Free Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] by With Hope

days.”
    “Talk to me? About what?” A puzzled line appeared between her brows,
    “About trading work.”
    “Oh. Well. I’ve not had time to think about how I’ll get the work done.”
    “Then you are going to stay here.”
    “Of course. This is my home.”
    “I heard talk that you might lease out to an oil company.”
    “You can put the rumors to rest. I intend to stay here and farm the land just like my . . . daddy.” Her voice caught, and she turned away to speak to a neighbor who had just arrived. “Hello, Mrs. Bradshaw.”
    “My, my, my. I was just so sorry to hear about poor Mr. Henry. Whatever will ya do, child?” The woman’s weathered, wrinkled face was creased with lines of concern. “Yo’re alone now, ain’t ya? It’s too bad ya ain’t got ya a good man to run the place—”
    “I’ll be fine.” Henry Ann straightened her shoulders. “Johnny and I will manage just fine.”
    “I ain’t thinkin’ ya can depend on . . .
him.
”
    “We’ll do fine, Mrs. Bradshaw. Take a plate and help yourself.” Henry Ann turned to see that Tom Dolan still stood beside her, the plate she had handed him still unfilled. She left the porch and walked out into the yard to greet Karen and her father.
    Times were hard. A funeral gathering was not only a time for neighbors to get together and remember the deceased, but to catch up on the news and discuss the terrible state of the economy and what the politicans planned to do about it.
    A goodly amount of time was spent discussing the upcoming presidental election. Franklin Roosevelt, former New York governor, was promising the American people a “new deal” if he was the candidate chosen to run against President Hoover. Most of the people didn’t know what the term “new deal” meant, but the majority of those present declared their intention to vote for him if he won the nomination.
    “I’m thinkin’ he can’t do no worse than what Hoover’s done.” The man who spoke had lived in a sod dugout for five years, eaten beans and corn pone while waiting for a cotton crop that would allow him to build a frame shelter for his family. “Anybody been to see you fellers about a oil lease?”
    “One a them slick-talkers come nosin’ round my place. Promisin’ to make me rich. Bullfoot!” Mr. Whalen snorted. “Ain’t been nothin’ come in near me but a little old piddlin’ well that pumps ’bout fifty barrels a day. Fifteen cents a barrel is all it’s goin’ for. I’d be lucky to get two bits a day. All them oil fellers do, to my way of thinkin’, is mess up the land so it ain’t no good ever again for plantin’.”
    “Ain’t it so?” Mr. Austin’s head bobbed up and down. “I see what they done up ’round Marlow. Place looks like a cyclone struck it. Ain’t nothin’ worse lookin’ than a old played-out field. Them drillers come in, tear up, and move on.
    “There’s another of them outfits comin’ to Red Rock. Got some kind of connection with that feller that put on the air show down in Wichita Falls. Harrumph! Why anybody’d be such a fool as to stand on top one of them airplanes is beyond me.”
    “It ain’t beyond me. Ain’t much a feller won’t do nowadays to get that jinglin’ stuff in his pockets. Hell! I’d join up with that dance marathon that’s coming to town if I wasn’t so damn old.”
    “Ya can’t dance nohow, Wilbur. Heard Pete Perry’s already signed up.”
    “Wal, there’s just one good thin’ about that. If he’s dancin’, he ain’t bootleggin’.”
    “That dance marathon’ll bring folks to town. It’ll be somethin’ to gawk at, that’s sure.”
    Tom listened to the talk. As a newcomer he didn’t have much to add to the conversation. He had heard talk in town about Pete Perry. He reckoned the man was about as sorry a sort as they come. What game was he playing with Miss Henry? She was going to be in trouble up to her neck if she didn’t put a rein on the little baggage she brought back