Free The Wilful Daughter by Georgia Daniels Page A

money from William and I have a lot to pay back. He has legal papers that say if I don’t pay it or if he has a mind, he gets, not just the property but everything on it.”
    John Wood had been devastated. So devastated that he had disappeared from the face of the earth for three whole days. His father and brother searched everywhere from church to Miss Emma’s. His friends searched whorehouses. When John Wood reappeared, he did not go to his father’s house but to the house of the woman he loved.
    “ Did he tell you why we cannot get married?” he asked her after she tried to run to him but was halted by the Blacksmith’s strong arms.
    “ Go home, John. Harland has been worried about you,” the big man told him gently.
    John was still in the throes of being drunk. For the last three days of his life he had been hiding in a shack in the woods drinking shine and getting up nerve. “My father isn’t worried about me. He’s worried about his store and his land and his house. All the things that I thought he owned really belong to you. You hold the papers on my life.”
    “ This is not the place for this talk boy. This is private business between me and your father.”
    “ Let him talk, Papa,” Minnelsa had screamed. The shock of her voice raised against him silenced the Blacksmith.
    “ That’s how you get your land, ain’t it? That's how you got so rich. You didn’t smithy your way into wealth, I went and checked on you. I found out about you. You loan people money when they need it and you get Lawyer Gibbs to draw up a contract. Oh it’s legal and all. And you make sure even the dumbest person in the world knows everything in it because you have Gibbs read it to them.
    “ But it has this clause in it. It sets a time limit when they can pay the money back to you. And if they don’t pay on time, you take what they own. Did you know that, Minnelsa? Did you know your father owns me?”
    There had been a silence in which all one could hear were the tears in the hearts of the two young people. “I love him, Papa. Why can’t you understand I love him?”
    “ He’s not good enough for you Minnelsa,” he shouted. “Don’t you understand? He didn’t fight to get you. He just went away and got drunk. Drunk, Minnelsa! Look at him!”
    Now John Wood had been a sight. Wrinkled and stained clothes, three days growth of beard, his tie too loose at the neck. He had not thought out his plan or his appearance as he reproached the man he hated.
    “ But he came back, Papa. Don’t you see? He came back because he loves me.”
    The Blacksmith’s anger grew from a furnace deep within. “Loves you? He hates me more than he loves you. Hate, Minnelsa. Hate brought this boy back here. All he can do is talk to me.”
    “ But he did that, papa,” she shouted back. The Blacksmith raised his hand at her but Bira stood in the way. The furnace was burning out of control.
    “ You go with him and I disown you. You get nothing from me. If he drops dead on the street the moment you set foot off this porch, if he has a heart attack, if the white folks lynch him two blocks away, you can’t ever come back here. Do you understand? You go with this useless human being and you get nothing from me.”
    The words made the air a storm. The romance that had been blossoming since childhood, the love that they had refused to share while she taught and he went off to study and then teach and write a book, this Minnelsa felt had to be stronger than any amount of property her father owned.
    Their gazes met, arm in arm they opened the door to leave. But the Blacksmith spoke the last words, changing words. He had worked too hard to make his family perfect. He would not be outdone.
    “ I love my daughter. She will make someone a fine wife and a wonderful mother. She would want to give you a son, your first son. But that’s already been done, hasn’t it?”
    John Wood stopped in the doorway. He dropped Minnelsa’s hand. He lifted his head to