In the meanwhile, as their plans
for the garage began to take shape, the two did manage to acquire a few trappings
of typical farm life: some chickens and a couple of cows, a pig or two here and
there - just enough to make life on a Kansas farm interesting. Oscar would also handle a few routine
mechanical jobs, both with maintenance for automobiles, which were growing in
number, and the machinery farmers used to plant their crops. It was a means to spread his name farther,
the more work he did, for people to know where to come when their machines
faced problems the next time.
One day, an inquiry was made. Oscar was asked, point blank, whose tractor
he would be borrowing, since he had none of his own yet, to plant his first
crop. Also, when would he be buying his
seed?
Sensing some argument could ensue,
yet not willing to back down from his stern resolve, Oscar set himself with the
same fortitude which kept him on those trains, hoboing it from Greeley to Long
Beach and from Long Beach to Abilene. He
explained to the people, quite clearly and quite frankly, he would not be
planting any crop. He was not using his
deceased brother’s former land to continue as a farm. He was in the process of building a garage to
service the maintenance on all the farm machines in the county, as well as all
the automobiles people were beginning to purchase. It was something he was doing for his family,
which he looked forward to seeing grow very soon.
No one to whom he spoke these words
uttered as much as a syllable of response.
Most were trying to digest precisely what the man was telling them;
others stood simply dumbstruck the land would not be used to farm any
crops. What else was that amount of land
to be used for? The real onslaught hit
the following day when word spread and wave after wave after wave of family
members and farmers in the area relentlessly argued with him, some reasonably;
others peppering their words with anger.
What he proposed just wasn’t done.
Farmland was for farming, not for some foolhardy venture that would
never get off the ground. How did he
ever expect to raise a family? If he
wanted to open a garage, start one in town.
These arguments were nothing
new. Oscar had heard them all before
then. They were the same arguments his
family threw at him when he showed his initial interest in engines and an
aversion for farming. They were thoughts
and ideas he mulled over within his own mind the succeeding years; giving
credence to what carried merit and tossing aside what he viewed argument simply
for arguments sake. He knew how to
answer every challenge posed him; even the one of a garage should be located in
town.
To this he agreed, and it was an
idea he foresaw as several years down the road; but as the land he owned was
the farmland on which he and Anna Jane lived, and as its location served as
more ideal for farmers to bring him their tractors, their implements, and
whatever equipment might need attention, this land was where all would begin;
it was the place where he would be setting up his shop.
It was at this juncture where his
brother Harvey chimed in his two cents.
The land was not Oscar’s to do with as he pleased. He did not own it. It still belonged to their parents. Oscar could not simply do with it as he
pleased. It was farmland, and a farm was
what the land would always be.
When Oscar looked into this
contention by his brother, confronting his parents directly on the issue, he
learned that Harvey was indeed right.
The land was not his and Anna Jane’s.
It belonged to his father and mother still – and he was renting, not
owning, land that would only belong to him upon their deaths.
Harvey was wrong on one thing
though. Oscar could still build his
garage; but the land had to be farmed first.
The farm took priority over all else. That much he was required to do.
How could he build a garage when
farming would always take precedent? He
was only one man. Farming the land would
consume all his time. Such stood as the
quandary now facing him and Anna Jane.
How could they proceed forward with any of their plans? Should they even try? Returning to Long Beach, or even to Greeley,
was never an option, as neither he nor Anna Jane believed in stepping backwards
through life, retreating in the face of hardship. Yes, their move to Abilene could be
interpreted by some as a retreat. They
were returning, after all, to familiar ground Oscar knew well. Yet in their minds, when they assumed at the
time the land would be theirs, land to do with as they pleased, it seemed a
clear and certain step forward.
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