I actually took the time this morning to write a couple of paragraphs for ROBERTOREG'S NOTES on DEVIL MAKE A THIRD and the good thing about is that I think I finally know where I'm headin' with it.: 

 

Chapter 1 ends with teenage Buck walking "into the moon and looking it in the face and he could almost feel it as he crossed the tracks." The reader still has no idea that young Buck is a commercial and political genius but here we see that Buck felt he had been touched by a higher power as he walked along Aven's tracks and sensed his fate and his future were in "Aven's first row of tin-roofed shacks." With his fourth-grade education, a few wagon rides to the grist mill and more than a few years experience in working his tail off for nothing other than for the privilege of being the oldest child and living on Mama and Daddy's farm, a hungry Buck entered town bursting with enthusiasm.

Chapter 1 also introduces Buck's attitude toward four of the other major characters in the novel. As Buck plowed he noticed his mother rocking on her porch. He saw she had begun to show her age. Pregnant with her thirteenth child, Buck noticed his mother "was wearing the shapeless dress she always wore when she was going to have another baby." He also took note of "the first solid streaks of grey in her hair." Buck "shifted his eyes to his mother's face. It was swollen a little, around the jaw..." and he "could tell how she felt by the tired puffiness around her eyes." Mrs. Joe Bannon may have been dipping snuff to relieve a toothache and she was probably about ready to get some store-bought teeth and that took money. That was one more reason for Buck to head out for Aven immediately to get rich quick.

 

The things about Buck's mother which draw his attention show he was fully aware at a young age of what a toll a lifetime of grueling farm labor took upon a person entering middle-age. Buck continued to exhibit this keen sense of future-time orientation with the introduction of his father, Joe Bannon, in the second scene of the chapter. In the simple act of standing up from his bench beside the family table, Joe's authority fills the room as Buck's mother grabs his arm anticipating that the head of the household is about to show his oldest son and that he's not too old for the belt since Buck had decided that his anticipated emancipation from the Bannon household entitled him to suddenly forget "you ain't to use the Lord's name while you're in the house...". It was a false alarm but it lets the reader know that these parents have high expectations of righteousness from their offspring. It was a desire that Buck did not necessarily aspire to after he was introduced to Aven. The rural ideals of his Christian parents and the reality of cutting corners so you could get rich quick in Aven create a conflict which will drive all the action for the rest of the novel.

 https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 The manners of the Abyssinians , under a slight semblance of civilisation derived from Arabia and Egypt , present indications of the deepest barbarism . Indeed , their domestic life is marked by habits more gross and revolting than any that have been witnessed among the most savage tribes . Some , indeed , are such , that the bare report of them shook the credit of one of our most eminent travelers , who had not , however , been the first to report them , and whose testimony has since been fully confirmed . 

The luxury of the brinde feast is that which has particularly excited the astonishment of travelers . Slices of warm flesh cut from the ox standing at the door , are brought in , with the blood streaming and the fibres quivering , and are eagerly swallowed as the choicest delicacy . According to Mr. Bruce , the animal is yet alive while the slices are cut from him , and is heard bellowing with the pain ; but Mr. Salt asserts that he has been just that instant killed : probably there may be some variation of practice . This strange food is as strangely administered . The chief is seated between two ladies , who wrap up the delicious morsels in teff cake , and thrust into his open mouth the utmost quantity which it is capable of receiving ; “ just , ” says an old traveler , as if they were stuffing a goose for a feast . " The ladies are then at liberty to satisfy their own appetite , and when these refined members of the company have supplied themselves , the servants succeed , and clear the table . The grossest indecencies are said by Mr. Bruce to be acted at these feasts ; an assertion which Mr. Salt does not fully confirm , though he admits that the conversation is marked by the least possible reserve . 

The shulada , a similarly savage custom , is practiced by the drivers of cattle . When they feel hungry on the road , they stop the animal , cut out a slice from him , close up the wound , and , having satisfied their hunger , drive him on . A general ferocity and promptitude in shedding blood , seems to characterize the Abyssinian nation ; and is , doubtless , stimulated by the frequency of civil and of foreign wars . The principal officers scruple not to execute in person the sentence of death , which the king , or whoever he may be whom they obey , has passed against any individual ; and they perform this horrid task with the most perfect coolness and indifference . While Mr. Bruce resided at Gondar , during a period of commotion , he could not stir out without seeing the victims of civil strife left unburied in the streets , to be devoured by the dogs and hyenas .

The manners of the Abyssinians are not less distinguished by licentiousness than by cruelty . Intoxication is very prevalent , produced partly by hydromel , but chiefly by bouza , a drink well known also in Egypt and Nubia , and mostly produced here from the fragments of teff cakes brought from table . Marriage is scarcely considered by Mr. Bruce as existing at all ; so great is the ease with which the contract may be formed and dissolved . The lover consults only the parents of the bride , and , having obtained their consent , seizes and carries her home on his shoulders . A brinde feast concludes the ceremony . Sometimes it is rendered a little more formal ; the parties going , two or three weeks after their union , to church , and taking the sacrament together . A lady was met at Gondar , in company with six persons who had been successively her husbands .

 FOCUS AREA PROPOSAL for Tuscaloosa's new CHILDREN'S HANDS-ON MUSEUM (CHOM):

Google image search for "paddlefish hatchery" https://www.google.com/search?q=%22paddlefish+hatchery%22&sxsrf=ALeKk00ftQUV7JDy3wSmifal_aeSYq4hIA:1605877929807&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1wLu8mZHtAhVSOH0KHQV9A00Q_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1544&bih=914

 

Buffalo fish & Channel Catfish in the Warrior @ Tuscaloosa on Thursday, November 19, 2020

Google image search for "112 year old" buffalo fish  https://www.google.com/search?q=%22112+year+old%22+buffalo+fish&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiY6IXDmZHtAhURjp4KHTefC1kQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=%22112+year+old%22+buffalo+fish&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECAAQGDoECCMQJzoHCCMQ6gIQJzoFCAAQsQM6AggAUNiiWFjqkFlg5ZhZaAJwAHgAgAHjAogBsCaSAQgwLjMwLjEuMZgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nsAEKwAEB&sclient=img&ei=t8C3X9iwJJGc-gS3vq7IBQ&bih=914&biw=1544

 When Dougie Bailey(1912-1987), author of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, married Louie Herzberg (1909-2000) in 1937, he married into two prominent Gadsden and Tuscaloosa families. His new wife's father was Judge L.L. Herzberg(1868-1945)  who was a son of one of Gadsden's pioneer merchants. Louie Herzberg Bailey's mother, Emma Friedman Herzberg (1869-1934) was raised in Tuscaloosa and her brother, Tuscaloosa's Sam Friedman (1871-1952) was married to Annie Laurie Longshore Friedman (1891-1966). Dougie took his wife aunt Annie Laurie's maiden name and used it as the DEVIL MAKE A THIRD fictional  name of AMOS LONGSHORE, Aven banker, and his daughter Ivy who was Buck Bannon's first wife. 

 our Sportman's Choice team, you can either send them a message on their Facebook here: https://bit.ly/3pJVWF0 or complete the following inquiry form on their website: https://bit.ly/2IPOFmv Thanks again and have a great evening

 1887 Tuscaloosa map work by ROBERTOREG

 https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-indian-queen-hotel-1828-1925-on.html?fbclid=IwAR0h8npUTn6fhWxkSL_Ia9C-ICJmfwZS93VrD8fco7RYJePaVNy4DnFJ-tM

 https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-jemison-brandon-waugh-house-was.html?fbclid=IwAR1u6_n-28-WSFMoOUAR4c087e4m33cDXzDfqfLgoI_VeGukerVxyj2ylZo

https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/10/autobiography-of-james-robert-maxwell.html?fbclid=IwAR08WAdkk4mXvSvs__ApHUPiihlnDQFnDJG-skMr_e3uct86cC5nl4ze49o 

 https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/10/this-second-image-from-1887-aerial-city.html?fbclid=IwAR3loLLWmZLZUZ7YU0hPeiYvd_DVPBPvogk3V1SCRFI0GokqJdy8xWrehdc

 1887 Tuscaloosa Map https://www.loc.gov/item/75693080/

 On page 53 and 54 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD Buck explained to his Mama how "THE GAME" was played in Aven (downtown Dothan in 1890): "See here, the man that does the furnishin' makes mor'n the farmer. You know that [the Bakers owned a big general store between Headland and Tumbleton] . Rent him his land, sell him his tools, seeds, guano, anything he wants. He'll owe you and he won't like you. He'll cuss you, but you'll have to take it. He may kick you, but take it. Then, by God, if he makes a crop, take it."

His mother closed her eyes and Buck could see her face stiffen.

She tried to rock, but it wasn't a rocking chair. "That ain't our way," she said, shortly.

Buck laughed, bitterly, and it was ugly even to his ears.

"Them that furnishes live a long time," he said. "The land don't break them."

page 123 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD

"Buck would try to convince himself that the storekeeper-furnisher took a chance and that big profits ought to come from big risks; then the thought would come to make him sweat, that whichever way the farmer moved, the storeman had him going and coming." https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

from page 198: "Phew!" he said, looking back up at Buck. "I can't do worth a cuss with her. Jeff, he can sit still and look picked on and get what he wants. It looked like I kept her riled up so I came on down."

"Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves," Hearn said, suddenly, without smiling. "That's what she kept saying."

His mind suddenly was back to the first night he had spent in Aven, a night when the fear had found him alone. That fear- part of the fight between man and cotton, or man and land, or man and grass. Bermuda grass, lacing a foot deep into the richest soil, holding it against the heavy washing rains and fattening the topsoil for the day when a man would need it. Bermuda grass, friendly at first, then a part of the fight, dirt banker for the man, then making him earn it, making him go in there with a steel beam and a bull-tongue scooter and a mule that was willing to burn itself out alongside of a man. He shuddered, then looked back up at Hearn.

"Shirtsleeves," he said, softly,"in three generations."

"Papa said there ain't but three things worth fightin' over- a land line, a baseball game, or a woman. They'll cool off. Preacher's got to say somethin' an' it can't all be good. One thing sure-they wouldn't be shootin' at me if I didn't have my head up so it could be seen. I'll worry when they stop shootin'." page 199 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD

In my analysis of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, I have described three Baker brothers as models for characters in the novel. Yesterday, I learned more about another Baker brother, Robert Chester Baker (1880-1914). Robert went by the nickname "Coon" and was eleven years younger than Buck. Coon may have been one of the models for the Bannon brother who participates in the Ku Klux Klan flogging of a prostitute in Chapter 14. In 1908, Coon was arrested and acquitted by Dothan authorities for the murder of Jack Oates, a Black drayman. Oates was apparently murdered during a flogging. Three other men were also arrested and acquitted for Oates' murder. Also in 1908, a house owned by Coon near Howell School burned and in 1915 this lot became the baseball diamond for Dothan's first professional league baseball team. From 1915 until the construction of the Rec Center in the early 1950s, the Baker Lot was an important community park for tent shows and ball games. It's full name should read the COON BAKER LOT. Coon died under mysterious circumstances in August of 1914, the same month that Reverend McNeill's parsonage was burned and Buck was accused of having the fire set to burn out the preacher who had been campaigning against Buck's restricted vice district near the intersection of Range and East Burdeshaw Streets. (from the March 8, 1915 DOTHAN EAGLE)

 DAY 250: The denizens of THE DRUID CITY prepare for their Yule-TIDE super-secret sacred tree worship rituals.

 government corruption Westmoreland's Helicopter https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fraud_and_Corruption_in_Management_of_Mi/bNBEAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Long%20Binh%22%20corruption%20bribes%20%22Special%20Services%22&pg=PA347&printsec=frontcover&fbclid=IwAR3u52TMnQ0kZKWkAxSbSY_bRGUcL9VJ_2oeAkzrlJJCzsRJ2FZ3kb8Vvvc

Actually there was evidence of wrongdoing. Wooldridge was engaged in a conspiracy that began when Wooldridge was Command Sergeant Major of the 24th Infantry Division in Ausburg and continued when he became Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Infantry Division at Di An, Sergeant Major of the United States Army, and in his subsequent assignment as Sergeant Major of MACV.

In those positions he used his influence to arrange the assignment of co-conspirators into the military club system and used his influence to impose restraint on Army investigators who sought to investigate wrongdoing in the club and mess system.

The co-conspirators in this scheme were Wooldridge, Sgt Narvaez Hatcher, William Higdon, Seymour Lazar, Theodore Bass, John Nelson and William Bagby.

When called to testify before the Senate Subcommittee investigating the allegations, all declined to testify relying on their 5th amendment right against self incrimination.

Subsequently, in February 1973 Wooldridge and his co-conspirators were convicted in federal court after pleading guilty, part of the plea bargain required that all defendants testify truthfully before the Senate Subcommittee.

During his tenure as Sergeant Major of the Army, Wooldridge was involved in the smuggling of a number of cases of liquor into the United States aboard General Abrams aircraft at Hickam. The Army investigation was curtailed by Provost Marshal Major General Turner. Turner also prevented the CID from reviewing investigative files compiled during Wooldridge's tour of duty in Ausburg.

During his testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on May 8, 1973, Wooldridge admitted that while SGM of the Army he received over $11,000 in kickbacks from Lazar. Lazar testified that the payment was for past favorable assignments, protection, and future anticipated favors.

Wooldridge testified that he was directly involved in covering up illegal activities carried out by Lazar and his assistant Sgt Myers. In September 1967, when Wooldridge was SGM of the Army, Lazar and Myers were arrested in Vietnam for black market currency violations. Wooldridge testified that he contacted the 1st Division staff judge advocate and arranged for the charges to be dismissed.

The investigation also disclosed that Wooldridge, Hatcher, Higdon, and Lazar set up a company named Maradem to sell supplies to the military club system in Vietnam. Wooldridge was still SGM of the Army at the time. Maradem in fact did sell to the military clubs and overinvoiced, paid kickbacks to custodians and also charged transportation fees - even though transportation of commodities was actually provided at no expense by the military.

Wooldridge returned to Vietnam in 1968 as Command Sergeant Major MACV - he testified that he used his influence to strengthen Maradem's position and he was fully aware that the company was paying kickbacks to club custodians amounting to 5 or 10 percent of purchases.

Higdon alone had a Swiss Bank account with over $300,000 dollars in it. Wooldridge testified as to ownership of a Swiss account with a balance of $6,000.

Some few years ago - I requested my military pay records,so that I could pay into my federal retirement and receive credit.

During my two years in the Army from 66-68 - I earned about $2,400.00.

Woodridge did retire from the service and said this about his DD-214 - "Well, let me just say in my own behalf, that if the Army and gone ahead - on my statement of service, which you get when you retire. It is called a DD-214, they refused to characterize my service, which should have said "Honorable", but they put on there "To be determined".

Source: Deposition of William O Wooldridge, Los Angeles Ca 3-29-1973, and Senate Subcommittee Hearing May 8, 1973
This subject is a “dead horse” and I don’t want to whip it anymore. His record speaks for itself and, I guess, over rides his indiscretions. To be honest the Army club system, after SMA Wooldridge, was never the same - it seemed to be better during his time. But isn’t that what people say about crime bosses too?

http://ww2f.com/threads/sgt-major-william-o-wooldridge-the-first-sergeant-major-of-the-army.44448/

 Even if your grandparents weren't raised in the Wiregrass, you might still be interested in this post if they were SHARECROPPERS. I'm working on a "CliffsNotes"-type study guide for DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. Right now, these are my first two sentences: "Chapter One introduces the reader to many important themes which will be repeated and will progress in subsequent chapters. Most important will be the life-long burning desire of the protaganist to escape and to never return to rural life."

So ya might ask yourself,"What's so bad about rural life?" Well, the rural life that the hero of this novel seeks to escape is
a life dominated by child labor, debt peonage and unrelenting, uncompensated labor.

The following album contains a clipping from the March 25, 1915 LEIGHTON NEWS and  images of Alabama cotton chattel or crop lien mortgages from my collection (you'll notice rodent tooth marks on these documents. That's because ROBERTOREG saved them from the dumpster). Some of these debts incurred by these mortgages are to be paid off in money and if not, they're to be paid off in "all crops of all kinds grown by myself and my family" or even all your property. No money was involved in mortgages paid off by "one half entire crop made" or "pounds cotton due" or "750 pounds lint" "by sale 4 B/C" [by sale of four bales cotton] and look what the person who learned to sign their "X" to the contract promises:  THE LABOR OF HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN in order to make the crop and IF THEY FAIL, he promises to pay for the extra labor needed to bring the crop in. 

Many of your grandparents who were sharecroppers signed contracts worded like this:
“ I have purchased of Joe Blow & Co. the amount of eighty dollars, and have bargained for such other advances as I may need to make a crop during the year 1906, which sums advanced and to be advanced I owe to said Joe Blow & Co., and promise to pay them the first day of October, 1906. Now, in consideration of said purchase and in order to secure the payment of said amounts, I do hereby bargain, sell and convey unto the said Joe Blow & Co., heirs and assigns, the following property, to wit: my entire crop of cotton, corn, fodder, peas, and cottonseed, raised by MYSELF, MY FAMILY & MY TENANTS on my place in Houston County, State of Alabama, and I agree to deliver to Joe Blow & Co. my cotton as fast as picked out and ginned until all claims is paid. To have and to hold, with all appurtenances, to said Joe Blow & Co., their heirs and assigns forever." (all of this reminds me of an old shyster buddy of mine who used to finish up mortgage closings by tellin' the victim,"Now you look over that contract and if see anything in there that's TO YOUR ADVANTAGE, please tell us and we'll MAKE DAMN SURE to change it...")

 Think about THIS. A little fish that hatched out here in the Warrior 112 years ago in 1908 MIGHT STILL BE ALIVE RIGHT NOW! (that might put a guilt trip on somebody @ a fish fry) https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/112yearold-bigmouth-buffalo-is-worlds-oldest-freshwater-bony-fish/

 1915 was the last year of Mayor Buck Baker's last term of office. He was reelected for another term in 1920 but he died before he could take office. 

Chapter One introduces the reader to many important themes which will be repeated and will progress in subsequent chapters. Most important will be the burning desire Buck has to escape rural life.  Being raised with "The Golden Rule" teachings of his Christian parents on their family farm and facing the realities Aven's materialistic boomtown society create a conflict which the novel will never resolve. Buck will spend the rest of his life accumulating a fortune  so he could get as much money as he could accumulate between himself and his family and a life dominated by child labor, debt peonage and unrelenting, uncompensated labor. Buck's words and actions in the first chapter create  a foreshadowing of all the struggles Buck will face during his unconventional career.

"For God's sake..."

"For God's sake"

"I say you ain't to use the Lord's name while you're in the house, Buck."

 

escape the endless treadmill of uncompensated toil and drudgery leading to the grave "rootin' for vittles in this here sorry clay"

child labor "I went to mill and back and made the trade."

"Blue Back speller that cost a quarter bushel of meal"

class envy "lunch bucket"

"fatback, syrup and corn bread"

"Don't let Papa make you plow the big mule, boy," he said, "Big John'll pure pull yore arms out at the sockets. But you got to quit sleepin' in the cotton rows when you ought to be choppin'."

"some of his mother's cush he could take and eat out of the palm of his hand like it was a bowl. He'd nuzzle into that Thanksgiving cush like a hound."

"fill up on cush before they got to turkey. Corn meal and onions with meat stock were cheaper than turkey."

"But as his body healed, the experience had permanently imprinted his mind with a new consciousness. Like all of our unexpected brushes with mortality, the stroke had thrust into his lap a ledger and demanded that he account for his life — for who he is, what he stands for, what he has done for the world and how he wishes to be remembered by it. As nature nursed him back to life in her embrace, Whitman found himself reflecting on the most elemental questions of existence — what makes a life worth living, worth remembering?" https://getpocket.com/explore/item/walt-whitman-on-what-makes-life-worth-living?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

 

 

 ROBERTOREG'S NOTES

Chapter 1 

In the opening scene of the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, the reader is introduced to young Buck Bannon behind his plow "blinded by the sun" and sweat stinging his eyes and burning as it soaked  into the raw places on his neck chafed by his mule's reins but none of that mattered because "he was eighteen  and he was following a mule for the last time." Popping a sweat in the early morning sunshine reminded Buck that it was time for this "dirt road sport" to leave the farm and try his luck in town. He had a twenty dollar gold coin burning a hole in his pocket and the time had come for him to make his big move. Buck was heading to Aven, the new boomtown a few miles away from the Bannon farm which simply consisted of a railway station with a small row of tin-roofed stores and unpainted houses. 

Turning his plow out of the soft dirt of the field, Buck looked between his mule's ears for the last time to see his mother rocking on her porch as he aimed his mule toward the sandy hard-packed clay of his Mama's meticulously swept yard. Buck rejoiced at his coming freedom from the drudgery of his parents' farm. In an act of both rebellion and celebration, Buck reined his mule  in concentric circles as he plowed up the bare-earth of his Mama's front yard. Slapping his mule with the looped ends of his lines, Buck yelled, danced and kicked up his heels while imitating the movements of his mule. Finally, he calmed down enough to speak and when he did, he imitated a square dance caller,"ROUND AND ROUND, swing yore partner and do it again."

The entire time he was plowing and rejoicing at his anticipated freedom, Buck kept his eye on the second most important character in this novel: his mother, Jeanie McPhearson Bannon,  pregnant with her thirteenth child, who sat rocking on her front porch, dipping snuff and observing her oldest boy showing off.  After he finally finished tearing up her carefully groomed yard and telling her he was heading to Aven, Jeanie remarked, "Them pickpockets'll fight over you."

 

The novel's second scene occurs inside the Bannon family home after the evening meal with Buck preparing to get a ride to Aven  that night with his younger brother Jeff driving him to town in the Bannon's flat-bed wagon. As Buck prepares to leave the farm for the last time, the reader is introduced to two of Buck's brothers and his father Joe. The other Bannon children are present but the reader only gets important information describing Buck's younger brothers, Jeff and Hearn. These five characters described in this first chapter (Buck Bannon, Mrs. Joe Bannon, Joe Bannon, Jeff Bannon and Hearn Bannon) are the ones from which most of the action in the novel grows.

The novel's third scene describes Buck and Jeff's evening journey to Aven and the reader gains insight into Buck's personality as the monotony of the wagon ride produces a stream of images from his consciousness which causes the young man to recollect scenes from the rural life he is abandoning and producing the first feelings on homesickness.

Rather than having Jeff cross a creek with his wagon, Buck jumps off the wagon, bids goodbye to his little brother and walks the remaining half mile into Aven. In the last paragraphs of Chapter 1, the reader is finally told that the scene of the action in the novel will mostly occur "in a small corner of Alabama [that] wasn't lying fallow any longer, but was heavy with the germ of a town."

 DEVIL MAKE A THIRD  includes many descriptions of neighborhood landscaping in Aven (fictional town modeled on Dothan). 

#1. from page 31 (Buck is about to make his first big business deal with his future father-in-law) He closed his lips tightly, remembering, and trying not to remember, as he faced around to the big white house up the precise gravel walkway that parted two squares of green lawn. "No time to drag around,' he muttered, and took two steps again, staring in a puzzled frown at the lawn. "More and more folks here lettin' grass grow in their yards." He shrugged slightly. "Mother wouldn't have it."

#2. from page 188-189 (circa 1906 description of the 1897 standpipe reservoir still standing across from the depot in Dixie) They walked in silence for a moment, Buck looking from bottom to top and then back down along the tall straight-up-and-down standpipe reservoir. It still shone with newness and the small triangular plot of ground was bare again although it had been sodded with St. Augustine grass.

"Ain't as bulky as New York's," Buck said abruptly, "but man for man it'll hold as much as any in the world."

#3.  from page 326:  She would have had the sanded yard swept until nothing showed but the short slanting scratches that followed the stroke of a homemade yard broom.

#4. from page 335: His eyes had seen it for years, rain-washed and rutted, so that hardly a stalk of dog fennel would fight its way up though old buggy axles, tin cans, jars and bottles half full of brackish water, and his mind had only said, "That lot ought to be cleaned up."

#5. from page 347:  They saw instead the slow picture of high-piled cotton wagons grinding slowly down limbs whose weight dragged them down into tired arcs. And they saw the now even alignment of the homes on each side of the streets as new builders took sight of their neighbors' fronts before they laid foundations for their own. And the flowers- azaleas blazing a dusty reddish orange against the white of a low fence, forsynthia hedges throwing bright yellow bells up in challenge to the sun, Cape jessamine shrubs dotting green lawns and mellowing the night, a pansy-bordered walkway dancing with velvet browns and purples and yellows, dogwood trees and redbuds teasing with white and pink petals the salty southwest wind.

"Hey, Lord, they're puttin. silk stockin's on a reg'lar whore of a town."

#6. from page 369: "This town has meant a lot to me- it's been my friend and it's been my good companion. It's given me more than a man deserves, and in giving it, it's come a long way. All the way from a cold-water spring in a grove of poplars to paved streets and a power plant. It's come to fine homes and flowers brought in from Mobile- azaleas to bring something besides work to all of us. I hope this opera house will do the same thing the flowers did for us- make us forget for a while that we're building a town and then remember stronger that we are growing with it, and be thankful to the town. I'm grateful to Aven because it took me along for the ride."

#7. [not pertaining to residential landscaping but to suburban Dothan] from page 197: "Give me a shot quick," he said, "I think I swallowed some of that rain."

"Phew!" he said, looking back up at Buck. "I can't do worth a cuss with her. Jeff, he can sit still and look picked on and get what he wants. It looked like I kept her riled up so I came on down."

"Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves," Hearn said, suddenly, without smiling. "That's what she kept saying."

His mind suddenly was back to the first night he had spent in Aven, a night when the fear had found him alone. That fear- part of the fight between man and cotton, or man and land, or man and grass. Bermuda grass, lacing a foot deep into the richest soil, holding it against the heavy washing rains and fattening the topsoil for the day when a man would need it. Bermuda grass, friendly at first, then a part of the fight, dirt banker for the man, then making him earn it, making him go in there with a steel beam and a bull-tongue scooter and a mule that was willing to burn itself out alongside of a man. He shuddered, then looked back up at Hearn.
 "Shirtsleeves," he said, softly,"in three generations."

"She says it looks like we're fixin' to do it in one."