Chapter 24

For Christmas of 1925 Sammy and Polly Williams decorated a full-sized tree for their two children with the homemade tinfoil star sitting on its top. The family's kitten climbed the tree, but did not do any real damage. Sarah Jane, who was three and a half, tore open presents with unalloyed glee. The baby, Philip, who was just ten months and barely weaned, needed help to open his gifts although he seemed ready to start crawling at any moment and happily chewed every ribbon he could get his hands on.

The older Williams families had been visiting at the home place off and on all week and usually looked in to drop off presents for the children, but only Sammy's young group and Jenny and her two fast-growing boys would be there for Christmas dinner, a dinner that Caroline insisted on preparing with as little help as possible, including two kinds of pies for dessert.

Robert attended, of course, and his current inamorata, a Scandinavian beauty about half his age, who smiled a great deal and spoke very little English. "Whew," Sammy said when they walked outside with Seth to enjoy a smoke and look at the barn, "where did you find her?"

"Oh, she found me," Robert said as he cupped his hands about a match. "I don't think I've ever known a girl like her; she is completely uninhibited."

"That mean she's good in bed?" Sammy asked, drawing the flame to the end of his thin cigar.

"Incredible," said his brother and they both laughed.

"You hear about what they're going to do with the barn?" the old man asked, pointing with his Malacca cane. Seth was now well into his seventy-fifth year but showed few signs of slowing down.

"Some," Robert said. "And whose idea was that?"

"Polly, mostly," Sammy replied. "she ran into these people over at C.U." He slid open the barn door on its rusty tracks, putting his back into it. It stopped about half way, and Robert joined in the pushing.

"Ain't as bad as I thought," Seth said, peering around as the door creaked wider and more light spilled into the long-empty barn.

"When's the last time it was used?" Robert asked. "Has to be ten years, don't you think, before the war?"

"At least," agreed Seth. "But they're making plans. Gonna put the stage over there with dressing rooms in the stalls behind, lights up in the rafters, and damn if I know what they'll do for seats. But it don't leak much." He looked up and pointed. "I only see one or two holes that need patching. Don't smell too bad either, considering."

"Ought to be exciting," Robert said, "guess they'll let people park right out in the field."

"That ought to be fun when it rains," Sammy said. "Might make a dollar or two pulling folks out of the mud."

They walked back outside, leaving the door crookedly ajar. "And they're going to use the corncrib too. That's what they tell me." Seth blew cigar smoke in that direction.

"And pay you rent?" asked Robert, offering his father a hand over a piece of rusted machinery in the deep grass.

"Yep," Seth said, ignoring his hand. "A share of the gate is what they said."

"Don't see how you can lose," Sammy said, puffing his cheroot.

"Hope you've thought again about AT&T," Robert said to his brother as he flipped away his cigarette. "It's up again you know, been going up steadily, year after year, a guaranteed winner."

Sammy nodded. "Polly has seen another farm she likes, over near the river, 'bout a hundred acres outside Darnestown."

"Don't you already have two?" Robert asked. "You really ought to think about other investments. Suppose local farming goes sour, prices are already falling you know."

"What are you pushing this week?" Sammy asked, trying not to look impatient.

"AT&T, telephone and radio. I got in at 110 and its 120 already. Have you bought a radio yet, either of you?"

Sammy shook his head, and Seth ignored the question having only recently had a telephone installed in the kitchen pantry, much against his will.

"What are you waiting for? Almost everyone I know has a radio now." Robert stopped near the crabapple trees and looked back toward the barn. "You know, it might work, summer theatre is popular up north I hear, Cape Cod, places like that."