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Show The train rumbled off. The seeker stood at Nada signboard, alone in a wide emptiness. He knocked at the section house door. The foreman's wife, shyly because at first she was Japanese, would wave wordlessly down the track toward our store. Father or Mother would greet him enthusiastically. Mother would lay before him her big maps of the local "townships." (A township was no town but merely a six-mile square tract containing 72 half-sections of 320 acres each.) Mother early prepared these charts on showcard to help homeseekers. She could provide the complex legal designation of each half-section, according to the government survey, meridian, range, township, section, half-section. She knew which were the four sections of "school land" allotted in each township to aid education. On the appropriate rectangle she would record the name whenever a newcomer filed an official claim for a homestead at the Milford Land Office. So she could inform inquirers about half-sections still available for homesteading. But having arrived via train how could a newcomer inspect several choices two to six miles or more away? He might need a couple days to look about. Where would he sleep? Eat? Father enjoyed praising all the homesteads in this wonderful valley. But Nash-Avery boarded up their shack of a hotel as soon as they had milked the boom of the easiest money. Caring for the roofless seeker fell on Mother. At first she fed and housed these prospects out of her share of Father's enthusiasm, for no pay except the joy of progress. But after a year or more, though she willingly contributed her work, the costs seemed too high. Besides, she could not convey homeseekers on their tours of inspection. Nada Commercial Club originated out of need. While rejecting any suggestion that he head the club, Father invited everyone to an organization meeting in our private library next to the store. He had fitted the spacious room for |
