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“Sonny, you might remember what I
said last year about woods like this that
have been in our family for a long time.
Maybe you will manage or own it someday.
What would you do to improve this
small patch?”
Sonny said, “Well, I notice that it is a
sandy kind of dry site and the longleaf pines
would do best here. Therefore, I will cut out
the loblolly pines and the turkey oaks, which
do not produce a whole lot of acorns for the
wildfire, and I would chop out enough of
the inferior longleaf pines, leaving a spacing
of about eight feet between them, so that
those left will grow better.”
Sonny cut as he spoke and PaPa was
beginning to feel better.
PaPa asked, “Sonny, have you done any
work this year besides school?”
“Yes, all of my friends like skateboarding
and they are always wrecking them
and they cost about $25. A friend of mine
and I found on the Internet, a place in
Texas that would ship a dozen at a time,
for $12 each. We bought two dozen and
made some money.”
PaPa was feeling a whole lot better.
“Sonny, what should you do when you
make a little money?”
Sonny said, “Put as much as you can in
a tax-free retirement account and it should
double in value every seven or eight years.
At my age, a small amount will become a
large amount in my old age.”
After the woods were improved, they
went home and, thereafter, PaPa, at night,
slept very well.
Orton House
Orton House faces the Cape
Fear River because water
was the chief means of
access in the olden days.
River steam ferryboats traveled between
Wilmington and Southport regularly. By
the end of the 1920s, the automobile and
improved roads made the river steamboats
obsolete, and I do not remember
ever coming to or from Orton on river
transportation. I asked my older brother
Kenneth if he did.
“I remember one time when I came
to Orton with Mother on a steam ferry
boat. As we approached the dock at
Orton, Mother noticed shad fishermen
tending their nets. She asked the captain
if he would please pull alongside the shad
boats so she could buy a shad, which
was done (imagine getting a steamboat
to stop for shad these days). When we
arrived at our dock, some of the men
were catching rockfish (striped bass),
so she acquired one of them, so we had
plenty of fish.”
I miss the docks on the river at Orton. I
miss the mules; I miss the short pulpwood
trucks; I miss the oxen.
But the good old days are now.
Democracy
My father was well educated
and well read, and so
were most of his friends.
Just to listen to them in
the evenings was an education in itself.
Ever since this country established
democracy after the Revolution, being
among the first countries to do so since
the Roman republic, this country has
been trying to spread democracy around
the world, especially since World War I,
even to the largest dictatorships and to the
smallest tribes.
“Democracy is not suitable for countries
that are not highly developed,” said my
father.
“That is interesting,” said I. “How did
you come up with that?”
“I learned it at Princeton in my his-
On Orton Pond, Laurence Gray Sprunt with
Edward and Annie Gray Holt, Annie Gray
Sprunt Johnston (center) and David and
Wessie Sprunt.