We argued bitterly over that 100 acres during the winter and spring of 1922. Henry was caught in the middle, yet tended more to my side; he favored his mother in looks but me in his love for the land. He was a biddable lad with none of his mother’s arrogance. Again and again he told her that he had no desire to live in Omaha or any city, and would go only if she and I came to an agreement, which we never could.

I thought of going to Law, feeling sure that, as the Husband in the matter, any court in the land would uphold my right to decide the use and purpose of that land. Yet something held me back. ’Twas not fear of the neighbors’ chatter, I had no care for country gossip; ’twas something else. I had come to hate her, you see. I had come to wish her dead, and that was what held me back.

I believe that there is another man inside of every man, a stranger, a Conniving Man. And I believe that by March of 1922, when the Hemingford County skies were white and every field was a snow-scrimmed mudsuck, the Conniving Man inside Farmer Wilfred James had already passed judgment on my wife and decided her fate. ’Twas justice of the black-cap variety, too. The Bible says that an ungrateful child is like a serpent’s tooth, but a nagging and ungrateful Wife is ever so much sharper than that.

I am not a monster; I tried to save her from the Conniving Man. I told her that if we could not agree, she should go to her mother’s in Lincoln, which is sixty miles west-a good distance for a separation which is not quite a divorce yet signifies a dissolving of the marital corporation.

“And leave you my father’s land, I suppose?” she asked, and tossed her head. How I had come to hate that pert head-toss, so like that of an ill-trained pony, and the little sniff which always accompanied it. “That will never happen, Wilf.”

I told her that I would buy the land from her, if she insisted. It would have to be over a period of time-eight years, perhaps ten-but I would pay her every cent.