the darn place." Triple Dub grinned. "I've even got a new truck. Well, an old truck that I'm going to fix up like new."
"Oh?"
"Yep, it's a 1946 Chevy flat bed, with a short deck and small stock racks. The license and registration say that it's a two ton, but it has to be the smallest two ton I ever saw." His face looked like he'd just found a new toy. "I didn't even know that Grandad had it. So it was a complete surprise when we pulled off the covering tarp and found it sitting there with the wheels blocked up off the floor. Since it was sitting way back in one far corner of the building, it took a while before we found it though. We're going to have to shift almost everything in the building to get at it, but I've decided to completely restore and use that old war-horse for hauling my stock around."
I was grinning at him when I heard a loud squeal from Mai-Lin out in the kitchen, then seconds later Lisa-Marie came bouncing into the room. After a very gentle hug and a much better kiss, she stood back and frowned at me.
"Why aren't you in bed resting?"
"Because Fran and the doctor said I could get up." I grinned, then looked past her at the door. "Where's Andy?"
"Well, She aced the class." Lisa-Marie looked a bit uncomfortable.
"Okay, so what does that have to do with her hiding from me?"
"Well, she's not hiding, exactly." Lisa-Marie said very quietly. "You see, she did so well that she impressed a lot of people and . . . Well, she was offered a job. She's going to do it for a while, just to see what it's like and to get experience. So she's going to be gone for two months."
"So she stayed in Edmonton?"
"Yes, she's staying with a girl who was taking the course as well, for now anyway. As she said last night, this will give her a chance to see what city life and real emergency situations are like for a short while."
"But from the way you're acting, I think you expect her to be gone for longer than that, right?"
"Maybe? I really don't know." Lisa-Marie sighed, then she frowned. "Dammit, you look like you're taking this better than I am."
"Well, it's her life. She has to make up her mind what she wants to do and our lives do change, you know. I'm a little surprised at your reaction."
"But I'm going to miss her so much."
"I'll miss her too, but at the same time, if that's what she wants to do, I'll help as much as I can."
"I guess," Lisa-Marie sighed heavily.
After a little more talk, we ended up lying on the bed and I cuddled her. I was a little surprised that she was taking the fact that Andy had found a job so hard, but I didn't mind holding her. Especially since I hadn't been able to hold her like that for almost two weeks.