THE SPIRIT OF DAN BROCK By Arup N. Garson | Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | Clara Frodahl & Nils Garson Page | HOME | |
| Page 9 end of the sale, the owner of a worn out truck, part of a windmill and a team of horses. He boldly wrote a check to the clerk for his purchases, and spent the night wondering how to make the check good the following day. The following winter Dan did not feel good. Trips to town did not help bolster the spirits a:ny more. The town became an uncomfortable place. It seemed as if every manhole contained a creditor ready to pop up at you. They bumped into you at every corner. If you crossed the street to evade one, you bumped into a worse one on the opposite side, and the banker would tap the plate glass window as you walked by. It was unjust. It was unfair. Dan's pride rebelled against this implication that he was not a good credit risk. His disposition became sour and ugly. Creditors assumed in his mind the form of an omnipotent abomination. He would show them. Yes Siree. He was going to put in a cash crop next year, peas. His farm was suited for it, and given a good crop, he would be on top yet. The thought was comforting. Another comfort was to attend political meetings. The names that the speaker could call the big money men. It caused a warm current to surge throughout the body. It was so reassuring to hear someone express so eloquently what you had known all along, that your troubles were all due to some grasping, greedy speculators out east, that the local banker was a monetary- suspect, (no wonder your credit was shot), that the machine companies were a bunch of robbers, and that good times would never come until the govermnent was run by men who loved the common people, "the honest people"; The climax of the speech, with the speaker's voice rolling into a mighty crescendo, ran something like this: - - “And if you don't stop them, the day will come when all your possessions, that you have saved and slaved for, your farms, your money, your livestock, yes, the very shirt on your back will be owned by the speculators, and you and your family will be out in the road with no place to go, FLAT!" The last word was like a thunderclap, and in the silence that followed the crowd heaved a sigh in unison. The entire farm, outside of pasture, hay land and a few acres of corn was sown in peas that spring. It looked like a good year for peas, and if the crop brought the price of the previous year, Dan figured it would put him on easy street. And two more years of threshing would pay for the rig. Of course if the crop failed, but what was a fellow to do. Something HAD to be done. |