again, and he thought he’d do himself some harm if he didn’t get out of the house. There was no going back into town so soon after that public humiliation, and he would not let Tammy get a chance to laugh at his face. Easter would ask him what happened, if she didn’t already know.
Then Oliver remembered Allen’s message and decided he might as well find out what the man wanted.
“Who gave you the beating?” The farmer was sitting on a bench outside his house, mending a broken barrel, when Oliver arrived.
“I fell,” he mumbled.
Allen smirked, but said, “Figured I’d try my hand at this before paying some damned cooper to do it.”
“Everett Mansfield said you wanted to see me.”
Allen glanced up at Oliver, took another whack at the bent spoke, cleared his throat, glanced at the horizon, chewed on his lip, and said, “It’s near supper. You might as well come inside.”
Mrs. Allen was not happy about the sudden arrival of a guest. “Just give me a minute,” she said and whisked the two plates from the table to divide the beans and brown bread into three smaller portions. The Allens ate quickly, without exchanging a word. As soon as the last bite was swallowed, Allen led Oliver back outside, lit a pipe, and said, “Good to have company at the table.”
Oliver wondered about the purpose of that lie and dug his toe into the dirt. “You got some work for me?” he asked.
Allen puffed. “That parcel of land you’re on,” he said,
“too bad it’s such a pile of rocks. No hope of a crop up there.”
Oliver shrugged.
“That stream is about dried up, too, ain’t it?”
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“No,” Oliver said. “It’s still running sweet.”
“Huh,” Allen said. “How long it take you to walk to the harbor? An hour?”
“Nowhere near.”
“The berries give out yet?”
“The berries are fine,” Oliver said, losing patience.
“Everett seems to think you have some sort of commission for me.”
“Actually, son,” Allen dropped his voice, “I figured you’d have worked it out for yourself by now, how the Younger place belongs to you. It’s yours. Been yours for a while, as I count it.”
“What are you talking about?” said Oliver. “Tammy inherited the place from Lucy.”
“No, sir,” said Allen. “That’s Younger land, belonged to your grandfather and then your father. Tammy was sister to your granddad, but when he died and left it to your pa, Tammy was already set up in the house. Your pa was off at sea, but your ma wouldn’t have nothing to do with Dogtown so he stayed with her people whenever he come ashore.”
“But it’s hers till she dies,” Oliver said. “Isn’t it?”
Allen sighed. “A few weeks before he died, your pa come to me with a piece of paper he wrote up. Your mother had the fever real bad, and he wasn’t looking any too good himself. Maybe he had a feeling his time was coming, I don’t know. But he wrote it up so’s you’d come into your rights at sixteen.”
“You saw a paper?”
“I signed it,” Allen muttered. “I was witness.”
Oliver knew very little about his parents. The last of his relations died when he was a boy, and no one in Dogtown