She paused to glance away at the sun. Where the sun should have been, there was no sun, only a dull, veiled sky. Her brow wrinkled, but she did not comment upon it.
“It is bad,” she went on. “We may have to sell the orchard.”
“Sell the orchard!” Johnny was surprised. “To whom?”
“Diaz.” She leaned far forward as she answered. “He wishes to buy it. That was what he and grandfather were talking about when you came the other night.”
“Diaz!” Johnny took in a long breath. The picture of the stout, prosperous American and the crafty Spaniard passed before him. “So that’s his game,” he thought. “He’s got Kennedy in a hole. The sale of his grapefruit would let him out. Diaz is determined to block the shipment, and is in the position to do it. The scoundrel!”
“The Spaniards down here don’t love us, the English and Scotch, too much,” Madge Kennedy went on. “The trouble goes clear back to the days of buccaneers and the Spanish Main. The English and Scotch logwood gatherers drove the Spaniards from the mouth of the Belize River. They have never forgiven us.
“Oh yes,” she laughed, “they trade with us when there is a profit to be made, but after all their knife is always near our throats. Diaz thinks he has us and he means to do his worst.
“I suppose,” she said, “we’ll have to sell to the Spaniards. It will break grandfather’s heart. He wouldn’t mind if it went to a fellow countryman.
“You know,” she reminisced, “that’s been our land longer than I can remember, much longer. It’s our home. Don’t you see, Johnny? It’s the only home I’ve ever known. You don’t like to see your home sold to some one you don’t like, do you? Your home is part of you. When you sell it, you sell part of yourself.
“It would have been all right if it hadn’t been for the Panama disease. Our land was all in bananas then, and grandfather was getting rich. We had bananas like these.” She spread her arms wide. “Better than these. Then the disease came. Plants wilted like flowers before a hot wind. It wasn’t long before there were no bananas. Along the Stann Creek railroad they used to gather twenty-five thousand bunches a week. Now they don’t get twenty-five hundred.” She sighed.
“Grandfather was cheerful even then. He always will be. He’s a sport, a great big good sport with a soul.” The tones of her voice grew mellow and deep.