Chapter 7

Juliet asked at breakfast the next morning, “When can we go down and tell Jeb and Happy? Your sister is going to be so excited and everyone will want us to get married right away. My aunts will want a big flowery wedding, but I want something simple and uncomplicated, just you and me. I’ll work on my family, and you’ll be in charge of yours. You know, it might be nice to have the wedding in that small church you and your family have gone to for so many years.”

We would find out soon, because I convinced Mrs. McKendry to go with us to visit my family down in the country. I had called and talked to Sissy and then Grandpa. He said that Juliet and I could sleep on the couch and Mrs. McKendry could sleep in my room. I told Grandpa, “I think she is going to want to have her man, Josh, drive us down, so I need to find room for him.”

There was a ‘hmm’, and then he said, “We’ll work it out. We’ve been making some plans and working on them. We’ll be ready if we make an effort.”

I had several things to do with school during this week and most of the next one, so I was limited to enjoying summer before the early summer semester. I was given assignments with a stack of books to read for the second summer period, and wondered how I was going to read that much in the time allotted.

I called to find out if they were ready for us and Grandpa said, “We have all the room necessary for Mrs. McKendry’s man and her maid, as well as you two. Happy is so excited that she has probably lost ten pounds she shouldn’t have. Come show her Juliet’s tummy and she’ll be the Happy we all know.”

I went to the Chevy dealership and made a deal with one of the aunts to trade my pickup in for a used Suburban that would carry all of us. The big car or truck, whatever it is, has three seats in it and was perfect for us. I didn’t want to use Grandmother’s limousine since that would be too far out for that neighborhood.

Our arrival on the farm was a celebration of the joining of city and country folks. Grandmother and Happy were soulmates as soon as they met. The two instantly were in the kitchen making something from both of their repertoires. Josh and Carol enjoyed looking around the farm and learning about various things from Sis’ and Burt’s almost four year old.

There was a new addition just off the lane road to the house. A new home had been built with the anticipation of more children, as it had five bedrooms and they only had two kids so far. They had worked hard to finish it and Sis had quickly furnished it so that they could move in to empty the rooms for guests. Grandma slept in my room, while Josh and Carol each had a room, and Juliet and I slept on the couch. It worked.

Happy was nearly delirious that Juliet was pregnant and we were getting married. Juliet had a few conversations with Happy and her Gamma before they went to see the local preacher. The man was a little put off that Juliet and I hadn’t waited to get married before we had children, but agreed that he had married a swarm of kids fresh out of high school in June for that same reason for many years. I made a hundred dollar donation to help make for smoother sailing. Mrs. McKendry didn’t want to wait, and had the preacher perform the wedding in front of just our family and a couple of friends of mine. Juliet’s aunts and husbands drove down and stayed in local roadside cabins normally used by fishermen. I don’t think Juliet or I needed the service. We were already man and wife in our minds.

Juliet and Sissy compared baby bumps, showing off who might be closer to having their baby. Sissy was probably the winner of that one, but Juliet was just as proud. I commented at the big dinner table, “I haven’t been gone very long, but Burt and Sissy have two kids and another on the way. This family is exploding, and Juliet and I are going to join in.”

Grandma McKendry said, “Barney is determined to come back here to either practice law or become the County Attorney. I’m going to look for some property to build the couple a house as a wedding present. Barney has close to two more years of studying to become a lawyer, so I don’t have to rush, but I’ll need help to find somewhere he and Juliet can raise a family.”

Grandpa said, “Barney has always been a homebody, so I think the place for him will be at the Miller place next door. It burnt down a while back, and the Millers have been gone for years. I think it’s coming up at the tax sale, so I’ll get it for Barney and you can build the kids something nice. He’ll be just across that wooded stretch and we’ll always know where help is. Happy would be the happiest if they lived here, but kids often want something of their own.”

Juliet spoke up and said, “It would be good for us to have a home site, but I’d love to live right here to have and raise my baby. It’s going to be a few years before Barney is able to earn a living practicing law. He might have a few bucks saved for us to live on, but why waste it when we’ve been offered a great place to live.”

I thought Happy was going to become speechless with happiness to have us live in the house with them. Juliet was being herself by wanting to blend in and not stand out as some self-important person. I think her Gamma was the proudest. It was something she would have done.

Juliet gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl at Thanksgiving. I was so proud of Juliet and the baby, but she said that she was disappointed it wasn’t a boy for me to raise and teach. We had many talks about it while we waited the customary six weeks for her insides to heal up. I kept telling her it wasn’t hers to decide. It was divine intervention that decided if we should be raising a little girl or boy.

My two remaining years of law school flashed by, and I was all of a sudden taking the Missouri bar exam in Jefferson City, Missouri. I had stayed in touch with the County Attorney and the local lawyer who wanted to sell me his practice back home. I could buy it, but I also knew that the area population had grown enough that it might support two lawyers.

The County Attorney decided to run for another four year term, so that wasn’t where I should go. The man did offer me a place on his staff knowing that he wouldn’t do anything and I would do everything for a junior attorney’s salary. I declined and said I might run against him next term.

I found a home at the end of the business district that I could buy and convert into a decent office. There was now more money in my investment account than what I had started with, so I had enough to remodel the house and make it into a good friendly place to do business.

I had a nice sign made that hung on a bar off two posts that declared that ‘Bernard ‘Barney’ Beck, Attorney-at-Law’ was in the building and ready to do business.

I had a couple of property disputes to work on, and then an accident involving a concrete truck that ended up being something the entire county heard about. I won a big settlement for the client over the next year, and had to help them out during the proceedings because the breadwinner was now nearly paralyzed and couldn’t work. His huge settlement paid me back, plus paid me my attorney’s fees.

It was at our home celebration dinner that Juliet told the family there, “We’re going to have another baby, and it’s going to be a boy this time because it’s all different. Little Julie was totally different than this one, so it has to be a boy.”

My practice grew from people I knew and who I had gone to school with. The man with the practice in the bank building came to me and asked if I wanted to buy him out. I said, “Look, you promised to give or sell me your practice when I graduated from law school. You didn’t, so I started my own and began practicing law. Find someone else to sell out to now, because I’m already earning a living doing what I set out to do.”

The guy’s argument was that I was living at home and mustn’t have been making enough to afford my own place. I had to explain, “I have a savings account that has purchased the Miller place and more than enough money to build a mansion on it. My grandpa and grandma want me, my wife, and daughter to live with them. Why would I live anywhere else? My wife and daughter are happy, my great-grandparents are happy, my sister, her husband, and their now three kids are happy, so why should I build that mansion? Keep your clients and good luck in selling your practice.”

My practice had rapidly grown with me getting all kinds of small town lawyer stuff to do. There were a couple of criminal cases that I didn’t want to handle, but I did anyway. One guy got off because the Prosecuting Attorney hadn’t done his homework. I felt bad because the guy was guilty as sin. It wasn’t my problem, but I still felt bad.

One of the seventeen year old neighbor boys got a thirteen year old neighbor girl pregnant. He was legal, but she wasn’t by a year. I had to do all kinds of contortions to keep the statutory rape charge at bay until both kids parents were willing to help them get married. The girl’s family had money and paid me my fees, which really didn’t cover the effort that I put into the case.

I now had a legal secretary who had moved to the area. She was an attractive lady, but could have been my mother. We got along great, and she was good for the office since she went to a different church than my family did, so we were able to spread the word of mouth that much faster. A couple of the small resorts had some state and federal problems with their operation because they raised feeder fish for bait. Who would know all the regulations for doing something as simple as that? The resorts were able to comply by building tanks in the lake instead of having free standing tanks. They could still recirculate the water, and ended up building other very large tanks to raise trout to restock the lakes and for local markets.

My son was born on schedule. Juliet was still busy with Julie, and now had Bernard Jr., or BJ. I worked hard every day keeping busy by visiting every business in a hundred mile radius. I was picking up legal work that people needed done, plus there was a constant stream of people wanting to transfer property, have wills created, and use me to apply for building permits.

Juliet proved to be very fertile and was almost immediately pregnant again. She said that it would be a boy, and it was. We named this one ‘Bill’ after my dad. It was now becoming a little cramped in the old farm house with us having three kids. Juliet had a small desk in our bedroom that she used to do our billing and recordkeeping. She needed more room, but she wanted to be home with her babies.

Juliet decided that we needed to build our house so her Gamma could move down to be with us. Her Aunt Jill came down and had some architects design a massive home that would house us, Gamma and her staff, as well as Grandpa and Happy since they would eventually need to be cared for.

Burt had learned well, and was now in charge of the stills and Beck’s best. He was still growing his own grains and enough sugar cane to supply the neighbors with sugar and cane mixed as a supplement for the stock. I would still have to help him with the initial fermentation and distilling, but that was only for a couple of weeks and mostly on weekends.

Happy, Grandma Juliet, and my Juliet went to the big stores in Kansas City and picked out furniture for the entire new house the day it was completed. They had gone to several stores to find exactly what they wanted and had it shipped and delivered in two moving vans and also set up. The aunts came to help get all the curtains up and the furniture in place. Carol and Josh brought Grandmother Juliet down to look through the house and discovered that the interior was very close to her home in Columbia, but larger with more specific areas or wings for people.

Grandpa thought the place was wonderful, and Happy was ecstatic to have the new kitchen and help from Carol, Juliet, and Mrs. McKendry, the other Juliet.

My practice had almost quadrupled from the first year, and was paying enough to offset what would have been a debt on the original office that had been a house. There was enough business for me to find another young attorney and spend some time soliciting business from the other business owners in town and the surrounding areas. It’s amazing how being at the right place at the right time can be a great business practice. The big city law firm who bought the retiring lawyer’s practice didn’t have a clue on how to deal with country folk and drove them to me. My legal secretary wanted help, so she was in charge of finding someone to help her. She found another older lady legal secretary who wanted to live in a small community. I think I was the most amazed that the area around our county could support a law office as large as ours.

We were still locally famous for the large settlement from the concrete company, and had people come to us for all kinds of auto accidents and various work related accidents. I would often need to have the potential client go somewhere else because I already represented the business where the accident happened. That person often went to the big city where they would put a substandard or new attorney on the case. I knew how to prepare to win a case in every way, while the big city people felt there was no way a country lawyer would be a problem. I usually sent them home to go back to school. I had learned to get all the information and have it ready to properly present while in law school and while practicing.

My family had all moved into the new home and were renting the old farm house out to an older couple who had lost their home to their mortgage company. Grandpa and Burt each had one of those fancy four-wheel drive carts that let them go over to the old farm to take care of stock and keep track of the place. Grandpa had known the man who rented our old place was born and raised in the area, since he was a child. Happy knew the woman from church and visiting over the years. The one they didn’t know well was their son, an out of work person who knew all the tricks to keep getting his unemployment checks and looked to be going to get a disability from Social Security.

It was when I opened my own office that I had bought an older used Impala. The car ran great and had everything I needed. I kept it up and although the ugly green paint was faded, the car was everything I needed. It became almost a symbol of me around the area. I could go to work in Jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt driving my old green Impala and everyone would wave at me as I drove by. My wife, Juliet, didn’t like the fact that I drove that old car, so I had to convince her that it was a symbol that I was just one of the people in the county and surrounding area, and not some self-important jerk. Juliet had the fairly new Suburban from the Columbia family dealership, so I told her, “Have Happy watch the kids, and you and I will make the rounds for business in the Suburban one day and the old Impala the next.”

Juliet accepted the challenge and dressed down for her, and went with me while I went to talk to clients the way I always did. No one waved at us, and no one honked their horn to say hi. We had to be inside before people recognized us when we went to the café for lunch. We went to town dressed up a little the next day, as I had an appointment with the bank about a legal matter, but we went in the old green Impala. People waved, honked, and one guy came out of his house to stop me to ask about a problem. People were already hollering at me for running around on my wife when we went into the café. They knew Juliet and were just teasing, but she understood how I used that old car to let people know that I was one of them.

Juliet sat on my lap one morning, and told me, “You’ve done it again. I think this one is a girl again, but it’s confusing because I get both feelings. Isn’t it great that we’re going to have another baby? I’m still so in love with you that I’m just floating along being as happy as Happy. No one knows yet except the doctor, so when can I tell them?”

“Do it tonight. Have Carol, Happy, and your Gamma help make a special supper and announce it then. Call your aunts and have them come down too. We have plenty of beds for them all. I’m very excited and know we’re going to continue to be good parents.”

Grandpa had me outside by the little barn I had built to help make the place look like a farm before I left that morning. Grandpa said, “I’m worried about the Larson kid. He never does anything except go to town to play cards and drink. He’ll go down to Mobile and gamble fairly often, but he doesn’t have the money to do that. I need to watch him, Barney, and you should probably have the law watch him too.”

That worried me while driving into town to carry on the day’s business. I went by the Sheriff’s office and found him at his desk. He warmly greeted me, although I usually was his adversary. He wanted to know what I needed or wanted.

“You know the Larson’s who rented our old home, Sheriff. They’re good people, but Grandpa is worried and is concerned that their kid, Robert, might be a problem. You need to check up on his past to make sure that he isn’t someone of interest to the feds or state. He seems to have more money than he should have by going down to Mobile and gambling fairly often. Grandpa thinks that his folks might be afraid of him. Help me help those folks and find out if there is a problem with the kid.”

The Sheriff punched in some characters on his computer and nodded to me. “I have him right here and he does have a past. It seems that he may have been involved in some bank robberies, but was never arrested for them. It looks like he doesn’t have any fingerprints on file, so none of the forensics has him in on those robberies. You may have a good suspect for some older problems. Be careful though, as this guy could be very dangerous. He’s the combination of country bumpkin and wild man we create down here.”

I hadn’t heard that before, but could understand how it fit.

Grandpa said he would be prepared when I told him what I knew. I knew grandpa had several shotguns and he had a lot of double-ought ( .00) buckshot rounds that were used on predators that came around the farm. We only had chickens here, along with a calf and year and half old steer that would be table fare soon. Our place wasn’t a working farm, just a big home with some stock. The fields were all worked with our equipment from the old farm that Burt and I took care of.

I went by the local gunsmith store and discussed buying a handgun or two when I went to town. The man said that I could buy all I wanted but had to go through the state and federal background checks. It didn’t seem to matter, so I did everything required and was able to buy four handguns. I bought three nine millimeter Glocks and a .357 revolver, because the gunsmith said most women prefer a revolver. After the three day wait there was before I could pick them up, I took my wife to a pistol range in Springfield and taught her to use the revolver and then the Glock. She preferred the Glock, and scored very nicely on the range. I used the revolver and scored okay, but not nearly as well as I did with the Glock.

We now had a Glock at home, one always with Juliet, and one with me. Grandpa had his old .45 long barreled pistol that he said he could scratch the back of an ant at twenty-five feet with. I traded the .357 revolver for another Glock, so I had one in the car and one at the office, where I learned both my secretary and her new assistant were both proficient with handguns – pistol packing mamas. Missouri is lenient toward guns and makes it easy to get a concealed weapon permit. I made sure Juliet as well as Josh had one. Grandpa said that he didn’t need one because when he carried his forty five it was visible and Missouri had an open carry law.