First Chapter Novel
Margie Tubbs Chapter 1 This is only the second time I’ve told this story. My short-term memory fails me, but I can remember every second of that day fifty-seven years ago just as if it were happening now. Right at suppertime two men came to our house to talk my father into selling our land. My daddy told them that the farm isn’t for sale and won’t be for sale. The one they called Mr. Oakes took a roll of paper money from the inside pocket of his wrinkled suit and peeled off each bill with a jerk so hard the paper made a popping sound. He placed them on the table, one at a time, and after five he stopped and glanced at my father’s face. It had not changed expression. Daddy shook his head. “No matter how much you put down there, Mr. Oakes, the answer is no. This land is watered with generations of Armstrong sweat, and, left to me, it will be Armstrong land as long as there is an Armstrong.” My mother was taking pork chops out of her iron frying pan and stacking them on a plate. The other man edged his scuffed brown boots toward the stove and snatched one. Mama swatted his hand with a spatula still sizzling with grease, and he let out a noise that made the outside dogs howl. “All you’d have to do is ask!” Mama scolded him. “You don’t have to go snatching no food around here. We’d give it to you if you asked cause we don’t want none of God’s children to go hungry. And you is God’s child, whether you act like it or not.” Wincing and glaring at Mama, the man took a handkerchief from his denim pants and held it over his burned hand. I thought he was going to cry. 9