A girl in search of an education, a draft horse in search of one last chance, a derelict tractor in search of a missing gear, and a young man in search of a home. These unlikely compatriots join forces and risk everything for a small bit of something during a time when nothing was king -The Depression.
| Last name, first and middle: | Jones (comma) Liberty Justice |
| Age: | 17, more or less |
| Describe yourself in one sentence: | Steal-trap mind with a spring-loaded mouth |
| List Three Goals: | Get off this farm.
Get into college. |
| List Financial Assets: | $1.73, not counting the money my brat brother owes me. That would make it two bucks even. |
Yeah, yeah, things are tough all over. It’s 1936, what do you expect? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a Depression? How’s about a buck for every time I’ve heard that one? And what is more depressing than to be stuck here, smack dab in the middle of my mother’s Christmas tree farm, pruning her precious little trees of joy? Being poor as Job’s turkey is pretty darn depressing. My red frizzed hair is pretty depressing, but one depression at a time here.
I think getting kicked out of school was a blessing. I’ve been bored stiff anyway since the 7th grade. I’m too smart for my own good, so they say. They tell me to learn to type or teach or become charming to lure some nice young man willing to overlook my IQ. Best forget all my silly dreams of science and math and medicine. So much for Liberty and Justice. Best stick with the common attributes of Jones. Be thou common and spare thyself.
Maybe I’m not as smart as I think. How come I can’t figure out a way to get my mom out of debt and off this wreck of a farm? Grandy’s no help, that’s for sure. I love her, but she’s nutty as a walnut grove and talks to her stupid old tractor, Stella. And my brother Jefferson is a liability, not an asset. Now, good ol’ Charlie McGregor is a good man and would do Mom a lot of good, if she’d get over this “no handouts” kick of hers.
Sure, I can run away. Hop a train and be where – halfway to Yale or Harvard or Oxford? Ha ha ha. Maybe as a filing clerk. Say by some miracle I do get into college. Then what? Blame myself for the rest of my life that I walked out on my family, causing Mom to lose her own dream – this newfangled idea of growing plantation Christmas trees? Here! On the Oregon Coast Range, for cryin’ out loud, where any fool can walk into the forest and into a tree, and cut it down for free? Logic has nothing to do with dreams.
Now there is one small glimmer of hope on the horizon. There’s this contest for the most beautiful Christmas tree delivered to the state capitol. And the prize for perfection of color and symmetry and size? Five hundred dollars!
I have the plan, I have the tree and I have a coconspirator – Rudy Somebody, a drifter fresh off the rails. And there’s Stella, our Frankensteined tractor and of course Quiller, my old best friend, my American Shire draft horse. Simple. All I have to do is move this 25 foot Christmas tree from here to Salem. In the snow, without getting caught. I can do it all with physics and okay, maybe some luck.
Look, I’m not stupid. Hard times do hard things to anyone’s dreams – Mom’s, Grandy’s, mysterious drifter’s, mine… even those who seem to have all they could ever want. I reckon there comes a time to put aside one’s own dreams for someone else’s.
And a time not to.
Email Randall to see if Liberty Justice Jones ever gets off that stupid Christmas tree farm.
