Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 Vingo may come back to life. Why can’t we grow as big as Hastings?” “Tt’s unlucky land ’—I quoted the su- perstition of the negroes — “* there’s been too much blood let into it.” Gene didn’t take stock in that belief; it was voodoo stuff, yet, as far back as Span- ish days, the negroes declared, Vingo land had been “ sorcered.” At night, down by the alligator wallows near the river, you could sometimes,hear the groans of those old Spanish “ hants.”” When St. Augustine had been a peaceful village, Vingo was be- ing drenched with the blood of Indian vic- tims. The French were similarly unfortu- nate and, later, the English—the Yorkshire- men with their fields of indigo “like the sky turned upside down.” Since those early misfortunes, American farmers had failed for one reason or another. The Uto- pian experiment was the latest and prob- ably the grandest failure. So the venture of the Pomeroy brothers was watched with curiosity. Their methods left little room for bad luck; they labored too diligently. And they brought with them the frugality and honesty for which the Connecticut Yank is celebrated. They traded at the commissary only when they could not buy supplies more cheaply in Majolica or from the mail- order houses; and they paid spot cash. Thrift was their watchword. Their inge- nious restoration of the farmhouse and out- buildings was an example. These structures had never been paint- ed, and dry rot was setting in. No one but a New England farmer or a Frenchman would have hit upon the scheme they used. They picked up a hundred pounds of red- dish-brown paint pigment for practically nothing at a fire sale in Majolica, then made a tour of the garages and collected fifty gallons of old oil which had been drained from crank cases. The oil cost them nothing. They filtered it through cloth and mixed it with the pigment. With this cheap mixture they painted their build- ings. It made fire traps of them, but it stopped the dry rot, and the result, from ‘an artistic point of view, was surprising. As the oil soaked in, the color changed from a raw reddish-brown to a soft tint. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. When Phil or Bert came to the commis- sary for rations or tobacco, they had little to say. They were “ making out;” and I was glad of this. I liked neither of them, but it was impossible not to admire them. They were doing the work of five men--- repairing fences, clearing land, plowing, planting, digging out the old drainage ditches} But it was from Suzanne that I learned that they were going to plant most of their acreage to pecans. Pecans are a seven-year proposition, and they don’t begin yielding profitably for nine. “We're thinking of the future,” said Suzanne. They had been in Vingo then about five months, and Gene Bantry’s prophecy was no nearer fulfillment than it had been that day when he had met Suzanne. He told me one night in the darkness of my front porch that Suzanne loved him. They had talked it over. “T told her I couldn’t live without her. Well, she will never leave those two brothers of hers as long as they need her. And they can’t get along without her. Planting pe- cans! Seven more years! Why in hell weren’t they satisfied with potatoes? And they won’t let me see her; and she isn’t the kind who will sneak off.and meet me somewhere! Can you guess where I popped the question, Buck? In the back seat of her flivver in Bill’s garage while she was getting a tire fixed! Oh, it’s rotten. Everything is wrong. Everything’s been wrong since those two came here. They’re a pair of hard luck guys. They’re poison- ous!” Denied the companionship of the man she loved, Suzanne was looking for romance in another direction. When household du- ties permitted, she was making a path through the jungle toward the lost orange grove. I asked her one time what her brothers thought of her efforts, and was surprised when she said that they wanted her to find it. “Did you smell it last night?” I had. It was February, the month of orange blossoms, and the air had been filled with the sweet breath from the hidden grove. COnmmiclboool< (C@