Barney: Part 2

By ANTHONY HOLCROFT

It was all of ten years ago that the Tozers had bought the big area of virgin forest. Before that it was owned by Barney's half-brother Marsden.

It had never been farmed or milled, and the heavily wooded land with its circle of swamp stood out like a ragged hedge from the neat crops and pasture land that surrounded it.

Alan told Pete that he sometimes felt annoyed just to look at it.

"Good land going to waste," he grumbled. "And all that timber - there's a fortune in there!"

But when Alan had first tried to buy the land, Marsden hadn't wanted to sell.

"The land's no use to me," he said. "But I have to look after my brother. What are you going to do with that land? Cut down the trees - right? And then my brother, he'll be like a shell-fish without his shell."

But Alan had been determined. He raised his offer till it was almost double what the land was worth. In the end Marsden said he could have it, if he'd just get off his doorstep; but he also made a condition.

For as long as Barney was alive, and chose to live on the land, no earth must be turned there, nor a tree felled.

Publisher: Shortland Publications

Price: $7.85

Age group: 9 years plus

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