The Colonel
Copyright© 2026 by happyhugo
Chapter 13
I went to bed and reviewed the day’s happenings. Especially the way Father received me. He was so ordinary and different from what I had imagined he would be when we met. I concluded that Father fell in love immediately upon meeting the farmer’s wife, Edith. Would Mother believe me when I described the life he was living now? My thoughts now turned to Wendy. She appeared to be a sister I would enjoy knowing. She was much more independent than her brother, Robbie. I turned over and cleared my mind to prepare myself for sleep.
I heard someone going downstairs and realized I had slept through the night. I hit the bathroom, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. When I reached the kitchen, there was a place setting for me, and I slid into the seat. Wendy announced, “I’m driving the potato planter today. Ride with me, Jim. Dad will be the one loading the fertilizer and seed. Mom is washing and cleaning the house. If you have dirty clothes, put them outside your door in the hall.”
“Where is Robbie?”
“Robbie on his way to school. He graduates in two weeks. He will be doing what I have been doing for the last year. In August, I’ll be starting at the University in Torrington. I had a gap year working. Next year, we will both be at the University, and Mom will hire one or two people to replace us.”
“How come Robbie was home yesterday and not in school?”
“The school allows a few days off if you are a farming family and your marks are high enough. We had sixteen hours of planting the day before you got here. It is the way it is. I’ll give you 15 minutes to finish breakfast, so please meet me behind the sheds, where the diesel tank is located. The potatoes will be all in for the year by noon today.”
“You push a person, don’t you?”
“I want to go to town this afternoon and buy a new dress. I have money saved to buy one if I ever have the chance to go somewhere. You said we were going out to breakfast on Monday.”
“Wendy, do Father and your Mother pay you for working here on the farm?”
“Yes, but I don’t get paid until one of the crops is sold. It will be winter wheat in August this year if everything goes as planned.”
“You had better save your money. The same goes for your mom if she needs a new dress. Mention it to Father and Robbie in case they need clothes now.”
“Do you have extra money? I saw a picture of the house you are building. That must have cost you a bundle?”
“It did, but I have more than enough. Molly is paying me for rent of her quarters out of her harness racing income.” We had reached the field where the potatoes were planted. I figured we would have one trip to the end and a return trip today. I could see that another crop planted several feet away. I could barely see the rows of something green coming up through the dirt.
“What is planted over there?”
“Those are sugar beets. They went into the ground starting in April. It looks like a good catch. We plan about one hundred seeds per 100 feet of row.”
“You have this trip, and will that be all with the planter?”
“That’s correct. Why do you ask?”
“Because I wish to check in at home, I thought I would call.”
“Go ahead. This round will only take half as much time, and then we’ll head for the house.” I helped load the last seed and fertilizer and found an empty box to sit on. Wendy headed up the field and planted all the way. I watched for a few minutes. I then called Amelia.
“Hi, Sweetheart, I’m here in Wyoming at Father’s crop farm. I’m sitting watching my half-sister, Wendy, plant potatoes. Her Brother Robbie is in the last year of high school and will graduate in two weeks. My new stepmom is a lovely woman, about ten years younger than Father. Father isn’t 60 yet. We haven’t talked much together. He isn’t upset that I showed up here. I really don’t have much idea of how he feels about me.
“I can’t say that I feel any filial love for him. He hasn’t asked very many questions about the Colonel. I think Maggie has received a minimum of calls from him over the years. Hey, do you miss me?”
“Of course I do. You squirted out on all of us here suddenly. Molly has taken over, and the house is painted. The Columns are all in place, and the front porch and entrance are finished. The area where the artist works from scaffolding above the balcony; is roughed in. He is now working on the mural. The frame for the mural is complete, and he has painted some horse figures. There is no background to see yet. The oval frame is 22 feet by eight feet. The upper mural will be 16 feet x seven feet.”
“That’s great!”
“Jimmy, I see a lot of Bonny. Please, call her. She misses you more than anyone else does, or so it seems to me from my listening to her when we are together. I told her about you, and I am donating the money we received from selling the bus to Gertrude Mims. I’m haggling just a little with the seller of the place we bought. I have them up to $60,000. Is it okay if I let it go for that?”
“Yes, grab it if you can.”
“Good. Bonny said that when we give the money to Gertrude, she wants to donate money at the same time. She thought it was wonderful when Gertrude got in touch with Bradley’s mother so that she could arrive in time for his funeral. She said that she received insurance money for Brad’s death, and it was a lot because there was some insurance from one that had a double indemnity clause.”
“How’s the Colonel doing?”
“Great, he is keeping me happy, and I am keeping up with him. Some things were different from the old man he had been when I first arrived. He goes out sometimes and exercises Molly’s horses. Oh, about Molly, she has a new boyfriend. He appears to be a man with money. I’ve asked her who and where he is from, but she doesn’t say much about him. I suspect he is somehow involved in horse racing. He’ll be here for dinner tonight.”
“Walter, isn’t her boyfriend any longer?”
“He is, and he isn’t. Molly is still involved with keeping track of Walter’s studbook lineages, but I think that is all. Walter doesn’t stay over at night any longer.”
“That’s Molly’s business. I was hurt when she told me there could be nothing between us. I looked back over my life and counted several times when I was moving and didn’t take the woman I was involved with to my next Post. What goes around comes around. We are still great friends, and she was happy I left, allowing her to complete our home. She did much more to put our property back together from the very beginning. The best move I ever made was to hire her to manage the start.
“Amelia, say hi to everyone for me, and I’ll call again soon. My 20-year-old sister is coming soon after planting the last potato seed. The machines for planting the different crops are complicated, and it is amazing how many of the different actions that man had to do by hand the machines replaced.”
“Jimmy, remember to call and talk to Bonny. That’s an order! She loved you for what you did when you advised her to save her marriage, and I believe she still has some of those feelings.”
“Like the feelings I have for you, Amelia?”
“Jimmy, you listen to me. Bonny may have more intense feelings for us than you may, and I have for each other. I feel like she is the daughter I never had, and for you, well. We will see. So don’t you stay away too long?”
For a minute, I was homesick. Why was I two-thirds of the country away from those who loved me?
“Everything okay, Jimmy?”
“No, Wendy. I planned for things to continue without me. The woman who calls me her almost brother and whom I have always had feelings for has a new boyfriend. She is pushing the completion of our home right along quickly.”
“Which woman is the one you showed me pictures of?”
“She is the one I showed you of the child when she was only two years old. There were a couple of pictures of her sitting on a sulky, and I said she was the daughter of your Dad’s second wife. She is the one who loves your Grandfather, and he loves her as much as he loves me. He is more disappointed that she didn’t choose me for a husband. He loved us enough to give us the land when he felt it was time for me to meet him again. We have worked together to put the place back together. I think I went overboard in enlarging the house as much as I did. And it is a show place, there is no doubt about that.”
“Why did you decide to build it?”
“I didn’t have much to work with, for the house had burned, and I wanted to build something that represented a plantation and a successful owner of a time before the Civil War. After all, Grandfather is nicknamed ‘The Colonel,’ which denotes a person of status. The old cellar hole was an elongated, narrow box that didn’t fit what I had envisioned. It wasn’t an asset, so I removed it and covered it. There is a beautiful lawn where it once was. I also set the new house several feet from the driveway to better balance the grounds.”
“What did you do after you arrived, first? Did it cost you a lot of money?” I debated for a few minutes, not knowing how to answer the question. “Jimmy, I’m sorry for asking. It isn’t any of my business.”
“Wendy, that’s okay. I’m asked that a lot and don’t know how to answer. In some ways, my life has been easy. My grandfather educated me, and I was able to attend a university that offered a military program. He sent my mother money to provide. It was enough to make sure I could go through life without needing more if I didn’t waste it.”
“Jimmy, I believe the man you call Grandfather did something similar for Dad. I heard Mom say one time that Dad brought money with him. Mom could buy more land when it was cheap, and Mom took advantage of it. Robbie and I never had any money to waste. We may be land-poor, but that’s not necessarily the case. Mom and Dad don’t discuss something like this with us at all. We realize that money hasn’t been very plentiful for some years, so Robbie and I don’t ask for more than the basics. Mom has never said we wouldn’t be able to go on after school to learn more, so they must have planned for us to be able to somehow.”
“Hey, Wendy, you wanted to go to town today. Are we done here?”
“We are. Thanks for telling me more about the family I know so little about.”
“Someday, Wendy, it would help if you visited me to learn more about everyone in the family. Some things hidden should be known among us will come to light, eventually.”
“I look forward to it. I gather that you didn’t think much of Dad when you arrived. You seem surprised that he is like he is.”
“I am surprised, and it is all good so far. I suppose it goes back to Mother. Mother; deeply hurt by the divorce when Father asked for it. It seems that Grandfather abetted the situation. I was only four at the time. I will say that my Mother and Grandfather are friends now, and I’m happy for both of them.
“When I returned and went down to Kentucky, I immediately connected with Molly. She was an unwanted child for years before Father left and disappeared. It colored her perception of him, yes, and my perception, as well. Even now, I think Molly would forgive him. I can feel it when she mentions his name.
“I don’t believe I should explain any of this to Father. In the few hours I have been around him, I don’t see what he could do to small children like Molly with such kind of treatment, Molly, who was the daughter of his second wife, named Tessie. You and Robbie certainly think he is a great Father.”
“Jimmy, I can’t comment because I still get Dad and his wives confused. What was your mother’s name again?”
“It is Sarah. If you would back that machine into the shed out of the way, I’ll help you unhook it.”
We crossed the yard and entered the house. Edith was preparing lunch. I showered while the family waited for me to sit and eat. “Wendy, you and Jim took a while to plant the few seed rows left.”
“Dad, Jimmy, was telling me a little more of the family ties you are part of. Your number two wife, named Tessie, and her child’s name is Molly. Why did you mistreat her?”
“Wendy, that is none of your business, and I did not mistreat Molly. I didn’t pay any attention to her, that’s all. I was not responsible for her and not her father, so why should I father her?”
“Dad, you should have at least shown a little love for her. You mean, if you came here and met Mom and I was her daughter, you would have ignored me and not fathered me at all?”
Father didn’t answer Wendy. He turned to me. “Jim, I wish you hadn’t decided to look me up. You came here, trying to turn my family against me. It isn’t any more your business than it is of Wendy’s. I was never happy before I found Edith, and I have two children who I think are the best in the world. When I first met you, we got along well together. You looked like another son besides Robbie, of whom I could be proud.
“It took 25 years to put my first two wives behind me and Edith to find me. The family I have now surpasses any of the challenges I faced before I met Edith. I’m not going to give it up easily.”
“So, Father, you are asking me to leave my sister and brother when I have just found them?”
“That is my wish,”
Wendy broke into our conversation. “Dad, what you are doing is not right. Look at Mom; she disagrees, that is, if I’m reading her expressions correctly.”
Edith spoke for herself. “James, Wendy is right, but I feel this doesn’t seem right.”
Edith turned to us and spoke. “You two go outside and take a walk. I’ve never pushed hard to learn about James’s early life. I knew he had a son by his first wife, but he never told me your name. That makes it so that you all are named James.”
“Edith, I think Wendy and I should stay.”
Edith ignored me, and Wendy didn’t get up to go out, so I didn’t either. “James came here with a large bundle of cash. When he arrived, I saw he had made a mess of his life. James begged me to straighten out his life, and I believe I had done what, was needed at the time. At first, I suppose I needed him, not only for the money, he had, but also to replace the brother I had lost just before planting season that year. He said much of his problem was alcohol, but I suspected it was more than that.
“I put him to work, and he did well after a bit, and I was proud of my efforts. At least he stopped crying like a baby at night and became interested in me, but he wouldn’t discuss his previous life. I leased more land with his money with an option to buy. It took a year to pay off the leased land and to purchase more land from the bumper crop.
“By then, my belly was rubbing on the steering wheel with Wendy. James had learned how to operate the different machines. I would draw a picture on paper and explain to James precisely how to prepare the crop rows in the fields. I have made a credible crop farmer of James, the person I found in an empty field. I love him, and he loves me.
“Jim is here, and I’m getting an indication that it’s time James goes back to where he came from and cleans up his life. Jim talks about his father as if he were God, calling him, with the title of The Colonel, a man who made the family follow his wishes. I take it that the Molly that Jim speaks about is a big part of his past. Is there anyone else I should know about that you haven’t mentioned?”
“There is Miss Maggie Burns, who is Molly’s Aunt, and the one who mothered Molly when her real mother, Tessie, went bad and soon became ill and died not that long afterward.”
I turned to Father. “Were you aware of when Tessie died so you could legally marry Edith? I think that is another thing that bothers Molly, and just so you know, I didn’t tell Molly where you lived until a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, of course, I was aware. Maggie notified me. I was in contact with her soon after I arrived here and was beginning to get my life together with Edith. You should know that everything is legal in my marriage to Edith.”
“Father, I’m pleased to know it. It looks to me as if you have a lovely family.” I walked out.
Torrington was reasonably compact. I found the American Legion, went into it, and introduced myself to the bartender. I engaged him in conversation, telling him I would be here with family for breakfast on Memorial Day. I also said “I would be honored to lead a squad of veterans, in the parade.”
“That’s great; some old men love to wear their uniforms and march in parades. Do you have a uniform to wear? We keep hats here in case one is needed.”
“I do have a full uniform, Medals, and all. Is it okay for me to wear it for breakfast?”
“Jim, of course. Are you from this area?”
“No, I’m visiting my father. I’m from Kentucky, and it has been years since I’ve seen him. He has a family, and I am meeting him for the first time.”
“What’s his name? I may know him?”
“James Thorpe.”
“Oh, yeah, he is the third or something.”
“No, he is James, the Fourth. I am James, the Fifth. It is quite a name to handle, especially as a kid. I used to get into brawls often over it.”
“I wouldn’t wonder. It’s great to meet you. I’ll see you on the Holiday.”
I went down the street to the clothing store. Edith and Wendy had chosen dresses and were approaching the cashier. “I promised Wendy a new dress. I told her I hoped you would get one for yourself. I see you have some shirts for Father and Robbie. Is there anything else you need?” I looked around and saw a display of shoe polish.
“Wendy, please grab me a tin of black polish from the display.” I paid the bill over Edith’s many objections. We walked back to my rental and left the packages. “Let’s go have a donut or ice cream. Do you need any groceries? How about, Father, Are you sure he doesn’t need anything at the clothing store?”
“Mom, Dad said he was going to buy a new Stetson. I know, just the one he was looking at the last time we were in the store together. He tried it on, and it fits.” I handed Wendy a bill and sent her for it.
Edith said, “You know James is going to scream about me letting you pay for all of this?”
“Probably, let him scream!”
“You are turning my life upside down. Can you really afford these things?”
“Yes, I can, and more if I see the need. Edith, I came here not knowing my father. In a way, I was prepared to dislike him. I don’t think he was liked very much when he lived at or near home. I think; it is you, who has changed him. I thank you for that.”
“Jim, how come you aren’t married? You are well into middle age. You aren’t afraid to marry, are you?”
“No, I’m not afraid. When I meet a woman who looks like someone I would like to know better, she isn’t interested in me. Take Molly, for instance, and she is pretty. I began taking her to dances; I was interested in her. I even kissed her a few times. Then she stated we were too close and claimed she was my half-sister. She is still my closest friend. For a while, she was partner with a man she was in business with, and he stayed with her. Just as I left, she told me she was involved with another man. I’m looking elsewhere for someone now.”
“That must disappoint you? I’m sorry.”
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