He asked. My father, she said. Mostly by watching him. He didn't so much teach as do things and I paid attention. Your father's gone.
Three years. She looked at the field. My mother two years ago. After that, she stopped then started again. After that, it was Thomas's house and Thomas's opinions about what I should do with myself.
She said it without bitterness, which she was aware was its own kind of statement. Benjamin drank his cold coffee. "For what it's worth," he said. "The land is good. Underneath all of this," he gestured at the general state of the place.
The Harker family let it go to waste, but the soil's still there. "This could be a real farm." "It is a real farm," Eleanor said. He looked at her. Something in his expression shifted in a way she couldn't quite read. "Yes," he said.
"I suppose it is." The day Charles Harrington came to her property was a Tuesday, 6 weeks after she'd arrived, and she knew who he was before he introduced himself because Ida Marsh had told her about him with the particular precision of a woman who has strong opinions and considers it a civic duty to share them. Charles Harrington owned 3,000 acres in the eastern part of the county. He was 52, twice widowed, and had a way of surveying everything he looked at, as though calculating what it might be worth to him. He arrived with two men behind him, which Eleanor recognized as a particular kind of statement. Not that he needed help, but that he wanted witnesses to how easy this conversation would be.
He looked at her farm the way Thomas had looked at it when he handed her the deed, with the expectation of ruin, and found it somewhat less ruined than he'd anticipated, which produced a small shift in his expression that he didn't quite manage to conceal. Miss Whitmore, he said without taking off his hat. I've heard you've been working this land, Mr. Harrington, she said. She was on the porch standing, which meant she was slightly above him, which she did not think was an accident on either of their parts.
I have. I'd like to make you an offer, he said, for the property. I'm not selling. You haven't heard the offer. I don't need to, Elellanor said.
I'm not selling. Harrington looked at her with the patience of a man who was accustomed to waiting out resistance. Miss Whitmore, he said, "This is a considerable piece of work you've taken on alone." He said the word alone the way you'd say it about a child attempting to move a boulder and you've done. He looked around, performing reluctant concession. More than most expected, but 60 acres is a significant operation.
A woman in your He searched for the word with the same particular delicacy Thomas always showed. A woman in your circumstances might find the ongoing demands. My circumstances, Elellanor said. Yes. And what are my circumstances, Mr.
Harrington? He met her eyes. He was a man used to being direct when directness suited him. You are alone, he said. You have no husband, no hired hand, no family support that I've been made aware of.