The Lords of Folly by Gene Logsdon

Author:Gene Logsdon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2007-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Spring hung its dainty green lace out to dry on the hills overlooking the Josephian acres, and Gabe and Blaze, with Brother Jesse following along like a faithful dog, paced their newly-drained swamp ground with unbridled optimism and enthusiasm. They were true farmers facing another spring: full of hope, blind to the obstinate machinations of the weather that invariably beat farmer ambitions into dust or mud before the year was over. They would grow potatoes on their new land and sell them at the Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis. And of course, make a fortune. Blaze cared nothing about the economic possibilities. He just thought it would be fun to spend time at the market. It was Gabe who dreamed of the possibility of profit because he had free Josephian labor at his disposal. Each night he prayed for success—not, he reminded God, to glorify his own lowly efforts, but to show the Hasses of the world the power of the Lord. Just to make sure of the power of the Lord, he consulted scientists and agribusiness experts at the University of Minnesota and scrupulously followed their every whisper of advice.

Hasse spied something from his hilltop that made him bustle down to the newly drained part of the swamp. Oblate Gabriel was seated on the back of his truck at the edge of the reclaimed acres, cutting up seed potatoes while Oblate Blaise worked down the plots between the ditches with a rotary tiller.

“Vel, Oblate, planting all dat to spuds?” Hasse asked, a sly grin on his face.

Hasse was butchering consonants worse than usual, so Gabe knew enough to be on guard.

“The oblates must eat,” he intoned, invoking his own kind of verbal disguise. “God willing, we shall have a bountiful harvest.”

“Like da lilies of the field, neither do dey spin or …”

“Potatoes should do well here,” Gabe interrupted Hasse’s taunt with his own. “The land is new, virtually untouched, seeing as how folks hereabouts are kind of shiftless if not ignorant about drainage methods. Were I a lifetime farmer of this area, I’d probably be a millionaire by now.”

“Hup!” snorted Hasse. “You’d go broke on spuds for sure.”

“Says who? I know all about raising potatoes.”

“It’s the wrong time of the moon for planting, dumkopf.”

Gabe stared at his adversary, a look of perfect joy spreading over his face. “The wrong time of the moon?” He repeated the sentence, savoring every syllable. And then repeated it again. The chuckle in his throat climaxed in an unrestrained hoot. “You really do believe that, don’t you?” he finally said. “I can tell it on your face. All this time you’ve been hiding your fearful soul behind a façade of rationalism while believing in the basest superstitions. This time, Hasse, I’ve got you. You pretend to believe in neither God nor devil, but you worship a silly man in the moon!”

Hasse remained unmoved by the rhetoric. “Any damn fool knows you gotta better chance to get a good yield if you plant spuds in the dark of the moon.

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