Chapter 127: Hopes and Dreams

Edited: nnpdad 3 May 2021

I suddenly felt reinvigorated ... hopes and dreams. I wasn’t acting the fool at all. I’m offering people something they truly wanted and wished for. Would it be wrong of me to reject the naysayers in favor of these people? My mind was thinking, ‘Probably no, a few combined negative voices could destroy an entire unit.’ We got rid of them fast in the Corps. Unit cohesion was more important than any skill you could teach. I decided to take action and advised my good dreamer of the same. She deserved her dream more than they deserved the right to complain. I strode off to find Sheriff and his wife and arrange a private meeting, I wanted my caregiver there with me. I wished Michelle were here, but I’d just use the advisors I had on hand.

I truly felt that this was a large risk to the township we were working to create. It was a risk I had created by inviting without interviewing and I needed to fix it. I seriously did need negative attitude and had been lucky so far to avoid it. Hell, I didn’t even want them anywhere near where we were located. They had to go tomorrow. I could feel my resolve building like anytime previously I had to fire an employee; I had to steel my nerve. I was about to sell people back into slavery. Lucky for me that I already knew I was damned for all time. What’s a little longer after that?

The naysayers were still dominating the conversation when I arrived at our back-of-wagon speaking post. I instructed Timmons to have the crowd separate into women and men and children, so we could assign work separately. He set to the task and slowly the people started to move. I was thankful for small favors.

While he did that, I pulled aside Amos, Sheriff and Mrs. Sheriff and made it clear that any troublemakers had to go, and go now. I banked on the fact that both of them seemed to be educated when I asked them to slowly push the small group of agitators into a working party of their own. I was clear on the fact that I would handle them myself from that point.

Thankfully, I got to focus on the business at hand. We listed off the work parties I needed over the next four days. Ladies to care for the children, ladies to cook, ladies to sort through all of the household lots for shipment. We also needed ladies to do laundry and anything else Mrs. Sheriff could think of. It was her working party and I fully expected them to meet the needs of the group.

I reminded her that they would need travel food, because cooking was in the evening only, so they needed to prepare for both the boat travelers and the land travelers. There were at least twenty grown women on hand and I trusted that they could handle it.

All of this was stated in a hoarse voice with lots of notetaking by Clara. I had been surprised when both Peter and she showed up, but I was far from unhappy.