“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
June brought the next problem.
Money.
Willows could be a crop.
Eventually.
That did not make the bank payment disappear.
Walter Henderson returned.
Clara showed him Harold’s report.
The university identification.
Evelyn’s sales records.
Walter read everything.
Then asked:
“How much income have they produced this year?”
Clara went quiet.
Walter looked apologetic.
But the question was fair.
“None.”
“Then the problem remains.”
Tom Blackwell’s offer was still active.
In fact, he increased it slightly.
That frightened Clara.
People rarely raise a price on something they still believe worthless.
“Why do you want it so badly?”
She asked Tom.
They stood at the fence.
He shrugged.
“Contiguous ground.”
“You said that before.”
“It’s still true.”
“Then why more money?”
Tom smiled.
“You’ve improved the appearance.”
Clara knew he was lying.
Two days later, Harold explained.
The county had begun preliminary discussions about a drainage and flood-control project along Miller’s Creek.
No final plan existed.
But if federal soil-conservation funding became available, creek frontage might become strategically important.
Tom owned land upstream and downstream.
Clara’s forty acres interrupted his control of almost a continuous stretch.
“He knew.”
Clara said.
Harold was careful.
“He may have known there were discussions.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“He isn’t required to.”
“No.”
She replied.
“But now I understand why his generosity keeps growing.”
For the first time, Clara stopped seeing herself as a girl desperately trying to save a worthless farm.
The land had value.
Maybe not the value everyone expected.
But value.
She needed buyers.
So she found them.
Clara wrote letters.
Dozens.
Basket companies.
Nurseries.
Soil conservation offices.
County road departments.
University agricultural departments.
Craft cooperatives.
She enclosed photographs and copied portions of Evelyn’s records.
Most never answered.
Five returned the letter unopened.
Three sent polite rejections.
One basket company wrote that American willow quality was too inconsistent.
Then, in July, a letter arrived from Hoosier Willow Works near Evansville.
They were interested in evaluating rods after the first dormant-season harvest.
No guarantee.
No contract yet.
Still, interest.
The second response mattered more.
A Soil Conservation Service technician named Samuel Reeves requested a visit.
He arrived in an olive government truck on July twenty-third.
Harold came with him.
Reeves spent four hours walking the property.
He did not care whether the trees looked beautiful.
He measured.
Banks.
Flow lines.
Rooting depth at sample plants.
Spacing.
Flood marks.
He read Evelyn’s notebook.
Then walked the creek again.
“Mrs. Jennings understood live staking.”
He said.
Clara frowned.
“She called them sticks.”
Reeves smiled.
“Same principle.”
He explained.
Willows could be cut during dormancy and planted directly into moist soil.
If conditions and species were suitable, the cuttings rooted.
Along unstable banks, those roots could help hold soil.