Free The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb

provided a good view of the land and the vistas that could be seen from them. People these days seemed to care more about the land they could see from their property than they did about the property itself. In March the views were not blocked by foliage. March was not too bitterly cold for walks through the woods and along old logging trails to reach parcels without road frontage; and the snakes were not yet awake to prosecute trespassers into their domain.
    Whitescarver tried to do his scouting in early March, so that when spring fever hit the prospective buyers, he could be ready with a good selection of properties to offer. Every spring, about the time the dogwoods bloomed and the Blue Ridge Parkway became clogged with cars from Charlotte, Knoxville, Roanoke, and all points in between, the upwardly-mobile gentlefolk of east Tennessee would start picking up the real estate brochures from the racks at Krogers and at local restaurants. They would look longingly at poetic ads for mountain land (Deer for neighbors in your own wilderness paradise … 360-degree view! Commuting distance to Johnson City, to East Tennessee State!). And they would call.
    His real estate clients were mostly city people, although they would have said otherwise, and they all wanted the same thing, and would not get it, mainly because it was not available, but also because, Whitescarver knew, if he did provide them with what they asked for, they would hate it. “We want a little farm, Mr. Whitescarver,” he was told by slender blondes in earth-tone cashmere sweaters. Their faces bore an earnest glow as they spoke of the noise and confinement of suburban life, of wanting room for the children to play without fear of traffic or strangers. He supposed they had been raised watching The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie in centrally heated split-levels in Greensboro or Lexington, and they dreamed of such an idyllic existence without having the least idea what it was like to live on a farm.
    Their husbands, Professor This or Doctor That, would talk about land as a good investment, and mumble about wanting to do a little gardening. A subdivision did not fit their self-image: it diminished their status, lumped them into the herd of overachievers. They really wanted a fiefdom, a country estate that would proclaim their success by its very exclusiveness. Whitescarver would solemnly agree with all this piffle, and ferry them down muddy roads to a selection of brambled sites, overgrown with scrub pines because the mountain’s valuable timber was always harvested for the thousands of dollars profit it would bring before the land was put up for sale. The prospective pioneers would wonder why the woods looked so meager, but they wouldn’t ask the realtor, and he never told them.
    As the city couple hiked through underbrush in search of the elusive view from the top—of more scrub pines—Whitescarver would affect his most genial country-boy drawl, while he advised his clients of the cost of running a paved road up the mountain so that one could get to work in winter. “Reckon you’ll need a four-wheel like mine,” he’d say with a chuckle. By the time he moved on to the hazards of well drilling, the expense of obtaining a power line, and the impossibility of getting cable television, the couple’s L.L. Bean topsiders were caked with brown mud, and they had ceased to enthuse about the glories of country life, and they directed most of their attention to the ground, watching for the rattlesnakes Frank had casually mentioned.
    Frank Whitescarver was an expert in gauging the exact psychological moment when the city couple had seen enough scrub land. Then they were ready to be taken to Boone’s Mountain, an upscale subdivision of brick homes in styles ranging from Tudor to contemporary, all situated on carefully landscaped five-acre lots, with views, city water and power, paved streets, and cable—all for a mere $250,000 and up. Twenty-seven houses