“There’ll be three of us here when I’ve done schooling next midsummer and Ortho comes home,” said Eli calmly, ramming down a fresh charge. “We’ll clear the trash and put the whole place in crop.”
Bohenna glanced up, surprised. “Oh, will us? An’ where’s cattle goin’?”
“Sell ’em off—all but what can feed themselves on the bottoms. Crops’ll fetch more to the acre than stock.”
“My dear soul! Harken to young Solomon! . . . Who’s been tellin’ you all this?”
“Couple of strong farmers I’ve talked with on half holidays near Helston—and Penaluna.”
Bohenna bristled. Wisdom in foreign worthies he might admit, but a neighbor . . . !
“What’s Simeon Penaluna been sayin’? Best keep his long nose on his own place; I’ll give it a brear wrench if I catch it sniffing over here! What’d he say?”
“Said he wondered you didn’t break your heart.”
“Humph!” Bohenna was mollified, pleased that some one appreciated his efforts; this Penaluna, at least, sniffed with discernment. He listened quietly while Eli recounted their neighbor’s suggestions.
They talked farming all the way home, and it was a revelation to him how much the boy had picked up. He had no idea Eli was at all interested in it, had imagined, from his being sent to school, that he was destined for a clerk or something bookish. He had looked forward to fighting a losing battle, for John’s sake and Bosula’s sake, single-handed, to the end. Saw himself, a silver ancient, dropping dead at the plow tail and the triumphant bracken pouring over him like a sea. But now the prospect had changed. Here was a true Penhale coming back to tend the land of his sires. With young blood at his back they would yet save the place. He knew Eli, once he set his face forward, would never look back; his brain was too small to hold more than one idea. He gloated over the boy’s promising shoulders, thick neck and sturdy legs. He would root out the big bowlders as his father had done, swing an ax or scythe from cock-crow to owl-light without flag, toss a sick calf across his shoulders and stride for miles, be at once the master and lover of his land, the right husbandman. But of Ortho, the black gypsy son, Bohenna was not so sure. Nevertheless hope dawned afresh and he went home to his crib among the rocks singing, “I seen a ram at Hereford Fair” for the first time in six months.