The Appointed Hour (Legacy Series) by Susanne Davis

Author:Susanne Davis [Davis, Susanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornerstone Press
Published: 2019-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

John Mason’s Eye

On his eleventh birthday, John Mason received the legacy for which his parents had been preparing him his entire life, going all the way back to his birth, when his mother Hattie set his wicker basket beside her in the cannery and talked to him about their hopes and dreams, separating ripe fruit from the bruised as she talked.

When Harold came along three years after John, Hattie and Obadiah sold the fruit cannery to increase their dairy herd. Cows took more time, but paid more money. Hattie hired a neighbor girl to come in during chores to watch Harold. John was old enough then to stay at the barn with them, and they assigned him chores like scooping grain for the cows.

Obadiah would say, “You got this one, John? Let me see. How much you got there, boy? By God. Right. Now dump the scoop right in there like I taught you.”

Their son’s enthusiasm relieved Hattie and Obadiah. “Yes,” Obadiah told Hattie. “He’s the farmer.”

Family farms sewed the people of Belaport together into a community, but Obadiah Mason wanted more. He wanted one of his boys to take the farm and the other he wanted to become a doctor, like his brother Asa, set up in New York. His was one of the old families, not prosperous, but smart, and he wanted each generation to progress. So he saved. And starting when Harold was two, Obadiah said he would be the doctor. He would not let the boy milk cows or do any dangerous work—he was protecting his son’s hands for the future. Surgery. And he told John, “You take a look around. All this is yours.” “All this” was a hundred acres, an average-sized farm, and seventy head of cattle, the orchard, pigs, sheep, chickens, an assortment of cats and dogs, some geese, a few rabbits. Until John’s eleventh birthday.

On that day, Obadiah packed John and a picnic lunch into the wagon. He didn’t tell his son where he was taking him, but John knew it was some place important, a place that dealt just with him, because when Harold started to follow them, his mother caught him by the shoulders and held him.

John heard his brother crying over being excluded as he and his father headed down the road.

“You have any idea where we’re going?” Obadiah asked. “No, sir,” John said.

Obadiah smiled. The horses trotted along in silence. John followed his father’s lead, nodding hello to other carriages that passed them. Finally, Obadiah turned the carriage down a long, rutted path. The horses picked their way carefully over the uneven ground. In the middle of the woods, Obadiah stopped, tied the carriage, lifted out the picnic basket, and set off through the trees, leaving John to follow. John began to wonder if Obadiah had forgotten him when suddenly his father turned and lifted him. “How far can you see?” he asked.

“Clear over to that stone wall.” John pointed to a spot a few hundred yards from where they stood.

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