“I’ve seen them. Malaccas. But I’m taking something heavier. When I was building this house I killed two copperheads in one day. I’ve never seen one since, but if you ever walk to the top of the mountain, look out for them. And there are rattlesnakes up there in the rocky part.”
“I thought they stayed in their holes at night.”
“Don’t count on that,” he said. They left the house and went through the gate, down the hill toward the county road. “I think you’ll find a pair of gloves in that coat.”
“It is nippy,” she said.
“If you get tired, tell me,” he said. “You’re not wearing the best possible shoes for hiking.”
Halfway down the hill he stopped. “Your grandfather had a plan to buy up all the land from here to Richterville.”
“All the way to Richterville?” she said.
“I used to wish he’d gone through with it, but as things have turned out I’m just as well pleased he didn’t.”
“What things?”
“Well, obviously your brother never intends to live here. And neither do you. That would only be a lot of land for me to dispose of.”
“You would have been the squire,” said Tina. “You’d have enjoyed that.”
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s very pretty in the moonlight,” she said. “All the farmers seem to have gone to bed.”
“They have to. They’ll be up at four in the morning. Feed the stock, get the milking done. And those enormous breakfasts. They need them. They’ll do a day’s work before noontime, and another day’s work before they go back to bed. Yes, I’d have enjoyed being the squire. I have a feeling for this valley that I don’t altogether understand. None of us were born here, although your Grandmother Lockwood was born at one end of the valley—Richterville—and your grandfather was born at the other end—Swedish Haven. And you have many cousins that you never heard of that live not far from here.”
“Who are they?”
He smiled. “I don’t know them either,” he said. “Hoffners and Hoffner connections.”
“That was Grandmother Lockwood,” she said.
“Yes, they were pioneers. They cleared the land, cultivated it, brought in the livestock. The Lockwoods, as far as we know, were a different sort altogether. They were opportunists. But I will say for them that they stood off their opposition for a whole century. They made no friends, but they did the next best thing, which was to repel their enemies. Where would you like to live when you settle down?”
“You don’t believe I could settle down in Europe?”
“No. This is too much a part of you, whether you know it or not. Your brother is starting all over again in California, but he’s really only repeating what Moses Lockwood did a hundred years ago.”
“I don’t think place makes that much difference to me,” she said.
“I do. In over a hundred years we’ve had no connection with the Europeans or the European ways of life. It’s probably closer to two hundred years, if we belong to the New England Lockwoods. I don’t know that we do, but I don’t know that we don’t. But no matter where you lived in Europe, you’d always be a foreigner, to them. Always. And as you got older that would make a bigger difference to you. You’re nothing if not American.”
“I could live in China, if I married a man who lived in China.”
“Well, I’ve never been to China, but it might be easier for you to live there than in—Spain, or France, or Italy. Occidentals form their own little communities in China, much more so than they do in the European countries. Americans are never absorbed into Chinese life, and they’re never absorbed into French life either. But in France and the other European countries they’d like to be, and it’s impossible.”
“What are your plans for me, Father?”
“Plans, none. Hopes, many. I would hope that you fall in love with an American, marry him, and live somewhere in the United States. Preferably on the Eastern Seaboard, but the Middle West is only a sleeper jump away.”
“Have you got someone picked out for me?”
He hesitated. “Oh, yes. Likely young men that I see at the Racquet Club and downtown New York. But you’d never consider anyone I recommended—and you shouldn’t.”
“I owe you an. apology. I’d somehow suspected that you had picked out someone closer to home. And hence the sales talk about this part of Pennsylvania.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t know any of the young men around here. Friends of your brothers, but I never see them. I never go to the country club, and when I go to Gibbsville I see Mr. Chapin and Mr. McHenry, but not any of the younger fellows. The Walker girl married Julian English, and I’m glad to see he’s out of the way. You always liked him.”
“When we were younger I did. Every girl I knew had a crush on Julian at some time or other, except Caroline. So she turned out to be the one that married him.”
“Lord help her. We’re in no position to criticize anyone, but I don’t like to see a girl like Caroline wasted on him.”
“Charm, Father. You had it too,” she said.
“Your choice of tenses isn’t very complimentary.”
“All right—you still have it. But you have something else now.”
“What?”
“That scratch on your hand,” she said. “I like that better than charm. I’ve had enough of charm to do me for a long time.”
They stood in silence for a little while. Presently he spoke. “I do own as far as the eye can see—in this light,” he said. “In this light, and from this angle. I suppose that ought to be enough.”
“Isn’t it?” she said.
“Oh, I suppose it is,” he said. “But if I’m content with that much, or that little, it proves I haven’t got the vision that your grandfather had. Literally, I’m not as far-seeing as he was. He and your greatgrandfather could see miles farther than I can. My world is very small, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Is it?” she said.
“I’m beginning to think it is. Myself. You. My wife. My house. And from here to that stand of timber in back of the Schweibacher farm. The Schweibacher farm that I own. All told, it isn’t exactly a dream of empire, is it?”
“No, thank goodness,” she said.
“Wait a minute before you start thanking goodness. Your Grandfather Wynne wanted to be a missionary. He never was, but that was his dream. And if you stop to consider, missionary work is a form of conquest.”
“A form, yes,” she said.
“And his cousin, Tom Wynne, he was master of all he surveyed, if you’ll pardon a small joke. In Africa or South America he would have owned millions of acres, just using the same energy he expended in Eastern Pennsylvania. Your brother has that energy and look what he’s doing in California. And Mexico. In other words, Tina, it’s in your blood. You get it from both sides of the family.”
“Get what?”
“The thing that I lack and that your Uncle Pen lacked. A large-scale ambition. It skipped our generation, but I can see it in your brother, and even though you may not have it for yourself, you may pass it on to your children.”
“You’ve made money,” she said.
“I’ve made a lot of money, but do you know how I’m going to make the most I ever made? In a five-cent candy bar. I don’t consider that conquest, or large-scale ambition. I consider it a five-cent candy-bar accomplishment. Your brother in his short life has already eclipsed me. He digs oil wells in the ocean. He plays poker with the big shots. I’m a small man, with small dreams, and I never knew it till just lately. I’m very glad you broke off with your trackwalker.”