Our lil farm
When I finally did, she listened without a word. The next morning, she looked at me and asked, “You want that farm, don’t you?”
I told her I did—but I was worried. Worried about the cost. About her and the children going without. She just wrapped her arms around me and said, “I’m not afraid, Charley.”
So I made the deal. Paid $350 for the place. The land was wrapped in three-strand barbed wire—enough to hold livestock through the planting season. The house was small, just three rooms with wooden shutters, but Lucille never once complained.
Owning that land changed us. We still worked as hard as ever—maybe harder—but it didn’t feel the same. We woke before dawn. Lucille made breakfast while I hauled water, milked the cow, and fed the chickens. Then we took to the fields together.
Lucille packed lunches that could lift your spirit no matter how tired you were—cold cornbread, butter, a jar of peas. After a morning of plowing, it tasted like a feast.
She made soap from lye and grease, scrubbed the floors with ashes and a mop I built from corn shucks and an old plank. Our ironing board was nothing but a slab across two benches. But she made that little shack glow. She made it a home.
I sold extra meat and vegetables in town. One day, I brought home a pie safe—$12 from the hardware store. It had glass doors, a linen drawer, screens to keep the flies out. First real piece of furniture I ever bought her. I’ll never forget the way her eyes lit up.
Later on, I got us a buggy—not new, but strong. It helped with my errands, and Lucille loved taking it out with one of the little ones riding beside her.
Those were good years—around 1914. We didn’t have much by anyone’s standards. But we had land, a roof, each other. And that was everything.
