Season of Dreams (American Century Book #4)

Gilbert Morris

Description

After the tumultuous 1920s, the Stuart family and the rest of America must grapple with a terrible turn of events: the Great Depression. While grateful for what they have, the Stuarts have to watch carefully lest times get even harder. When Jerry Stuart goes to Hollywood to join Aunt Lylah, he becomes a stunt pilot. He is not prepared for the turn his life will take. And half a continent away, Uncle Pete is fighting to keep his struggling oil rig out of the hands of the mighty Kingman Oil Company.From the destitution of the Oklahoma oil fields to the glitter of Hollywood's Golden Age, this beautiful story of a family uniting to save a dream will captivate readers. And the realism borne out of Gilbert Morris's own experiences growing up during the Depression will make the settings and characters come alive.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441239976
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 1996 by Gilbert Morris

Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com

Ebook Edition created 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3997-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
To Ron and Linda Fritch

May the Lord give mercy to the house of these two—for they oft refreshed me!
C ONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication

PART ONE The Ozarks

1 Hard Times
2 On the Road
3 A Friend
4 “I’m a Stuart!”
5 Christmas in the Ozarks
6 Dent Takes a Vacation

PART TWO Hollywood

7 An Old Flame
8 Trouble with Adam
9 In Defense of Winona Dance
10 Bonnie Meets a Star
11 A Narrow Escape
12 The Gospel for Everyone

PART THREE Wildcat Rig

13 A Strange Afternoon
14 Kingman Strikes Back
15 “You’ve Got to Give Her Up!”
16 Under Siege
17 Mr. Kingman Gets a Surprise
18 Dent Finds a Change

PART FOUR Summer of Hope

19 Last Chance
20 No Exit
21 The Stuart Line
22 Kingman Meets His Match
23 It’s Never Too Late
24 The End and the Beginning

Other Books by Author
Back Cover

H ARD T IMES
V iolet Ballard took more pains with Cleopatra’s sharp hooves than she’d ever spent on the care of her own fingernails.
Stepping back, she stared critically at the sleek, reddish-brown sow and nodded with satisfaction. “I reckon you look pretty enough to win a beauty contest, Cleo,” she murmured. She smiled as the huge animal moved forward and shoved against her legs, nearly upsetting her. “Stop that now—you hear me!” she said, slapping Cleo on the back firmly. This was interpreted by Cleo as simply a love pat. She nuzzled Violet roughly with her blunt pink snout, nearly knocking the young woman’s legs out from under her.
“I told you to stop that!” Violet snapped. Quickly she stepped outside the barn and closed the door firmly. For a moment she listened. Cleopatra threw her weight against the door, squealing in an outraged series of piggish snorts. Violet spoke to the animal soothingly, for Cleo was capable of tearing the ramshackle structure apart. The barn was already leaning seven or eight degrees in a southwesterly direction, propped up on that side by a series of wooden poles. The whole structure shuddered precariously as the hog moved around trying various avenues of exit.
“Now you just calm down, Cleo,” Violet said in a soothing tone. “You’ll be all right, but I don’t want you to get dirty again. You’re too dang much trouble to wash.” Turning, she walked away from the barn, her bare feet padding on the hard-packed path that led to the house. She’d risen early in the morning and had come to give Cleo a good cleaning. With nubbins of old corn, she lured the pig into the barn where she had gathered water and soap, and she laboriously washed the red clay from the stiff bristles. She had dried the pig with coarse feed sacks, then had carefully cleaned Cleo’s hooves, giving them a coat of lacquer, which had been left over in the bottom of a can.
Stepping up on the porch, Violet entered the house just as light began breaking in the east. She loved to be up in the early, cobwebby hours of the morning savoring the quietness. Her movements were efficient as she poured water into a pan and washed her hands carefully. Strong lye soap bit into a cut on her left hand and she made a face but uttered no words.
Violet was a capable young woman of sixteen, her body strong and healthy, her oval face bearing an early blooming beauty. Her hair was brown, and it gave off auburn tints almost like spun gold. Her dark blue eyes, large and almond-shaped, were her most attractive feature—unless it was her lips, perfectly shaped, full and mobile. She was one of those young women who bloomed early with a startling beauty, and already she had attracted the attention of the young men in the Ozark hills.
Expertly she threw together a breakfast. Singing “I’m Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger” under her breath in a pure voice, she formed biscuits made of homegrown graham, rolled them to the size of her palm, then popped them into the oven. She’d made the fire before she’d gone out, judging it exactly right. She set the table, and when the biscuits were nearly done, she walked to the hall and called out, “All right, everybody up for breakfast!”
As she walked back to the kitchen, she heard bare feet hitting the floor and her stepfather snorting. He sounds like a hog snorting , Violet thought, and a smile turned up the corners of her wide mouth. By the time the family came to sit down at the circular oak table, she’d made thickening gravy created from middling meat. Six large fried eggs decorated a platter, and a jug of ribbon cane syrup sat next to a large mound of fresh yellow butter.
“Well, I don’t guess we’ll starve with all this around us!” Logan Stuart, aged already at forty-six, was a thin, wiry man with auburn hair and very dark blue eyes. He was not tall, but there was strength in his lanky body and a great deal of inventive quality to his mind. He was what people in the Ozarks call country smart. He could read, of course, but he read people better than he did books. His sister Lylah had once said to their brother Amos: “Logan’s smarter than you are, Amos, with all your education. If he’d gone on to school, I think he would have been somebody.”
Now, Logan looked around the table, his eyes falling on his wife, Anne. She was five years younger than her husband, a small, plain woman with faded blue eyes and hair an indiscriminate brownish color. Beside her sat Helen, age twenty-one, tall and rather thin. She had flaming red hair and the dark blue eyes of George Ballard, Anne’s first husband. There was a patient look about this young woman who was quiet and rarely said much. At twenty-one she was considered an old maid in the Ozark mountains. Most women, by the time they were seventeen or eighteen, were married and at Helen’s age had started a family. Helen, however, showed little interest in courtship or marriage. She was not pretty, but there was a wholesomeness about her.
Across the table from Helen sat her brother Ray, age nineteen. He also had red hair and dark blue eyes. He had his father’s height, six feet, and there was an impression of strength about him. He was strongly built, his shoulders thick and his chest deep. He had discovered early that he could easily whip any of his peers in bare-knuckle fights, but he had not become a bully, as some young men would have.
He looked across at Violet and grinned. “You been up getting Cleo ready, Violet?”
“Yes, sure have. She looks prettier than Clara Bow.” Violet smiled back at him. There was a firm union between Violet and Ray. They had been close since childhood, and as they grew up, Violet had occasionally accompanied Ray on hunting and fishing trips.
“I want to go to town with you, Ray!” Clinton, age eleven, had tow-colored hair and bright hazel eyes. Nobody could quite explain those eyes. Neither Anne nor Logan’s people had any eyes like Clinton’s.
“You can’t go this time, Clint, but I’ll bring you something nice back from town.”
“You’d better not be spending your money on foolishness,” Anne said. Lines of worry swept across her face, for the harsh pinch of the depression had worn her down. Logan had married her after her first husband had died of pneumonia. She had been a pretty woman at the time, with some trace of a light spirit, but when the banks failed in 1929 and times grew hard, Anne seemed to shrivel along with the country. She never grew accustomed to men out of work stopping to beg at the door, and she listened to the radio that Amos had given them—not for the programs that would cheer the heart—but for the bad news that the newscasters often gave: factories closing down, banks still failing, and record unemployment.
There was a lighthearted spirit in Ray Ballard that would not be subdued. “Why, Ma—Cleopatra’s gonna bring a fine price! We’ve been feedin’ her good. She’s close to four hundred pounds, I’d guess.”
“You sure have fed her good.” Logan grinned. He studied this tall stepson of his and thought how fortunate he was to have such fine children, even though Helen, Ray, and Violet were not his own by blood. “But the price of hogs is down.”
“Not for Cleo,” Ray argued. He took a huge bite of egg, followed by a bite of biscuit. He swallowed and then nodded vigorously. “We fed Cleo so good that she’s gonna be the best eating hog there ever was.”
At the mention of Cleo being eaten, Violet suddenly rose and went to the stove. There was no reason for doing so, and Logan glanced at her. She’s gotten attached to that pig , he thought to himself. She always was that way with an animal. I swear she’d be a vegetarian if there was any way! Aloud, he said, “Your first job’s gonna be gettin’ her into that wagon. That ain’t gonna be easy.”
“Why, she’ll mind anything I say,” Ray boasted. “I’ve got it all figgered out.”
After breakfast, they all went outside. It was August, 1931, and later on in the day, the merciless sun would beat down on the cotton fields making the earth hard. There had been no rain for some time and they were all worried about the crops.
Violet went with Ray to hook up the mules, and when they were hitched to the spring wagon, he backed them up to the barn door.
“How are we going to get her in the wagon, Ray?” Violet asked. “She can’t jump that high—and she’s too big to pick up.”
“I’ll show you.”
Ray had spent some time thinking of this. He had built up the sides of the wagon with old two-by-four