Yesterday's Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

like saying good-bye to the last remnants of her girlhood.
    Leigh started out of her half-doze when she felt the car turning off the expressway.
    "Just another twenty minutes or so," Jason said, slanting her a sardonic glance. "I'm sure you can't wait to get there."
    Without answering she rolled down her window and peered out. The car was passing through a small, rather stark town, its one main street lined with shops. Leigh hadn't visited this part of North Carolina before, but she could guess that this town existed solely to supply the needs of the surrounding farmers. From studying North Carolina history at school she knew that the central part of the state, the Piedmont, was primarily rural. An anachronism, she thought, picturing in her mind the urban sprawl so familiar in New York. Here was preserved something of the country as it must have been in the nineteenth century, when most of the United States was rural and industrialization was in its infancy. Maybe she would enjoy this forced exile, Leigh decided, because she would definitely be getting back to nature.
    As the town was left behind, houses became farther and farther apart, most of them bordered by outbuildings and wide fields plowed ready for planting. Leigh liked the barns particularly, many weathered and dilapidated, but some covered in bright patchwork squares of a metallic material that glinted in the weak April sunshine.
    "Jason, what do they grow here?" she asked, deciding that she needed some information if she was to be here for a while.
    "Tobacco, mostly," he told her. "It's the most lucrative crop, but the government keeps a tight control over how much can be grown by giving the farmers allotments. Still, the profits from a summer crop of tobacco are enough to get many farmers through the winter."
    He took one hand from the wheel and gestured toward the passing fields. "Lots of other things grow well too because of the rich soil. Let's see—corn, beans, peas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, all kinds of vegetables and fruits."
    "Is that what you grow?"
    Jason turned to look at her, a cynical expression on his face. "Why the sudden interest? You never bothered to ask before. You never even so much as visited the farm," he accused.
    Leigh's mouth went dry. "You know that there wasn't really time, everything happened in such a whirlwind with us. I was in school, you were coming to see me weekends. We were trying to get to know each other."
    "We didn't do a very good job, did we," Jason commented.
    Leigh sighed and shifted uneasily in her seat. After a few minutes she tried again. "Well, what do you grow? I really am interested."
    "All the things every other farmer around here grows. Tobacco and vegetables in the summer, peanuts and fruits in the autumn," Jason recited.
    A puzzled expression on her face, Leigh asked, "What do you do in the winter if your crops are finished in the autumn?"
    "I have a few sidelines," Jason explained. "Farming doesn't take up much of my time, Leigh. A good manager and tenant farmers free me to pursue other interests." He paused, then said softly, "It's difficult to make much money in farming these days, so I diversified. I had to be able to afford someone like you, honey."
    Determined to keep things as harmonious as possible, Leigh ignored the jibe and waited for him to continue.
    "Harrellsville, about ten miles away from the farm, is where most of my other ventures are located. I have a cannery where products from my farm and neighboring farms are preserved, and a long-distance trucking operation which distributes the canned goods."
    Leigh was mildly shocked. She hadn't realized that Jason's undertakings were quite so extensive.
    Suddenly he braked and turned into a narrow road lined with oak trees. Meadows and fields, geometrically bounded by rail fencing, stretched as far as the eye could see.
    "Is this yours?" asked Leigh.
    Jason nodded and pointed out the window. "This land has been in my family for generations, long before