A Place to Call Their Own

Chapter 1-3

Gregory sat up and scratched the tawny hair on his chest. It was as if he’d closed his eyes the previous night, and the next moment, he opened them to find it was already near dawn. He stretched and inhaled the cool morning air as he attempted to wake up. Frank woke with a start next to him, reaching for the money stash.

“You were dreaming again,” Gregory said to him with a morning voice that sounded like someone who had smoked too much the night before.

“Yeah, same one.”

“Walking through the fog and couldn’t find me?”

“Yeah, only this time, I saw Smith.”

“Mr. Smith?” Gregory said, clearing his throat. “What did Mr. Smith have to say?”

“Nothing. He didn’t say anything—just screamed, and then he disappeared.” Frank concentrated on getting breakfast ready.

“Hmm…” Gregory said just a bit too loud to himself.

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

“I’m just teasing. You’d think you were the grumpy one in the morning.”

“That’s my job this morning,” Frank said with a smile.

The silence between them was as thick as the biscuit dough Frank kneaded.

Gregory stopped teasing and asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine. The dreams show up whenever there’s something on my mind. I’ve had the same dream over and over again for the last month. I just wish it would stop.”

“Maybe once we get out on our own, things will settle down for you.”

“I’m going to get some water.”

Gregory had brought the embers in the fire back to life by the time Frank returned to the camp site with water.

“Are you as nervous as I was a couple of days ago?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gregory answered, concentrating on the sizzling bacon in the skillet. Frank’s mother had sent it along with them. “My ma’s much different than yours. By the tone of her letters, she seems different than when Pa was alive. I guess I don’t know what to expect.”

“I don’t know what’s worse—walking into my house thinking my family would support us, or going into yours not knowing what to anticipate.”

“This is the same woman who scolded me about talking back to Pa when I was sixteen. And now, she’s been writing for the past two years that she can’t wait for me to get home to see how different the farm is.”

“Sounds like your pa dying has been good for her?” Frank asked cautiously as he pulled the shaving glass from its place in a pack.

“We’ll see,” Gregory said with a weak smile.

“Do I need to shave before we go?” Frank looked in the shaving glass.

“No, you always have one or two days’ growth, and I like your dark beard.”

“What’s your ma going to think of the stubble?”

“I don’t think it matters to her. In the warm weather, Pa only shaved every couple days. He didn’t shave at all when it was cold.”

“Let’s get going, then.”

They packed up their camp, doused the fire, and started on their way. Before the day was done, Gregory would be home with Frank at his side.

They marched along the road together. Fields in various stages of maturation broke up the gently rolling landscape. The wheat fields stood stripped of their grain, but the corn and bean fields sat heavy with ripening crop.

Not long after they started for Gregory’s family farm, Frank spoke up. “Do you really think we’ll be all right in Kansas?”

“We talked about this last night. We’ll be fine. We’ll stick to ourselves. Nobody should bother us.”

“I’ll try not to worry,” Frank said again.

After a few more moments of silent marching, Gregory spoke up. “When I was nine, my dad took me to Des Moines for supplies. That night after dinner, we were sitting on the front porch with the innkeeper and the others that were staying there. There was this huge commotion down the street, and my pa told me to stay put while he and the other men went to see what was going on. A few minutes later this angry crowd came by, dragging a man beaten to a bloody pulp. It was worse than when he beat the tar out of me when I was sixteen.”

As his words hung in the air, their synchronized footsteps echoed in their ears.

Gregory continued, “Frankie, I saw the contempt in the angry crowd’s words, deeds, and actions over that man. All I could think was, what on God’s green earth could this man have done to deserve such a beating, such treatment? And Pa was right in the middle of the action. Then the innkeeper lady said to me, ‘Take a good look, son, and remember this day. Mess around with other men in an unnatural way, and that will happen to you, too. Don’t fret much. He had it coming. It was just a matter of time.’ She wickedly chuckled to herself and never missed a stitch while she knitted or a beat while she rocked herself that evening. At the time, I didn’t know what she meant about ‘messing around with other men in an unnatural way.’”

Frank stared at Gregory and raised his brows. “Thanks. I’ll try to relax about the whole situation.” Frank laughed out loud.

Gregory blushed when he realized the gaffe.

The sun grew warm as they progressed along their way to Gregory’s childhood home. Anonymous fields turned into familiar farms the closer they got to Carroll. After a while, Frank broke the silence again.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“Oh, just growing up,” Gregory answered. After a moment, he continued, “My pa always rode me hard growing up. No matter what I did, it was never good enough, and Pa always said I could do better. I guess he wanted me to have a better life than he did. He just didn’t know how to express his emotions. It was how he was raised.”

Their speed had slowed, but their footsteps still filled their ears before Gregory went on. “I was always a good helper and did the work willingly. I loved working on the land and being outdoors. Sometimes, in the middle of summer when all the cultivating was done and before harvest time, he’d take me fishing or whatever. Most of my friends from town couldn’t do that with their merchant fathers during the summers. There were stores to run and bosses to whom they answered.

“I was fine until I was about sixteen. Being a stubborn adolescent didn’t mix well with Pa’s powerful will. It almost destroyed my love for the land. When I was younger, I stood it because I had no choice. I didn’t know any better.”

The sound of their march to Gregory’s home filled both their ears until Frank spoke up. “You going to be all right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s all behind me now. You know that you can’t choose your parents or how you were brought up. You have to take what you’re given and make your life your own. Some people choose to sit and wallow in self-pity, but I decided when I left for the Army that I was going to be different. I wouldn’t continue his cycle. Now he’s gone and he’ll never have a chance to realize the harm he did to us. It’s his loss, not mine.”

“So it’s just you and your mother?” Frank asked, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah, she had a baby a long time ago that didn’t live. So it’s just us.”

“What’s she going to say about us going out west?”

“There’s nothing she can say. I’m twenty-two, and she can’t keep me here. She hired a guy from town to work the farm. She’ll keep a living for herself and give me some of the proceeds to get started. Instead of a dowry for a woman, it’ll be a start for us.”

“You worried about her?” Since Gregory’s mother was all alone, Frank wondered if Gregory might feel obligated to bring her with them. Even if that wasn’t a consideration now, what about at some point in the future? Gregory was all she had.

“Naw, she put up with the old man for twenty-five years, so maybe now she can finish out her life a bit happier than before. She always did fret about expenses and such, but maybe it’s her due for letting my father be such a bully to us all the time.”

“You’re mean!” Frank teased.

“Naw, just telling you what’s on my mind.” Gregory grinned.

“What are you going tell her about us?”

“Same thing we just told your father. We’re going out together to help each other out. We’re both going to meet some prairie girls who can handle the harshness of the land.”

“That seemed to work with my family, too,” Frank said sarcastically.

“All right.”

After a pause, Frank asked, “Is she gonna believe it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but maybe if she doesn’t, she won’t say much. Just like she didn’t say much about stuff when I was growing up.” Frank didn’t ask anything else, so Gregory continued, “Your family going to continue to believe it?”

“Well, my sister’s already stirring up trouble in her letters.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we were back in Atlanta six months ago, I received a letter from Ellen that said something like, ‘Momma says the way you write about that Gregory guy, you’d think he was your wife or something. I do declare, Frank Atchison Greerson, what is going on?’” Frank imitated her high-pitched, conceited tone.

“You wrote about me to your folks?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, hell yes! I’ve been writing to my mother about you, too. So we’ll just have to see what happens. We’re leaving anyway, so it doesn’t matter what any of them have to say.”

Frank and Gregory continued to walk and talk the day away as they approached the farm outside of Carroll. In the sharply-angled glare of the early evening sun, the house came into view down the road.

“There’s the house,” Gregory said to Frank.

Frank brought his hand up to shield against the sun and see the house. “It looks brand new.”