BILLY HILL Chapter Thirteen

Farm and Cows
courtesy photobucket.com

 

With Linda gone to finishing school Billy had to fill his time with work in order not to be thinking about her all the time. He had let some things go while he was trying to court her.

There were several necessary meetings with different government agencies to secure their help in getting power to each of his farms.  With electricity in his barns they could accomplish more work.  

One of the biggest handicaps in farming was when equipment broke down, and you had to repair it during the day when you needed to be working.  

Billy enrolled in the soil erosion programs, and the government paid him for sub soiling his fields so they didn't wash away, and for planting crops that could be rotated each year. That alone made the farms profitable.

There were farms near by being foreclosed on and Billy made arrangements to purchase a few of them before the bank took over.  He then was able to see to it that the farmers didn't lose everything.  He allowed some of them to stay in their homes, and work for him using the modern methods and equipment.

There were some farmers who were so angry about losing their property that they blamed Billy, and refused to accept his offer to help them out.

He gave his brothers the farms they were living on with the agreement they would keep them in the system he set them up on.

On one of his properties he enlarged the barn and set up a dairy.  Because he now had electricity in the barn, he could arrange for a cooling room for the milk.  

 

Billy had purchased several Holstein cows because of their large milk output, and he was raising a whole herd of calves including some Guernseys.

From time to time Billy would argue with himself while thinking, “There is no reason Linda and I shouldn't have married;” and then he looked at his herd of calves and thought to himself, “I won't breed the calves until they are fully grown even though they will have their first season while still not fully developed and could bare calves.”

He reasoned that the same thing could apply to Linda. While she could have legally gotten married; she needed to be fully matured both physically and intellectually before taking on the duties of a wife.

His exposure to life in the raw with Logan had caused him to grow up faster than if he had stayed on the farm, and he realized Linda needed this catch up time.

Soon it would be Christmas and Linda would home for two weeks. Billy didn't know if that would only make things worse or not.

He remembered as a boy of five, how he would go in the grocery store and look at the candy canes, and his mouth would water because he couldn't have one; he could only look.

He saw a parallel in what he was experiencing at present.  In any case he couldn't wait for her to get home so he could be with her.

The days passed quickly, and it was time for Linda to return to school but for Billy it would be days of agony.  Linda's mother would talk to Billy and tell him the days would soon pass, and to keep busy with his business.

Each time he got to feeling down, he would make it a point to go and visit her at her school.

Billy's folks had long ago moved into the farm he traded for the new Buick, and his sisters were almost grown.  The sisters felt they had more education than they wanted, but Billy knew it was far less than they needed.

It seemed his family had adopted the bare foot and pregnant philosophy, and Billy couldn't change their mind.  Marrying someone who was poor, and had no ambition didn't seem to make sense to Billy, for he realized it would only get worse when the babies came along;  but he thought "c'est la vie".

To be continued.