The Land Rememebred Essay, Research Paper

Summary

Tobias, Emma, and Zech MacIvey came to Florida from Georgia n 1858. They came to Florida for a new life and to get away from the civil war. The first few years in Florida they lived in a lean-to. But shortly after Tobias built a house in the scrub, eating raccoon meat and biscuits made from cattail flour.

One day Tobias met some Seminole Indians that told them how to herd cattle, grow a garden and how to make better flour, the leader was Keith Tiger. This helped Emma out a lot as well as Tobias. One day a general came out to Tobias? house and asked him to be a drover. That meant he would herd some cattle to Georgia for the soldiers fighting in the, because they had no food. On the way back from the drive Tobias saw the Indians again, this time they gave him a marshtackie which is a horse the Indians use that is real fast. They also gave Tobias two wolf dogs, which are good for keeping cattle in line. Also on the way home from the drive he found a black man hiding in the bushes, his name was Skilit. Skilit stayed with Tobias and helped him with herding cows.

When Tobias went back to the scrub he found that the house had been burned down. Bushwhackers had burned it down. Tobias decided to go find and build a new house. They found land just off the Kissimmee River in a nice hammock.

Soon Tobias and Skilit had enough cows, which they branded them and decided to head them over to Tampa and sell them. On their first cattle drive, they found out about Punta Rassa and how much money they could make with the cows, so they headed for there. On the way a big storm came. It rained all day and night, and in the morning all the cows were gone. They had drowned in the flood. After that Tobias figured he would need help herding the cows next time, so he went to find someone. He found two people, Frog and Bonzo. They were skinny men, who were tough and also had a gentle side.

The second time they herded cattle to Punta Rassa, they picked up cows along the way from men who had to many to keep track of. They made it to Punta Rassa this time without any disasters. There they got $16.00 a head and they had almost a thousand cows in all. They all went back to there place in the hammock and continued to round up cows.

One night, before a trip to Punta Rassa again, Frog, Bonzo, and Zech were all watching the cows. Frog and Bonzo were hungry and so was Zech but they couldn?t leave the cows, so they decided that for a short while nothing would happen to the cows. They penned the cows up and went to Fort Drum, which was a short distance form where they were. When they got there they went into the store and bought what food they could, and the storeowner told them about a frolic that was happening there, so they decided to stay for a couple hours. At the frolic Zech met a girl named Glenda who was the store owners daughter. After spending some time with her they all had to go back because they still had cows to look after. When they got back the cows were gone. The next morning they found out that bushwhackers had taken them, so Frog and them decided to go after the bushwhackers. They were suddenly fired at without warning and the bushwhackers killed their dogs and had still got away with the cows.

Tobias started growing orange trees while in Kissimmmee, but the cows kept eating them. He had Skilit go and buy more from Fort Pierce, and this time he bought full size trees. When Skilit came back he had a wife named Pearlie Mae. The next season, he had orange blossoms growing and than the season after that he had actual oranges that he sold and continued selling every season. Tobias still herded cows to Punta Rassa and one of the times he went up there he had gotten sick with malaria. Zech and Tobias decided to go down to where Keith Tiger and his village was, so he could be cured. He also had to go tell the village that two Indian boys had been killed because Tobias gave them cattle and somebody thought the boys had stolen them. It took Zech and Tobias a while to get through all the woods with the cows, but they made it. At the village a medicine man cured Tobias and gave him special herbs to help him get better. Zech met a girl named Twanada at the village, and he spent the days with her while his dad was resting.

When they got back to the house Zech and Tobias found out that Bonzo had died from malaria, Pearlie Mae also had 3 kids, and the orange blossoms started blooming. Now that Tobias had all this land with his orange trees on, he needed to own it. So Zech went to the land office in Fort Pierce and bought 20,000 acres, at 20 cents each. He bought it with all the gold doubloons that they had from the cows.

Later on, Zech found out about another frolic, a Christmas Frolic this time, over in Fort Drum. He saw Glenda again and she tried to teach him how to dance, but Zech still didn?t learn. After the dance she made Zech ?promise? to her, so that now they were to get married when Glenda came back form Jacksonville, where she was in school at. As soon as Glenda got back from school, her and Zech got married. Zech made a trip to the Indian village after him and Glenda got married, so she could have a horse. He saw Twanada again and remembered her the same way as before. Now that they were married, Skilit and Pearlie Mae decided to move out and find a place of they’re own.

More people were buying land and moving to Florida, so Zech thought it would be a good idea to buy more land. One day he went down to the Okeechobee

trading post and bought 60,000 acres at 15 cents each south of Lake Okeechobee. While he was down that way he figured he would go and see Keith Tiger and the village. When he got there he noticed a boy that was not like the other Indian boys. Twanada found him and told him that she had a son that was Zech?s and his name was Toby. Zech had also had a child named Solomon, Sol for short, with Glenda and thought that he should not tell Glenda or Sol about this.

Tobias and the rest of the family were all at Punta Rassa while Zech went to Okeechobee. So when Zech got to Punta Rassa they headed back for home. As they rested for Tobias, since he still got malaria spells, Emma went to go find food to cook for everyone. She wandered into the woods picking berries to make pies with, when all the sudden she had a sharp pain in her chest. She managed to make it back to the camp and Tobias found her as she collapsed onto the ground. Emma had died a few short minutes after that, and they made it back to the house and dug a grave for her.

A year went by and then it turned into December. It started getting colder outside and one day while Tobias and Zech were picking oranges it started getting really cold. Zech checked the thermometer and it said 31 degrees. It kept getting colder through the night and in the morning the temperature was 20 degrees. Tobias was afraid of the orange trees dying and not being able to grow anymore. But the cold front soon passed and Tobias managed to save enough orange trees. December turned into February and another storm front was coming. The rain came first, and then the coldness. Zech checked the thermometer and it was at 11 degrees. Tobias knew for sure that this time his trees were gone. Tobias went outside and built a fire around one tree, but then Zech went out and got him, before he would catch a cold or pneumonia. The rain had turned into sleet, and then snow covering the trees with ice and putting several inches of it on the ground. During the night Tobias had come down with malaria once more, and there was nothing Glenda or Zech or Frog could do. Tobias died while he was asleep.

Zech buried Tobias and Sol was saddened by the death of his grampy. Tobias was right about the orange trees dying, there was nothing left from the freeze. Even animals died because they could not stand the coldness. Keith Tiger had found out about Tobias? death and people from the village came all the way from Okeechobee to pay their last respects to Tobias. Keith Tiger had bad news for Zech, Twanada had died in giving birth, the child was Zech’s but it had died too.

Zech, Sol, and Glenda went to Fort Dallas to find more orange trees to plant, since Tobias wanted to have more orange trees planted after he had died. They pasted through Palm Beach and saw how much different it was than out in the hammock. There were shops with dresses and suits, places to buy pastries, a pet shop, and lots of other places that no one except Glenda had seen before, including a huge hotel. Zech did not like this at all, he wanted Florida to be like it used to be when things like that weren?t there and there was no railroad. People road in chairs hooked onto bicycles that black men peddled.

After they passed through Palm Beach they made it to Fort Dallas. There Zech bought 8,000 trees and then ordered 1,000 for each month the schooner came down the Kissimmmee River. He also bought 6,000 acres for $1.00 each, the man at the store said that they were buying land that would soon develop and be called Miami. Zech didn?t understand, but he bought it anyways.

Zech and Frog had hired a new person to help with the oranges and the cows, since Tobias had died. His name was Lester. One day they were all working out on the prarie, letting graze the cows, when they saw that 20 or so cows had been slaughtered. This had been happening for quite sometime, but never this many cows at once. They figured that they would do something about this, and Zech had a pretty good feeling who it was. Once someone told him about some outlaws that were south of Punta Rassa, and they had a leader named Wirt McGraw. Zech asked Frog to and find some of the meanest people in Florida. Frog did just that, he went to Arcadia and found 6 men who were all slim and lengthy.

They all left to go south of Punta Rassa, including Frog and 6 other men from around the area who had cows slaughtered too. When they got to the place that was called the Ten Thousand Islands, they all were very quiet. Zech split people up into 3 separate groups and when Zech charged everyone charged, surrounding the men who had taken all their cattle. They killed about half the men, and hung the rest. Sol had followed Zech, even though he was not supposed to come, and during the fight with the bushwhackers, Sol shot a man that was going to shoot Zech, but shot him in the instead as he fell to the ground. Before they headed back to Punta Rassa, Zech burned the place where the bushwhackers had been.

Zech went to a doctor about the bullet in his foot but he said it was to deep to get out so he would have to cut his leg off up to his knee. Zech didn?t want that so he went to Keith Tiger?s village to see the medicine man. He took Sol with him, and when they both got there Toby met his half-brother, and same with Sol. The medicine fixed Zech?s foot and said that he would walk again and that he didn?t need his leg amputated.

Once Zech and Sol arrived back home, they went back to grazing cows. Frog and Lester helped out more since Zech?s foot was hurt, but it was getting better. One day Zech had bought a Brahma bull, and it was so big that none of the men could brand it. They left it alone for a day and then went back to it and tried branding it. Lester first tried getting the bulls attention, but it ran him up and over the fence. Then Frog looped a rope around it?s neck, it dragged Frog across the pen once then he let go, the bull looked at Frog and then charged him giving him no time to react. Frog was tossed backwards with the bulls horn through his stomach, he landed and was badly hurt. The bull escaped the pen and ran straight towards Glenda on her horse. She tried to get away, but the bull rammed straight into her killing her. Lester helped Frog into the house while Zech and Sol grieved over Glenda?s death. Frog didn?t live either; he died later that night. Zech buried them next to Emma and Tobias and gave them each a headstone, just like Tobias and Emma?s.