Chapter 3 Section 6-7 of the first part

Allen stood still in front of the small shed where the seeds were placed. The small house is not visible from the main house, and the gardeners nearby are at the other end of the vegetable garden.Allen watched them go to work until he was sure no one was watching him.Then he quickly pulled the latch and stepped in. The wooden cabin was about 25 feet long and 8 feet wide, with a row of windows on the south wall.Because winter is coming to an end, the counters are piled high with fertilizer for planting in March.The shed exudes a mix of earth, wood, life and warm sunlight.Two mice scurry away as Allen closes the door.Allen made sure again that no one saw him, then raised his arms and grabbed a beam on the roof, turned over and swung up.

The roof was narrow, only two and a half feet at its highest point.Wood planks are loosely placed beside the beams.There was nothing on it except a few cobwebs and a few lure picks.Nothing but Tom. Allen crawled over to his brother. "Hello," said Tom. Allen produced a paper bag containing bread, jam, and cheese. "I have apples in my pocket," he said. Tom silently accepted the gift he had brought.He asked Alan a question with his eyes, and Alan answered him immediately without further explanation. "It's a mess," he said, "and they're looking for you everywhere. Everyone says you must have gone back to your father's. Of course your father said you didn't, but I pretended not to know that anyone was watching me." , and then go to your house to look for you, to make them think that you are at home. In fact, they are looking at me. I'm sure."

Tom nodded.Allen did a great job.He didn't need to do any secret markings to let Allen know where he was hiding.The two children had more than a dozen hiding places on the estate.And Allen found the brother's whereabouts at once by intuition. "I won't, you know," said Tom, "unless—" "Yes, but he's going crazy." The conversation between the two children is always like this: completely incomprehensible to outsiders.What Tom meant was that he would not return to Whitcomb unless Sir Adam transferred the land to him permanently in the correct form.Allen was skeptical.

Tom looked at Allen and made a face, "Then I'll be stuck here forever." Both of them laughed. "Where's the donkey?" Tom brayed, and made a gesture to jump on Allen.They laughed again, but Alan was very disturbed when he answered. "Guy got a lot of shit. Daddy said he should keep it a secret, and Guy said he thought you knew. I don't know if Daddy believed him." "He always trusted Guy." "Maybe." They were silent for a moment. "What are you going to do?" Allen finally asked. "Oh, I think I'll be here for a day or two," said Tom, waving briskly toward the garret, as though it were his usual summer apartment.

"and then?" "That's my tenure, you know." Tom rested his head on his elbow and looked straight at his good brother. Allen nodded. "But it is." "I know. I'm right, aren't I?" "No." "I nodded, that's what I meant." "no." "yes." "Then say it. Say it, say it's mine." "Look, Daddy might end up giving it to you anyway. Guy got him a little uneasy." "Listen? Notice? You said he'd give it to me eventually. He couldn't. He'd already given it to me."

"But there's no legal process," Allen objected. "I mean, legal process. I mean, I know it's yours." Tom stared at him hard, little red dots gradually appearing on his cheekbones.Then he rolled over and looked through a small cobwebbed pane of glass, his only window. "Then I guess I'll just have to go back to my dad. I'm old enough now." Tom didn't say what he meant, but he didn't have to say it, Ellen knew it all.Tom meant that he would live with his father forever, away from Whitcomb, away from Ellen.The only thing that could stop him was a concession by Sir Adam to give him the land, definitively and forever.

Allen swallowed.Pretending to be calm, he poked a twig into the spider's web and kicked the low roof at the same time.Tom is implying that the property dispute is more important than the two children's friendship.He scooped up a patch of cobweb, and an insect was trapped inside: Trapped and dying. "Look." "So what?" Allen shrugged and threw the little bug aside. "You know that vase?" "Know." "It must be worth a lot. About a thousand guineas, I guess. It's all broken." "So what? He shouldn't—" "You can say sorry."

"what?!" "Just calm him down. I'm just saying calm him down." "You think I should say sorry?" "Look, he probably won't sell the land. He probably understands it's yours." "Maybe? Do you think you might inherit your stupid farm or something? Do you think the donkey might get everything else?" The red spot on Tom's face had gone and he was pale now , with intense emotion in the blue eyes under the long lashes.From Tom's point of view, whenever he asked Alan to choose a side, Alan always tried to be pretty, but in the end he always sided with his family.Even now, when it comes to now, Allen has not directly stated that the land use rights belong to Tom.

"Anyway," cried Alan, "what does it matter? If I get that stupid farm, you'll have half of it. You don't think I won't give it to you? Who cares? Stupid tenure?" This is a disastrous word. Tom looked at his pal for ten seconds, then looked away.He put the paper bag in his pocket, climbed to the gap between the planks, and put his legs down first.Before poking his head down, he said, "I changed my mind, and now I'm going back to my dad. I don't care if they see me. They can't stop me, can they? Goodbye." Then he left. Leaving the shed, leaving the main house, leaving the home that raised him.

24 hours of cold war. It seemed to Tom that Alan had said the worst possible thing. "Who cares about that stupid tenure?" As far as Tom was concerned, Allen's words were the equivalent of "Who cares if you're actually a Montague?" Meanwhile, as far as Alan was concerned, Tom had committed the most unimaginable crime.From Alan's point of view, Tom valued trivial disputes over money and land over the best things in the world: their friendship, their brotherhood. So the cold war between the two continued.Tom stayed in his father's cabin.Allen stayed in the main house.For the first time since they learned to speak, the two went through a whole day without talking to each other.For the first time since they learned to walk, the two spent a full day without each other's company.

＊＊ The next night, Allen climbed into bed early. To climb into bed, not fall asleep.He opened the bedroom window, quickly climbed over the kitchen roof, slid down the drainpipe to the ground, and ran across the lawn and field to Jack Cleary's cabin.When he got there, he threw a small stone at Tom's window, and when he saw the window open, he climbed up quickly along the thick wisteria, and sat down on the windowsill. There was only one candle burning in the room.Tom was sitting on the bed with a children's magazine in front of him.He nodded, and Allen smiled back: a smile of wanting to be a peacemaker. "How?" said Tom. Allen felt puzzled for a moment.He didn't know what Tom's "how?" and was taken aback that the invisible communication between the two had disappeared. "What do you mean?" he asked awkwardly. "What do you mean by how?" "You know. I mean, I think you're here to apologize." "what?!" "You heard what I said." Allen was so shocked that his mind went blank.He knows all too well how cruel his good brother can be at times: cold, cruel even.But he never thought that this kind of sharpness would turn to him.Allen raised his head sharply. "No." "No?" "Actually, I came here to see if you were sorry. Looks like you weren't." Allen was still sitting on the window sill, and he stretched out his legs and placed them on the branches of the wisteria.But he hadn't disappeared from sight.There he hung, half in and half out, waiting for Tom to say something to get him down the steps.But he was disappointed. "No," said Tom, "of course not." Allen shrugged.This action was intended to show contempt and indifference, but the light from the candle was enough to show the care on his lips and eyes. "Okay then," Allen said, still hanging from the window. "okay then." The two children looked at each other for a few more seconds.Finally Tom dropped his gaze back on his magazine.Allen found a lower foothold, climbed down, and disappeared from sight. Allen went straight home, but didn't go straight to bed. He climbed up to the kitchen roof and lay down there looking up at the sky full of stars.Tom made him very angry, angry as he had never been before.The two children bickered frequently, but soon made up.When they fight--as they often do--their principles are very simple. Never show weakness. Never admit defeat. Alan was taller than Tom, though Tom was a little stronger.While Tom can be fierce, Alan's arrogance and determination always keep him fighting to the end.Then, when the battle is over, so is everything.The two are still best friends.One moment they might be fighting, and the next they might be talking calmly. But this time was different, and Allen knew it.For two and a half hours he lay on the roof, watching the stars slowly turn overhead.He went through everything in his head.On the one hand, Tom is hot-tempered, reckless, and uncompromising; on the other, Guy is unkind and Sir Adam is unfair.Finally he made a decision.It was up to him, Allen, to complete the impossible.It's up to him to get things back on track. After making his decision, Allen went to bed. Next morning after breakfast he went to see Sir Adam. "Dad, I want to say a few words to you." "Ok?" "I think you should give Tom the tenure. Really. You gave it to him before, you know. I know you didn't say that, but everybody knows you mean it." Sir Adam sighed and bent down to meet his son's eye level. "But you see, Alan," said Sir Adam, "what if that thing was really worth a fortune? It might be worth as much as Whitcomb Hall and all its grounds. Not that I think Tom doesn't deserve it. Of course he does. But I have to think about you and Guy. What would you think if Tom became as rich as Mr. Darcy and you were tied to that little piece of land in Marlborough? " "I don't care." "Maybe you don't care now, but maybe you will in the future. You know, these things are more and more important as you get older. "Then give it to us." It was a genius idea—an idea he'd had last night lying on the kitchen roof. "what?" "If that's what you're worried about, give me and Tom the tenure. Both of us. But you'll have to give us the Marlborough land equally. Then we'll be all equals, no matter what happens. .” "But……" Ser Adam swallowed back his protest.Doing so would split the estate he left to his biological son in two, and the land rights would more likely be worthless.But, whatever he thought, he knew it was best not to discuss this with an excited Allen. "Because we're the same, aren't we, Dad? Exactly the same." "Of course, it's just—" "Then do it, how easy! Can I go and tell him now?" "It's not that simple. Your mother and I—" "Oh, don't worry about her. I'll talk to her." Allen ran to his mother and discussed the idea with her.Although she didn't say much, Allen felt that she was on his side, and he felt quite right. "I'll convince your father," she promised. She walks the talk.She spent an hour or two patiently convincing her husband that morning.Sir Adam insisted that Alan might lose his inheritance.Sir Adam was well off, but not to the point of being invincibly rich.That part of Alan's property was not much in the first place, so Sir Adam was very reluctant to split it in two.But Pamela made up her mind.She had parked some of her money for years in a Citibank.When she went to check again, she found that the amount was much more than she had imagined.She insisted on putting her share of the money in Alan's share, if Sir Adam did as his son said. Eventually Sir Adam agreed. That afternoon, after lessons, Sir Adam called Alan to his library. "Son, I have something to tell you." "yes?" "I've made some arrangements so that you and Tom will have an equal share of the farm and land, and you'll probably get a small extra sum of money, too, because of your mother's generosity." Allen stood there with his mouth open, unable to believe what he had won, "Really, Dad?" "real." "Have all the legal procedures been completed?" Sir Adam smiled, "You are only ten and a half years old, son, and so is Tom. When you are adults, you will have plenty of time to go through legal documents. If you want to ask: Will my decision never change again, I will tell you ,yes." Allen breathed a sigh of relief.Tom seems to have been gone for a century. "Thank you!" "Now, it's up to you, little one, but you might be tempted to break the news to someone." It was only spring, but Sir Adam's window was half open.Allen stood for another moment, as if to confirm that what he heard was real and not a hallucination.Then he moves.He crossed the room, jumped out of the window, and sprinted across the lawn to find his good brother. He was not disappointed. Tom wasn't just happy, he was ecstatic.And (in Alan's view) most importantly, while Tom is happy to have won back the land rights, he's even happier to be back with Alan.The two brothers are back together - and seem closer than they were before the fallout.Because they jointly own the land use rights, both of them have become oil fanatics.They are obsessed with oil, the symbol that unites them as twin brothers.Whitcomb Manor welcomes Tom back. Life is back to normal, and better than ever. ＊＊ That's how it should be.The debate is over.The dust has settled.Forgive and forget. And that's how things went.Almost.But an emotion that lasts so long and burns so hot eventually leaves a certain mark. Allen learned a lesson—almost subconsciously, but one that made such an impression that he would never forget it.If Tom gets pissed off, he's dangerous, irresponsible, and uncompromising. Meanwhile Tom has learned his lesson.At critical moments, Allen is unreliable.Given the choice between Tom and his family, Alan would be a peacemaker, an evader, and a wavering ally. Lessons, once learned, are never forgotten. ＊＊ And what about oil? Knox D'Arcy's great news was less exciting that week.At the end of May, although the drilling team made unremitting efforts in Persia, the oil production became smaller and smaller, and finally dried up.Darcy's expenses continued to rise.Finding oil there—not to mention the brothers' rocky mountains—was becoming less and less likely.Darcy found new investors to share the pressure. It seems that his gamble has all been lost. The two children went on to study Persian and geology.They continued to monitor Darcy's progress at Suleiman's exploration site.In fact, if there is any difference, it is that after the two have equally divided the rights to the oil production land, their determination to develop oil together is stronger than before.Yet, at the age of ten, they had already learned one of the most important lessons in the oil business. You can drill like hell.You can drill really good wells.You can drill in a place where oil should theoretically be gushing. But you can still fail. lose money. into bankruptcy.