Fight for Love (My Wounded Soldier #2) by Diane Munier

Author:Diane Munier [Munier, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B010W8NDDK
Published: 2015-08-07T23:00:00+00:00

Tom Tanner

Chapter Twenty-Three

Here’s what Pa would say about farming…and he spoke the Irish when he said it, “The farm starts with the love of a man and woman. He says, “Will you?” and she says, “I will.” And after that it grows and grows, a city on the hill, a monument to the family that works it.”

He said there was never a good farm that did not grow this way, not to his knowledge. What spilled from it, fed the world. But it was more than bounty, it was folks doing what God intended. That’s what Pa said. He said farmers built a nation. Not wars, not power and might…but farmers.

Ma always laughed when he said this. It’s a family’s sweat meeting God’s blessing, that’s all, she would say. Same theory, in German.

Well, we had the uncles…but even their efforts came to bless ours…and build the city. And with my brothers each carrying a name for the uncle who passed on, Ma thought the family roots redeemed. Obviously she had been the missing ingredient, the yeast in the bread, if you will. Where Pa’s brothers were sinners, we boys, according to Ma, were saints, even though we could be pretty damn awful and were time and again.

Me named for Pa, I had no burden to overcome, just to live up to. For my pa was the best man I knew.

When the weather shifted it was subtle at first, but we felt it right off. First thing, I did not use the hickory. Johnny went back to school. Then the roads softened and were barely passable. And you could smell it, the fecundity, the wake-up call. You always could. Soon one thing would be chasing another, the drive to plant, the drive to build, the drive to live, the farm.

And over the winter Johnny grew. His pants were high water. His sleeves, too. He showed us two or three times and we went on. He stood on a chair so he could be taller than me. He said he couldn’t wait to see things from that height. Someday, he said, we’d be eye to eye. Then he stared at me a bit, and I knew it was about the Enfield. Hard telling where his imagination took him. But it was usually the Enfield. But he did reach out and touch my whiskers, mine thick the way they came in now I was a man. I knew he wondered if he’d be able, but it would come. He compared our hands then, and not for the first time. He didn’t line up the heels, but the bottoms of our fingers. “Look at that,” he said as though we were nearly the same. Well there were so many things ahead for him.

The roads were often barely passable. Johnny rode my horse to school and over the summer I would see he had one of his own. And mayhap, a rifle, too. I asked my pa what age, and he did say…depends on the boy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.