Green Spring Farm Part 12

David carefully pushed the bill away, back to my end of the table. I, of course, felt offended. Could it be that I had no right to subscribe to an American magazine? Why such discrimination? The editor whispered something to the publisher who ran out of the room and came back dragging Michael senior in once more. The father laughed. He apparently had no objection to the mailing abroad of the magazine which was being published under his sponsors.h.i.+p. All the periodical publications of good standing always have foreign subscribers.

However, Michael senior had objections against any monetary transaction with countries abroad. It was agreed that the subscription would be handled on a clearing basis: the _Green Spring-Menemsha Gazette_ would be mailed to the USSR in exchange for our children's magazine _The Pioneer_. We shook hands on this transaction, concluded to the mutual satisfaction of the "high contracting parties."

When we returned to the living room, the debate about the freedom of the press was still continuing. But the two sides had exchanged places. Gribatchov was the one who led the attack now; the idea of exchanging articles with _The New Republic_ had gradually excited him.

Publisher Harrison, on the contrary, was taking a defensive stand: he was already foreseeing numerous difficulties obstructing the materialization of his project. The unionist leader was sitting on the sofa next to them. He was a tall man with a pale face with an ironical expression, and he was gently mocking the discomfited publisher.

"Really, why shouldn't there be an exchange of articles with a Russian paper?"

So finally they came to no conclusion at all.

We were taking our seats in the car when David manfully shook hands with me and suddenly asked: "Maybe you will write from Moscow a contribution for publication in _The Green Spring-Menemsha Gazette_?

Our magazine will gladly publish it, I can promise you."

My negotiations with the editors of the _Gazette_ appeared to be more fruitful than the ones Gribatchov had had with _The New Republic_.

JULY 16, 1956

Editors' Note:

There are, of course, some errors in Mr. Polevoy's story. Many are due, as he notes, to the fact that parts of the conversation were conducted through dramatic gesticulations and incoherent sounds. Bill Seward, the youthful proprietor of Menemsha's post office and store, for example, may not recognize himself as the ancient Mr. Zur, and the author of Ca.s.sandra Bobble, a fictional caricature of society columnists, will be surprised to see her creation re-emerge in Russian as Xandra Babel the neighbor's girl reporter. More substantial, in the editor's opinion, is his view that it was Mr. Gribatchov and not Mr.

Harrison who doubted the practicality of an exchange of articles. And yet as many errors of detail and interpretation would no doubt be found were we to describe an evening spent in Mr. Polevoy's villa outside Moscow. As far as the general tone of Mr. Polevoy's account is concerned we cannot complain.

Mr. Polevoy, after all, is describing an evening in the home of an opponent of the political administration in power. Soviet readers learn that it is a comfortable place, lived in by a family substantially free from fear. The author refers in a mocking way to the shadow of John Foster Dulles and mentions the reluctance of the boys to take his $5 (the reason, lost in translation, was that they would not be publis.h.i.+ng their paper in 1956). But just as Mr. Polevoy seems about to conclude with a political moral, he demolishes this traditional ending in favor of the truth. For the discussion which Mr. Polevoy describes ended with a whispered aside which the host found startling. "We will put you on the subscriber's list to _The Pioneer_!" Mr. Polevoy had roared to the boys; then he drew their father aside: "That is, if it will not hurt you," he whispered. The host laughed and explained that he and his sons were free citizens, able to read whatever they pleased and happy to receive literature from other lands. It seems gratifying to us that this small but memorable incident has found its way into the Soviet press.

MICHAEL STRAIGHT

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIALS

BOOKS

Clarke, E.; Potts, J. M.; and Payton, J. S., eds. _The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury._ Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958.

Davis, R. B. _Intellectual Life in Jefferson's Virginia._ Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964.

Gutheim, Frederick. _The Potomac._ New York: Rinehart, 1949.

Harrison, Fairfax. _Landmarks of Old Prince William._ Berryville, Va.: Chesapeake Book Co., 1964.

Herndon, M. _Tobacco in Colonial Virginia._ Williamsburg: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957.

Hulbert, A. _Paths of Inland Commerce._ New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921.

Johnston, Frederick. _Memorials of Old Virginia Clerks._ Lynchburg: Bell Co., 1888.

Jones, Virgil C. _Ranger Mosby._ Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944.

Moger, A. W. _The Rebuilding of the Old Dominion_ (PhD thesis). New York: Columbia University, 1940.

Mosby, J. S. _Mosby's War Memoirs and Stuart's Cavalry Campaigns._ New York: Pageant Book Company, 1958.

Porter. A. O. _Country Government in Virginia._ New York: Columbia University Press, 1947.

Russell, C. W., ed. _The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby._ Boston: Little Brown, 1917.

Virginia Good Roads Convention. _Programme._ Richmond: Stone Printing Co., October 18, 1894.

_Who's Who in America._ 1966-1967. Volume x.x.xIV. Chicago: A. N.

Marquis Company.

Williamson, James. _Mosby's Rangers._ New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1909.

ARTICLES

Abbott, R. H. "Yankee Farmers in Northern Virginia: 1840-1860."

_Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_, v. 76, No. 1 (January 1968), pp. 56-66.

Funk, W. C. "An Economic History of Small Farms near Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C."

U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 848. Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920.

"A New House with Young Ideas." _House and Garden._ December 1958.

Straight, Michael. "A Visit from Mr. Polevoy." _The New Republic_, v.

135, No. 3 (July 16, 1956), pp. 12-15.

Willis, K. M. "Old Fairfax Homes Give Up a Secret." _The American Motorist Magazine_, v. 7, No. 2 (May 1932), p. 16.

OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT RECORDS AND REPORTS

Annual Report of the President and Directors of the Board of Public Works to the General a.s.sembly of Virginia. 1818, 1819, 1820.

Fairfax County, Virginia. Deedbooks.

______. Minute Books.

______. Order Books.

______. Will Books.

Hening, William W., ed. _Statutes at Large_, 1823. Reprint ed., Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1969.

National Archives, Military Records Division, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

_Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers who Served in Organizations from Virginia._ Microcopy 324, Roll 207, "Hounsh.e.l.l's Bat. Cav. Partisan Rangers, M-Z and Mosby's Bat. Cav. Partisian Rangers A-D."