that run with the land. That twenty-five-foot setback rule, for example. I can think
of just one way they can legitimately keep us from selling this house to anyone who
wants to buy it.’
‘What way is that, Mo?’
‘By coming to us before we are committed with the same sort of offer that Mr False
Face has made but with more money. If they buy this house from us, they can do with
it as they wish.’
Tm glad you see it that way, my love. A year from now every house in this block will
be occupied by a Negro family. Mo, I could see it coming. Population pressure works
much like a rising river. You can put up dikes or levees, but the day comes when the
river has to go somewhere. Kansas City’s Darktown is terribly crowded. If the whites
don’t want to live next door to Negroes, then the whites must back off and give them
room. I’m not especially concerned about Negro problems; I’ve got problems of my
own. But I don’t fight the weather and I don’t bang my head against a stone wall.
You and I will see the day when Darktown will run south all the way to 39th Street.
There is no use fussing about it; it is going to happen.’
Briney did get a good price for our old home. After figuring in the rise in prices
from 1907 to 1929 there was only a modest profit, but Briney did get the price in
cash – gold certificates, not a cheque; the recorded price was `ten dollars and
other valuable considerations’ – and Briney put the money straight into the stock
market.
`Sweetheart, if Theodore’s predictions are correct, in a year or so we’ll be able to
take our pick of big houses in the Country Club district at about a third of the
going prices today… because it will turn out that Black Tuesday will leave about
half of the nominal owners unable to meet their mortgage payments. In the meantime
try to stay happy in this old farmhouse; Justin and I have to go to New York.’
I did not have any trouble staying happy in that farmhouse; it reminded me of my
girlhood. I told Father so, and he agreed. `But put that second bathroom in. Do you
remember why we had two outhouses? You can’t afford to encourage piles and
constipation.’
Father was not formally living with us – he got his mail elsewhere – but, since 1916
and Plattsburg, Brian had insisted that we always keep a room for Father. When Brian
went to New York to stay closer to his stock-market gambling, Father did agree to
sleep (usually) at our house, just as he had when Brian was away in France. But by
then I had had that second bath installed and a washroom downstairs and the outhouse
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out back, limed and filled.
My children readjusted to the change with little fret. Even our resident cat, Chargé
d’Affaires, accepted it. He fretted on the long trip there, but he did seem to
understand that the moving vans meant that home was no longer home. Ethel and Teddy
kept him fairly well soothed during the move – I was driving that load; Woodrow had
the rest of the family in his jalopy. Chargé looked over our land as soon as we got
there, then came back, got me, took me with him while he went all the way around the
inside of the fence. He sprayed all four comer posts, so I knew that he had accepted
the change and his new responsibilities.
It was from Woodrow that I had expected the most fuss as he was due to enter his
senior year at Central High School in September 1929 and was a likely candidate for
cadet commander of the ROTC battalion at Central, especially as both Brian Junior
and George had each commanded the cadet battalion in their senior year.
But Woodrow did not even insist on finishing the second semester; he transferred in
mid-term to Westport High School – somewhat to my dismay, as I had counted on him to