Chapter 9
We spent the rest of that summer getting ready to move to Missouri. A cotton investor had made my parents an offer on the house and the property, explaining that they were bringing in a company from upstate to manage the land and other nearby properties. The money we got for the house and some of the equipment was basically enough for moving expenses. In short, we really had to move because we were flat broke.
We sold all but one thing, that is. I still owned the pecan orchard. Also, since Dad told me that the tractor we used each fall during the pecan harvest was part of the orchard, I apparently owned that too. Unfortunately, the tractor was deemed unusable after the barn collapsed on top of it, but it was still worth selling for parts.
“What should I do with the money?” I asked Dad when he told me he found a buyer.
“You’re an owner now, son,” he told me. “What would you do if you wanted to keep your business afloat each year? Try to think from an owner’s perspective. If you want to keep the orchard going, what would you do?”
He was right. The last thing I wanted to see was something to happen to the orchard. Luckily, there was one person I knew that could keep anything from happening to it.
Moving day came sooner that any of us had hoped. The house was empty as a tomb, containing little more than dust and the memories of one family. It was awful, but nothing lasts forever. Or, so it seems.
Phoebe and I took some time to head down to the old swimming pond a couple more times. We refused to leave without getting a couple more good swims in. Like old times, ol’ Mosey barked his head off while we splashed and played.
Speaking of Phoebe, it turned out that somewhere in the hills of southern Missouri there was an art school just for girls. She sent for some brochures in the mail and was soon very excited about it. Mom and Dad were careful to not get her hopes up about it, but I knew better. As soon as I saw the colorful brochures for that art school, I knew ol’ Phoebs wouldn’t quit until she got in. I couldn’t think of a better place for her to go too. She was going to be an artist. I just knew it.
As for me, I had one more thing I wanted to do before it came time to leave. I walked over to the pecan orchard where I knew I would find him. Sooter wasn’t under his favorite tree, though, instead he was out in the grove inspecting the trees.
“How do they look this year?” I called out to Sooter from several rows away.
I caught up to him and he was still checking each branch, all the way to the top. “Hard to say, Mr. Nick,” Sooter replied, removing his cap and scratched his head. “They comin’ along good, looks like. I’d say we gonna have ourselves a good yield this year.”
“How are the shucks lookin’?”
“Oh, they takin’ good shape and holdin’ firm. Them squirrels tell the story. They’s happy as all get out. See ‘em runnin’ ‘round up there?”
Sure enough, the squirrels were everywhere and busy as bees. They must have known instinctively that the pecans would be plentiful this year.
“I sure do,” I answered. “Hope they leave some for us.”
Sooter laughed heartily. “I don’t know, Mr. Nick. I think they gots me out-numbered.” Then, he focused his gaze on me, knowing why I was there. “So, it’s almost time is it?”
“Yeah. I guess so,” I said, still watching the squirrels.
“What do you say we go take a load off?” Sooter asked.
“Sounds good to me.”
We made our way back to the usual place under his favorite pecan tree. And like clockwork, Sooter handed me his small sack of shelled pecans to snack on while we sat in the shade.
“I’ve been doin’ some thinkin’, Sooter,” I began. “It ain’t gonna be too easy gettin’ all those nuts down with just poles, you know?”
“You sho right ‘bout that.”
“Bein’ the owner and all, I figured I’d better start takin’ some initiative.”
“Initiative, huh?” Sooter laughed. “You learnin’ some big words, Mr. Nick.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. “Yeah, yeah. Cut it out. Hand me another handful will ya?” I had already eaten the few pecans I had taken from the sack and grabbed another handful from him, continuing to talk while I munched on them. “Dad showed me the amount of money we were able to make with the market sales on the small crop we had last fall. You remember the old tractor?”
“The one that I don’t have no mo? Yep, I sho do.” Sooter laughed again.
“Well, we sold it for parts, along with that old agitator. We took what we saved and combined it with the crop sales and, well…” I trailed off.
Sooter turned around and gave me a look. “What you sayin’, Mr. Nick?”
“I’m sayin’ we went and bought you some new equipment.”
“Is that right?” he said, lifting his cap.
“Yep,” I said. “We got you one of them brand new fancy shakers that can roll on wheels, with an arm that can grab hold of the biggest branches. All you got to do is get it in position, flip a switch and just watch ‘em fall.”
Sooter looked like he couldn’t believe his ears. I obviously had his attention. “No climbers? No ropes?” he asked cautiously.
“Nope.”
“And you just bought one of these things?”
“It’s all yours! Dad and Timmons are bringin’ it by this afternoon.”
“Well I’ll be doggone,” Sooter exclaimed.
“Nobody knows this orchard better than you do, Sooter,” I said. “You might as well have what you need to make things easier.”
“You sho did take some initiative, didn’t ya now?” he chuckled, but soon grew serious again. “Not gonna be the same ‘round here without you folks. I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t gonna miss all of you.” He lay back down, resting in his favorite spot. “But, you’ll like it up there.”
“I’m not going with them,” I abruptly said. For a moment, I had stunned Sooter into silence.
“What you mean?” Sooter asked, turning around and staring at me like a madman.
“When we leave in the mornin’, they’re dropping me off at the bus station.”
“The bus station? You ain’t goin’ with yo ma and pa? Don’t be foolish now, Mr. Nick. I done told you,” he said, clearly not happy with me. He got to his feet and paced around in front of me and then he gave me a stern look. “Where you goin’ then, huh?”
“Hang on now,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Don’t blow a gasket on me.” He took his cap off and put his hands on his hips. “I’m not doin’ anything foolish. These last couple of weeks, well… I’ve been sendin’ off applications.”
“Applications?” he asked, flummoxed.
“Yeah. To universities.”
Sooter’s jaw dropped and he looked at me as if I were joking. “Say that again,” he said, holding one hand up to an ear.
“You heard me,” I answered. “I sent them out to every university in the state.” Producing a letter from my pocket, I showed it to him. “I finally heard from one of them two days ago.”
He examined it in his thin hands and scratched his head. “Hattiesburg?” he asked. He looked the letter over again.
I nodded my head. “Yep. Southern Mississippi. I got accepted.”
“You tryin’ to tell me you’s goin’ to college, Mr. Nick?” he said, handing back the letter.
“That’s what I’m tellin’ ya.”
“Now whoever gave you that fool idea, I wonder?” he said, his face breaking into a wide grin.
“I don’t know,” I kidded him. “Some old man, or maybe I just heard it somewhere.” Smiling, he shook his head at me. “Just took me a while to come to my senses is all. I guess I got lucky.
“No, you got smart.”
“They said I can work on campus in this work-study program doing odd jobs, workin’ in the cafeteria and what-not. If I keep my grades up, I’ll be able to keep goin’ to classes.”
> I stood and got to my feet. Sooter shook his head in disbelief, but shook my hand and congratulated me.
“Now you startin’ to make sense, Mr. Nick,” he said finally. “I’m proud of ya.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep in touch with you. You let me know when it’s the harvest and I’ll catch a bus up here right away. It looks like you may need some help this year, especially. Hattiesburg isn’t that far, so I can come every year, I promise.”
“Well, we’ll see,” he said. “If you gonna be a college man, you gots to keep up with yo learnin’.”
It was getting late and it was time for me to head home for one last time. We didn’t know what else to say to one another. It seemed strange that after that evening, we wouldn’t see much of one another anymore.
“I’ll miss you, Sooter,” I finally admitted. “If it weren’t for you, I’d…”
“It’s okay, kid,” he answered. “You better go on now and help your pa.”
I was taken aback. I suppose he just didn’t want to get into a long goodbye, so I nodded and shook his hand one more time and headed home. I had only walked a few steps when he called out to me.
“Mr. Nick,” he said.
“Yeah, Sooter?” I asked, turning around.
He stared at the ground for a moment with his hands in his pockets. He looked at me with an expression I will never forget. “I never thanked you for savin’ Beatrice. I just want you to know that.”
It was the most sincere thing he’d ever said to me. His sorrowful, yet grateful, expression told me that it meant the world to him that he still had his wife at his side. I nodded to him modestly and with that, he smiled at me one last time. I turned and walked home.
There’s not much else to say to be honest with you. Well, maybe there are a few things. I suppose you would want to know what happened to everybody after all that.
Just as planned, Mom and Dad and Phoebs moved to Missouri and helped my Aunt Lynn and Uncle John on their vast corn fields. To Mom’s surprise, it turned out to be a very lucrative and steady business. John and Lynn were very welcoming and much appreciated Dad’s help. Dad, too, seemed to enjoy the change of pace and learning a new crop. Every time I spoke to him he would go on and on about how different the soil was in Missouri. In short, he liked it up there.
So did Phoebe. Phoebe was accepted, as everyone knew she would, to the exclusive art school. She did so well there that when she graduated they hired her as an art teacher. Soon, she became one of the most respected art professors in the region. Some years later, I received an invitation to an art show in Chicago at some fancy museum. Phoebe’s work had been selected to be shown at this ritzy party. I couldn’t have been more proud of her. One of the works she had on display was the first piece she did right after her accident. Grandpa would have been pleased.
It wasn’t all good though, for ol’ Phoebs. She and Billy Colquitt kept in touch all though his time in the military. After his training in Biloxi, he did indeed get sent to Vietnam and quickly moved up the ranks in his platoon. Phoebe and Billy became very close through their correspondence, sending letters almost every week. On one of his trips back home on leave, Billy gave Phoebe a small engagement ring, promising to marry her as soon as he returned home from his second tour of duty. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. Phoebe was crushed when she learned just three weeks later that Billy had died in combat. It took poor Phoebe a long time to get over the tragic news but by putting all her effort and energy and pain into her work, she moved on eventually. She is still single to this day, but I have high hopes that she might find happiness with someone once again.
My friend Asa Phelps didn’t return from Vietnam either. I was devastated to learn that a mere two weeks after arriving in country, he was fatally wounded by a sniper. As soon as I heard the terrible news I took a bus home to Clara to attend his funeral. Just like with Grandpa, the whole town was there to honor him.
It took me a great deal of time to come to grips with both of their losses, but in time I was able to move on as well. I have sorely missed my old school pals ever since.
As for me, well, college was one of the biggest challenges I ever faced. Regardless, each fall I did as I promised Sooter and went home to Clara for a couple weekends to help with the pecan harvest. It was tough work, but I knew Sooter appreciated it every time I came to help. Plus, it gave us time to catch up again sharing a pecan or two under his favorite tree.
As the years passed, I realized that I needed to do the right thing with the pecan orchard. Knowing that soon I wouldn’t be able to tend to it the way I needed to, I found a lawyer in Hattiesburg who helped me draw up papers for the orchard. I had them arranged just the way I wanted it to be. I told my dad what I wanted to do and he agreed it was a grand idea.
Sooter received a package from the lawyer as soon as the papers were finalized and enclosed with all the paperwork was a letter from me. I explained that I was giving the entire plantation to him and Beatrice, making him the rightful owner of Havens Trees. In working with the lawyer, I had learned that the lane with all the small homes were among the property I owned. I gave him all of this land too. I told him in the letter that this was the way it should have been all along. I felt that I was making what was wrong right. Sooter was the real caretaker of those trees, doing it thanklessly his entire life. He should be the one who owned them. After then he became owning caretaker of the orchard and the owner and landlord of the homes on the lane.
Anyway, back to college. Needless to say, I struggled with my grades, but sure enough, I learned how to study and eventually I did graduate.
As far as what field, well, let me tell you how I chose. Every Christmas break I took the long bus ride to my family in Missouri. By then, the pecan harvest was done and Sooter had sent my dad the tally on that year’s crop. Dad had begun to show me how to do the financial books, manage the expenses and taxes and soon I had become quite adept at bookkeeping and accounting. So, as you may have guessed, I became a number cruncher. I liked it so much, that I decided to major in accounting and before long I’d earned a degree in business.
I wasn’t the only one who got the number bug. Two years after I left for college, you-know-who showed up in Hattiesburg as well. Janey started taking the same classes I was taking. Since I had to work my way through, my class load was always smaller at first, so Janey caught up with me quickly. Soon, we both graduated with the same degree in accounting.
As you may have guessed again, it wasn’t long before I fell pretty hard for ol’ Janey. From that day she held my hand at the bus station, as we watched our friends leave for training, I had been pretty sweet on her. We kept in touch until she joined me in Hattiesburg, where we became inseparable. Of course, I never heard the end of it from Phoebe when she would call or write. She loved the fact that I had become a nutcase for the same girl who drove me insane as a kid. Also, Phoebe loved that she could take the credit for introducing us all those years ago. So it goes, I guess.
After graduation, I got a job at a local accounting firm in Hattiesburg, though the job was contingent on my passing the CPA exam within four months. Janey helped me study almost every night and I passed that exam the very first time I took it. Janey had no trouble at all passing on her first try, too. Soon, we were both working as CPA’s.
After about a year, Janey and I figured that we could probably do just as well or better if we opened our own accounting business. So, we scraped together what savings we had and found some cheap office space downtown, and opened our own firm.
Janey and I married nine years ago, right after we started our business. We have two kids now who have four grandparents that spoil them to no end, let me tell you.
I guess things worked out for me. In the back of my mind, I know there is someone I should have been thanking for pushing me to get this far. Or, at least, there was someone.
As I said I’m not sure why I wanted to tell you all this, but I think I know
why now. I think it’s because of this letter I received just three days ago. It was postmarked from Clara. There was no return address, but it read in the top left-hand corner, ‘Malloy.’
The letter was handwritten simply reading,
Dear Nicholas,
I’m sorry to tell you this, but Sooter passed
away last night in his sleep. The funeral
is on Friday. Just thought I’d let you know.
Sincerely,
Beatrice Malloy
I couldn’t sleep after that, I stayed up for three nights writing most of this down, before driving to Clara to attend his funeral. Since it was short notice, Janey stayed behind and looked after the office and the kids. It was probably for the best I suppose, she didn’t know Mr. Malloy that well. Janey understood when I asked if I could go alone, even though I probably didn’t need to ask.