We won’t sell

I don't know when he balded, it must have been a while. When we married, he still was a kind man, good-hearted and of hopeful spirits. That was before the crisis, as the paper calls it. I do not complain, we are getting along. There is work for two other men on the farm, the boys learn the word of God every Sunday afternoon.

As far as I can think, times have never been easy around here, but we wouldn't worry, wouldn't allow sorrow in our honest home. The Lord may lead us, he used to say. Now he speaks of rougher times, I see them deepen the lines down his cheeks and his chin. We don't sell a peck of wheat for what we used to.

The Bickermans have given up, he groans, sold their land to the corporation. What's a man without his land, he shouts, where should he live? We won't sell, I calm him, as he's forcing a laugh. We've tilled this land in four generations, we won't sell. Let the boys learn a profession, we can endure.

We are getting older, he objects, harsh fingers rubbing his forehead. Yes, we always have, and we've always strived. It is a new time, a new land. Let the boys learn, we will settle with what we have. We won't sell.