Inevitably, tragically, Flag grows, becoming (like Jodie) a yearling on the
brink of adulthood. Now Penny is abed again, unable to work owing to an
old, recurring malady. (A result of the war? Rawlings, curiously, considering
herswasaworkintheageofGone with the Wind, barely mentions Penny’s
previous history.) Jodie must be a farmer now, meaning he must guarantee
also the security of the family’s crops from Flag. Jodie builds a fence; Flag
easily jumps it and devours corn seedlings. Jodie builds the fence higher, six
feet now, a heroic effort for a boy. But as any twenty-first-century suburban-
ite might predict, six feet is pathetically inadequate. Flag has, in effect, re-
incarnated Ole Slewfoot and so must die. Penny, from his sickbed, grimly
gives the order. Ma tries to execute but merely wounds the yearling. Jodie
must finish off Flag. Heartbreak hardly describes his despair, and doubt-
lessly many thousands of young (and old) readers ofThe Yearlinghave wept
with Jodie. The boy flees to the great St. Johns River, determined to quit for-
ever the cruel elements of Baxter’s Island. He will get to faraway Jackson-
ville, then to civilized Boston, where a Floridian sailor friend might shelter
him. But three hard days and nights later he returns, overcome by love of
his parents as much as the impenetrably dark heart of the St. Johns. Penny
commiserates. Even Ma’s reserve melts. Jodie becomes a man, sadder and
wiser, like his father. Any reader, however young or old, will know abso-
lutely that as Jodie grows yet older, and no matter how old, he will ever be,
like Penny, a respectful negotiator with nature rather than a would-be con-
queror.
tJodie’s brief but memorable attempt at flight from his destiny evokes
much. Before creation of railroads, hard-surface highways, and automo-
biles, rivers were the best roads. The English sometimes named great
watery junctions ‘‘roads,’’ as in Hampton Roads, Virginia, where the mighty
James, the Nansemond, and the Elizabeth empty into the bottom of Chesa-
peake Bay. Jamestown is nearby, up the James a distance sufficient for
safety yet close enough readily to ship Virginia’s gold, which was tobacco,
to Europeans. Dutchmen brought Africans up this road in . Much
later the world’s first battle between ironclad ships took place here, the
event appropriate to the highway’s strategic importance. Jodie Baxter tried
to escape eastern Florida via that region’s great thoroughfare, which the
Spanish had named Rio San Juan, then the English translated directly as
St. Johns. This was the road to Florida’s interior, more-or-less parallel to
the Atlantic coast, from present-day Jacksonville southward, past Palatka,
through broad, often-stormy Lake George, through more lakes to Sanford,