The Mockingbird's Ballad

Our prospects for crops I hope will be good come spring. Uncle Joe, Alex, Grand and I are talking about more corn, maybe forty acres. Tobacco prices are looking good too, so we're going to put in five acres, twice what we had this past crop. Stock breeding and late spring foaling ought to give us four mules. That'll make our stock number two work teams for our place and farming, three yearlings ready to break to plow in summer and four foals that'll be ready for breaking and training in twelve to fourteen months. We've made a good start with the place, more buildings to fix and build, more acres for corn and tobacco and growing stock for training and sale. Our two cows provide all the milk we need. Mama Bear and Mother got ten pigs and more due come spring. Plenty of meat to eat and share.

Well I guess that's about all the news from the Fields' place, my clan and the wintry Elk Valley.

Know my prayers and best wishes accompany you in your travels and work. Any idea when you can claim that meal we promised you? Mama Bear wants to fix fresh port tenderloin and she's worried that we'll have a hog worthy of her skillet and your plate.

Best wishes, Mary Louise Fields"

Solon took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and his hands. He then looked through his nearsightedness out the depot window into the fuzzy morning overcast sky. He acknowledged his good feelings with a, "Well, well" under his breath. There was no one near him on the depot bench. His train wasn't due for two hours.

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Solon sat in the booth near the rear of the café down the street from the Montgomery Station. The chicken and dumplings were more dumplings than chicken and too greasy, but the coffee was passable and the fresh pecan pie was good. He held and sipped his heavily creamed coffee in one hand and scratched out his letter with the other, his mind and heart miles from the overheated eatery.

The large awkward script read: "Miss Fields, I trust you and yours share good health. I do. Thank you for the letter. I picked it up here in Montgomery this morning. I've just returned from Brewton, Ala. and am on my way to Meridian, Miss. The time in Camp Springs, my destination when I left Tenn., went well. The Brewton experience was difficult. My train leaves in a short while and I wanted to write you and get this posted before I leave.

That is interesting about the general and his removal from New Orleans. 'Squire' Jones, his father-in-law, wanting his little girl and grandchildren to come back to Miss Daniella's home is not surprising. The general got along with Bragg so he can handle the land baron, I expect.