Caution: If you are depressed, this is not for you. Some of the story gets grim, but it does have a partly happy ending. I have changed the names of the towns and characters, but unfortunately this is based on a true story.

Since you asked me to tell you, then paid me after I said “No” twice, here it is. I was born in 1799, so I’m 95 now. My name is Robert Weaver. Don’t go writin’ it down as “Rob” or “Bobby”, get the story right!

The gossips say the Ring Line people will be here any day, to put up a bunch of poles and wires, and a telephone box. We’ll be able to talk to people far away, if we can pay. Few of us even know anybody far away, much less want to talk to ‘em. Even fewer of us have more than a handful of coin outside harvest time.

Like most folks here, I’ve lived in Riverton all my life. Of the hundred and ninety of us, I think only six or seven have been farther than half a day’s walk from home.

Since the potato famine around ‘47 or ‘48, most people here farm vegetables, barley, or dairy cows. When the potatoes failed, nearly half the town starved. Nobody here had the money to leave for America, like so many others did. It took three decades to grow our community back to nearly two hundred again.

But the story you want to hear was before all that.

My family has supplied clothing, rope, and horse tack to everybody in town back to the days of the Vikings. Except the Hillmans, back in their disgrace over half a century ago. That’s the story you’re paying for, so listen close. During those twelve years, nobody would sell to the Hillmans, help them, or even talk to them much. When the traveling Friar came around every third Wednesday of the month, we didn’t even let them come to the church services, which were held at one of our homes.

My sons Jerimiah and Abel herded our sheep and sheared them in the spring. My daughter-in-law Mary spun the wool into yarn, and my wife Lenore made clothing and blankets from it, god rest her soul. For underclothes, and if anybody had money for something fancy, I bought the cloth and thread on my twice-yearly trips to Woodridge and Engleton, and Mary would help Lenore sew.

I made rope, horse bridles and harnesses, and a few other things. Jerimiah’s wife Anne and our grandchildren took care of our chickens and family garden. Even the little ones six or eight years old helped as much as they could, instead of going to school. Life was a lot harder in those days.

It might seem harsh, what we did, but there was good reason. Joseph Hillman’s sin brought shame on his whole family, and even the rest of us. What kind of town would put up with an evil man like him? For the most part, we cut the Hillmans off from the community. A few even talked about burning their house, or killing him, but that only would have made the rest of us evil too.

The Hillmans kept to themselves most of the time. Eight months after Joseph married Rachel, we discovered his crime. When his son David was born, Rachel’s sister Dina carried him to meet the Friar, so the child could be baptized. The Potter family passed them on the road, and saw Rachel watching from their front door. Rachel was still pregnant! Joseph had begat children on both women!

A few people took pity on Rachel, and sold her a few things the rare times she had any money. Most of the town shunned her, since what kind of woman would allow that in her home?

Mary and my wife wanted to at least sell them some clothes for the babies, but the rest of the town might shun us too. Dina walked half a day to the town of Woodridge to buy almost the same baby clothes my Lenore had made, but put in storage out of social pressure.

It rained and snowed while Dina returned, and she fell ill soon after. Some say it was because of poor food, instead of the cold. I’m not sure, but eating just a fish or two a week with only potatoes the rest of the time can’t be good for you.

A month later, I saw Rachel cry and watch, as Joseph dug a hole. They had no money for a headstone, and marked Dina’s grave with a simple wooden cross. The Hillman’s girl, Tabitha, was born the next week.

When Joseph’s plow broke in the spring a couple of years later, the blacksmith wouldn’t fix it for him. He had no money to buy another, even if anybody would sell him one.

Since they didn’t have a use for it anymore, they put the horse down, and ate what they could before most of the meat spoiled. He tried to sell it instead, but nobody would buy from him.