02/04/01

After our interlude the other day I asked Phebe about the missing Cumberland spearhead my father gave me. She brought it down to me this morning, she said she got it out of the safe deposit box at the bank first thing in the morning. My gosh, what a wonderful piece of work it is! Probably worth as much as a tractor!

Exactly where you told me to put it, she says to me, what are your getting senile?

So I say to Phebe You didn’t go tell anyone about this?

She just looks at me like I’m an asshole. If I tell you I’ll keep something secret, you better damn believe that’s what I’m going to do!

Back when I first started getting sick, before we had Cornelius and Maddy move in and take over the operation for me, Phebe was working day and night, milking the cows some days twice a day and then putting in a full shift at the hospital too. One day she went in to work exhausted and injected an old man accidentally with something that ended up killing him. There had been some rumors going around that Phebe was running the farm for me and reporting to work exhausted, so the hospital was nervous about indemnifying her. At some point later Phebe was put under oath in a deposition and she went through a couple hours of questions and denied up and down she had ever worked on the farm before any shift, or that she ever reported to work too tired. With this placed on the record, the hospital continued to stand behind her and moved to settle the matter without much further ado. Everything could have fallen squarely on her shoulders. She pretty much saved the farm. I guess sometimes you have to decide which virtue you’re going to give top billing in life: honesty or loyalty. Don’t know which one a marriage requires most, but I now think I know which one keeping a farm requires most.

I think moral choices must have been easier for people when this Cumberland spearhead was made. All you had to do was keep from starving to death and everything was good---you were a fucking hero!

Where to put this god damn computer disk though where I won’t forget it or where it won’t get stolen? I guess I’ll keep it hidden out in the tool shed behind the trailer here. I ought to keep this spearhead together with it too. Now there’s a pair of mismatched items!