In this warm and fanciful story of a Connecticut farmer, Marion ZimmerBradley has caught some of the glory that is man's love for man—nomatter who he is nor whence he's from. By heck, you'll like little Matt.
Mr. Emmett did his duty by the visitor fromanother world—never doubting the right of it.
You say that Matthew isyour own son, Mr. Emmett?
Yes, Rev'rend Doane, and abetter boy never stepped, if I dosay it as shouldn't. I've trustedhim to drive team for me since hewas eleven, and you can't saymore than that for a farm boy.Way back when he was a littleshaver so high, when the warcame on, he was bounden he wasgoing to sail with this AdmiralFarragut. You know boys thatage—like runaway colts. Icouldn't see no good in his beingcabin boy on some tarnation Navyship and I told him so. If he'dwanted to sail out on a whalingship, I 'low I'd have let him go.But Marthy—that's the boy's Ma—tookon so that Matt stayedhome. Yes, he's a good boy anda good son.
We'll miss him a powerful lotif he gets this scholarship thing.But I 'low it'll be good for theboy to get some learnin' besideswhat he gets in the school here.It's right kind of you, Rev'rend,to look over this application thingfor me.
Well, if he is your own son, Mr.Emmett, why did you write 'birthplaceunknown' on the line here?
Rev'rend Doane, I'm glad youasked me that question. I've beenturnin' it over in my mind andI've jest about come to the conclusionit wouldn't be nohow fairto hold it back. I didn't lie whenI said Matt was my son, becausehe's been a good son to me andMarthy. But I'm not his Pa andMarthy ain't his Ma, so could be Istretched the truth jest a mite.Rev'rend Doane, it's a tarnalfunny yarn but I'll walk into themeetin' house and swear to it ona stack o'Bibles as thick as a cordof wood.
You know I've been farmingthe old Corning place these pastseven year? It's good flat Connecticutbottom-land, but it isn'tlike our land up in Hampshirewhere I was born and raised. MyPa called it the Hampshire Grantsand all that was King's land whenhis Pa came in there and startedfarming at the foot of ScuttockMountain. That's Injun for fires,folks say, because the Injuns usedto build fires up there in thespring for some of their heathendoodads. Anyhow, up there in themountains we see a tarnal powerof quare things.
You call to mind the year wehad the big thaw, about twelveyears before the war? You mindthe blizzard that year? I heard tellit spread down most to York. Andat Fort Orange, the place they callAlbany now, the Hudson frozeright over, so they say. But thoseYork folks do a sight of exaggerating,I'm told.
Anyhow, when the ice went outthere was an almighty good thawall over, and when the snow runoff Scuttock mountain there wasa good-sized hunk of farmland inour valley went under water. Thecrick on my farm flowed over thebank and there was a foot of waterin the cowshed, and down in theswimmin' hole in the back pasturewasn't nothing but a big gullyfifty foot and more across, rushingthrough the pasture, deep as alake and brown as the old cow.You know freshet-floods? Full upwith sticks and stones and olddead trees and somebody's oldshed floatin' down the middle.And I swear to goodness, Parson,that stream was running along sofast I saw four-inch cobblestonesfloating and bumping along.
I tied the cow and the calf andKate—she was our white mare;you mind she went lame last yearand I had to shoot her, but shewas just a young m