by T. W. Fuller

Created on: June 09, 2009

Mr. Eckland had heard the shouts and screams of children from within his home. He knew what they meant, and quickly ran outside to meet them. His anger grew with each step he took toward the young scoundrels.

Scat!

That's all Mr. Eckland had to say for the neighborhood children to pick up their gloves, bats and balls, and disperse in all directions. In the past, the old man had taken to throwing tomatoes at the children that would gather in his back field. Once, he had even snuck up on them, picked up a baseball bat and started swinging it at them. He had been arrested, then, and ordered to pay a fine, which he did, saying the amount he was forced to pay would have been justified if the bat he wielded at the children had actually hit one of them. The judge was quick to retort back that if Eckland had hit a child, a fine would be the least of his worries. Still, and though the danger was real, children would gather in the field because it was the only open field they could play baseball without having to trek miles out of Doverville.

Modernization and urban development had revitalized the dying town. The railroad helped, as did the automobile, which was quickly replacing the old horse and carriage thanks to an innovation by Henry Ford. But this rebirth had come at a price. Prior to the railroad, Doverville, like so many surrounding towns, was farm land. Years of government persuasion had resulted in the sale of many farms, and the land was used to feed the growing manufacturing industry, which was becoming more lucrative and powerful, and politically influential. Vast tracks of land were needed for the constructions of this industry, and old farmland was being swallowed up at an ever increasing rate. Homes were sprouting up all over, and while Doverville was seeing itself expand economically, and become more affluent in this new century of progress, one old farmer kept himself, his life, buried in the past. He would not sell, not at any price. For the time being, the town let him be, both because at present they could build around him, and also they knew it was only a matter of time before they could claim the land without having to pay a penny. Eckland knew that too. And it made him all the more bitter and resentful against the town.

Mr. Eckland watched as the children disappeared from sight. Then he walked out into his field, where there was a stone sunk partway into the soil. The significance of this stone had been known by the children for years,

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