Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Hunt

  * * * * *

  After the conclusion of the auction Luke, Nate and Sam sat around an oil lamp in the Mill with U.S. greenbacks piled high upon the table. “How much is here Luke?” asked Sam.

  “I don’t know but it is sure enough to get us back in to the milling business, provide food for Scarlett and enough to get the spring planting going. I believe your Jack Daniels probably helped get the bids up,” Luke said laughing, “but Sam the Walker money is yours, take you’re cut out for your dogs and the whiskey.”

  “Nah, Luke what’s mine is yours. Let’s get this Mill opened and Scarlett back on her feet, besides there is more’un half of that whiskey still left.”

  Next morning the Mill is a bustle of activity. Jethro is high up on the waterwheel hammering away, and he has another man on the ground cutting lumber and passing it up, both grin as they see the wheel beginning to look usable again.

  Dan’l and Rube hitch a couple of mules to the huge grinding stone lying over at the edge of the field and drag it back into the mill.

  Sam is up inside the works of the Mill using his hands to apply axle grease to the gears that turn the stone grinding wheels.

  Luke stands at the door, arms crossed, a hay straw sticking out the corner of his mouth, smiling as he surveys the activity going on, ‘Yes sir, it’s all going to work,’ he thinks.

  Nate and Uncle Dave are back at Scarlett with two hired hands using large turning plows getting the land ready to start planting. The women folks are busy at the house preparing food for all the workers.

  It seems as though the War was a million years in the past.