September Song by William Humphrey Read Free Book Online Page A

help him with a different tack, a more immediate threat, a further variation upon the theme of “it’s later than you think.” Confident of winning, he was enjoying this game he and Janet were playing. He was pleased with himself and with her. She was calling his bluff. That baby girl of his, she was his match—almost.
    The nearby town could expand in just three directions, for it was bounded on the west by the Hudson River. It was spreading rapidly as commuting distance to New York extended ever northward. The Hudson was tidal, and a tide of workers now flowed with it down to the city in the morning and back up in the evening. The local acreage was becoming too valuable to farm, the inducement to the natives to parcel and sell theirs too tempting to withstand. Dairy herds had been auctioned off, orchards uprooted, pastures paved over. What had been a land of milk and honey (bees were the orchardman’s best friends: they pollinated his blossoms) had been converted into shopping plazas and developments. Now it was like a game of Monopoly, houses on every square. In all the area the old Bennett place was the largest tract remaining in agriculture, and the neighbors wanted it kept that way. It had taken on a status somewhat akin to a preserve, a park, a public trust.
    To get a permit to subdivide and develop his land application must be made to the village planning board for a variance in the zoning code. A public hearing would be held. It would be reported in the local paper. There was little doubt that he would get his permit; he could hardly be denied what so many had been granted. But just because so many had, and so few places remained unspoiled, there would be opposition. It would come mostly from the city people, recent transplants, keen on keeping things as they were. This he expected, but he was not prepared for the volume. On the night of the meeting there was such a turnout that the nearest parking place to the village hall he could find was three blocks away. Good! Let Janet see how widespread was the opposition to the move she was forcing him to consider.
    He was not obliged to be present at the hearing. He wanted to be, to enjoy the hostility he had stirred up. He entered the hall feeling as unpopular as an out-of-town fighter about to enter the ring with the local champion. In the community where he was the fourth generation of his family he had become an outcast. What none of these people knew was that he had no intention of doing what he was there to get permission to do. On the contrary. Getting the permission was his way of keeping it from happening.
    The concerns expressed by the citizens interested were civic-minded, concerns for the common good. They worried about the additional tax burden for schools and teachers and buses on the elderly, the pensionnaires, the young couples just starting out and having a hard enough time already making ends meet. They feared for the safety of children on the busier roads. Those roads would have to be patrolled more, perhaps widened as well, would certainly require more upkeep, and all that too would mean higher taxes for those least able to afford them. The county landfill was already full to overflowing. There was the threat to the purity of the aquifer with so many more septic systems. The added strain on the volunteer fire department, the rescue squad, the already overcrowded county hospital. Tourism would suffer from the reduction in the deer herd, still one of the area’s attractions. Hotel keepers, restaurant owners, sporting goods stores, filling stations, all would feel the pinch if the trend represented by this application for a variance in the zoning code were allowed to continue unchecked. A line must be drawn somewhere.
    One person present took these community concerns and alarms seriously. He. Those who mouthed them were concerned for one thing: their pocketbooks, the devaluation of their properties. He didn’t blame them. He took