Welcome To Mansfield

By A. R. Farina

Sometimes you have to leave home to find where you really belong.

Junior Price wanted desperately to get out of her small town and the demands of her big family. Upon winning a scholarship to an elite private college thousands of miles away, she packed her bags and went to find her place in the world. She soon

• Language: English
• Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
• Release date: May 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823201438

A. R. Farina

A.R. Farina shares his empty nest with his wife, a librarian, where they read books and watch sunsets. When not busy writing, he spends his time as a college professor with both an M.A. Ed. and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. He hosts a weekly podcast on the Comics in Motion Podcast network where he critically analyzes indie comics and graphic novels.

Book preview

1

A Bit of History

Mansfield College is named for the small town where it resides in the middle of a Midwestern state. The term Midwestern here is a bit misleading. The state is, for the most part, in the Eastern Time Zone, but the term has stuck for a large swath of the United States even though it no longer makes sense. The Plains are technically mid-west. Still, for the purposes of this story, Mansfield is in the wrongly named but culturally accepte d Midwest.

The town began as most towns did during that time. It was a stop along a railway during the industrial revolution that exploded with textiles and manufacturing. Both village and college were founded in 1814 by the abolitionist who founded the town and lent his name to both. Mansfield, a wealthy physician whose family fortune came from quite nefarious means, wanted to create a new place that agreed with his personal values.

At the northernmost point of town was situated The Park, the familial home in which much of this tale will take place. The Park is four square acres, although it is not actually square at all. The front property edge is a straight line, but the rest of the property is rounded. From the air, The Park looks like a capital D. It is surrounded by a six-foot-tall black iron fence. The main gate faces due south. There is a public walking path around the entire property. The road leading south from The Park is called Main Street. The road crossing in front of The Park, thereby creating the straight line, which runs from east to west, is called Mansfield Parkway. To the west lies Mansfield College. To the east lies Sotherton, the Rushworth estate. More to come in due course on that estate and the family that resides therein. The road that encompasses the property is called Mansfield Circle. No one ever accused Dr. Mansfield of modesty.

Mansfield College broke with tradition at the time and enrolled worthy scholars of all races and genders. It has stood for over 200 years as a bastion of liberal arts education. Because Dr. Mansfield understood the value of education and felt everyone had the right to try, he created an open-enrollment institution with a limited number of seats. Essentially, if one applied on time, if one was willing to work harder than one has ever worked before, and most importantly, if one could afford it, the gates of Mansfield College were open to all. Once the last seat was full, the enrollment period closed.

Mansfield College has, to this day, never taken a single federal dollar. Unlike other schools that make this claim yet gleefully allow students to rack up Federal Student Loans, public student loans are simply not accepted at Mansfield. There is no office of financial aid. At its founding, tuition was a mere 100 dollars per semester. Of course, that was a small fortune at the time; suitably adjusted for inflation, the tuition remains a small fortune to this day. Graduates of Mansfield College both then and now knew that a degree that garnered the Mansfield Crest opened doors around the world that would have been quite closed had the degree crest been any different.

Dr. Mansfield, however, understood that not all otherwise deserving, willing, and able students would be able to afford said tuition. Therefore, he set up an academic contest called the Mansfield Gift. Five students a year who agreed to come to Mansfield College without a declared major were selected from a pool of students who would, after a rigorous application and interview process, be allowed to attend Mansfield College tuition-free.

The winners of these five coveted spots all went on to achieve amazing professional success. Some members of this exclusive club have walked in space, commanded aircraft carriers, worked on cures for diseases, argued before the Supreme Court, and served as members of Congress. The Mansfield Gift was a precursor to most assured success. Unlike Skull and Bones, another precursor to assured success, the Mansfield Gift did not require anyone to keep horrible secrets or do unspeakable acts. The only requirement was the student come to Mansfield College, major undeclared, and be open to a wide range of courses for the first two years. At that time, the students would select a major and study that subject exclusively for their remaining two years at the prestigious institution. Dr. Mansfield believed that an open mind was the cure for nearly all the problems in the world.

Thanks to the prestige of this unique college, it has continued to thrive even though the town has not. Many of the factories in Mansfield closed due to various financial disasters and adverse political decisions over the years, which left a rather large hole in certain parts of town. Those who did not leave town became part of the college economy. As of this writing, three out of every five residents of Mansfield work for, or make money directly from, businesses that serve the college. The other two either work for, or make money from, the Rushworth organization.

The campus itself is still situated in the same location, only slightly expanding in size to accommodate athletics. Because there are no scholarships for athletics, all teams are clubs. That is not to say that they do not take competition seriously. On the contrary, the clubs often beat the other Division II and III schools in the surrounding areas. Those schools often claim they do not take it seriously since the games are considered scrimmages, but everyone knows that they are simply making excuses.

The homes in the immediate vicinity surrounding the campus are almost all historical buildings protected by either the federal or the state government. Most of these homes are owned by descendants of the Mansfield family or wealthy graduates who keep a home near campus to have a place to stay when they return for festivities. In an effort to keep faculty salaries down, the college provides faculty housing in well-kept single-family homes built in the early 1900s for exactly this purpose. Each home is maintained by the college at no cost to the faculty. Mansfield College maintains zero adjunct faculty. Although there is little to no pressure to publish after being hired, no previously unpublished faculty has ever been hired. Even though the nearest major city is two hours away, much like the Mansfield Gift, thousands of faculty members from all around the world apply for openings each year.

Two hundred and six years after the awarding of the first Mansfield Gift, five letters embossed with gold lettering are sent out to five addresses across the globe. One to a young woman in Exeter, England. One to a young woman in Seoul, South Korea. One letter is sent to a young man in Tacoma, Washington. Somewhere in Texarkana, Arkansas, a young man gets a letter. All of these recipients will accept the offer immediately and prepare to matriculate to Mansfield College in the fall, having sufficient funds for room and board already procured.

Each of these young people will come and go from this tale, yet only one will affect the outcome. We can be sure that each of these four people will go on to do great things. The woman from Seoul, in particular, will be quite memorable. However, it is not on them where we shine our spotlight. Instead, we will follow the trajectory of the final letter, sent to a girl, not a young woman, who lives in an unincorporated area in the Deep South.

2

The Gift

Einstein said something about insanity, Junior Price thought to herself as she jiggled her key in the always-stuck door lock. She knew why it wouldn’t open, but Junior just wanted to be sure. She sighed, removed her backpack, and fished out her wallet. This always seemed to happen when it was her week to get the mail.

She wound her ever-present loose scarf a bit tighter to cover her neck. Her summer dress was in disrepair, but it was clean. She was so slight that she was never able to hand it down to any of her younger siblings, as was the custom in the Price home. The next youngest sibling, Suzy, several years Junior’s junior, could already look Junior in her eye, and her shoulders were easily as broad as their father’s. Junior was the second eldest of eight, soon-to-be ten children. Her parents claimed that this pregnancy would be the last, but she didn’t believe them. Every pregnancy since the fourth of the Price children was proclaimed to be the last in the line. Only the eldest three were planned, and yet, like clockwork, every two years for 18 years, in the fall, a new Price child was born.

She pulled open the doors to the main office of the tiny rural post office, and the chill of the air conditioning hit her like a gale. The sweat on her arms and on the back of her neck dried up, and she felt goosebumps form. The customer side of the counter was small and had room for maybe three people. The town gossip, Stuart, was leaning on the counter, keeping Ms. Grayson from her work. The rural postmaster, Ms. Grayson, furrowed her brows and looked as though she was hanging on every word Stuart was saying. She looked up at Junior, her facial pucker relaxed, and she smiled.

Stuart, I have to help Ms. Price here. I will need you to give me a minute, she said, cutting him off mid-sentence as he was explaining something about someone’s backyard garden and the apparent illegality of said garden.

Stuart, never one to take a hint, slid aside just enough for Junior to approach the counter. Hi, Ms. Grayson, Junior said with a smile.

Hiya, Junior.

How behind? Junior asked, avoiding all pleasantries. She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but since she didn’t always get the mail, the delinquent notices did not always pass through her hands.

Just a sec. Ms. Grayson walked over to the postal box and pulled the weeks’ worth of uncollected mail out that she had bound in a rubber band and pulled out the notice. She read it and held up three fingers, indicating they were three months behind on the box rental.

Junior opened her wallet and saw five twenty-dollar bills. It was her tutoring money from the past two weeks. She sighed. Three months’ rent was fifty bucks. She held up the money and nodded to Ms. Grayson, who smiled with a grimace and reached in and removed the lock from the inside. She brought the bundled mail.

Sorry, Junior. She plucked the money from Junior’s left hand and plopped the bundle into her right. At least now you’ll be paid up through summer.

Well, that is something isn’t it? The end of summer would mean, hopefully, escape from Unincorporated Nowhere. She wished and she prayed. Of course, you, Dear Reader, already know that the bundle contains the answers to her wishes and prayers, but Junior Price did not. Had she known, she would not have thrown the bundle of mail and her wallet into her backpack and started the three-mile walk back home. She would have danced and sang and been twirled around by strangers. Instead, she was preoccupied with how to ask her mother if there was any way she could get some of her money back.

The walk back to the Price’s homestead involved only one turn, and so Junior made it without having to concentrate too hard. The main road into the town that held the county post office was paved, and Junior could generally walk along the side of the road with relative safety. The traffic was usually light. Even so, she never wore headphones on the walk, just to be safe and to set a good example for the rest of the Price children.

After about two and a half miles, she turned into the long driveway that led to the smattering of living quarters that made up the Price Ranch. It was not a ranch in the sense that there were horses or cattle or anything that may grow on a ranch. It was the name Mr. Price gave the area because he thought compound sounded a bit culty. It is common knowledge that by that time everyone in the area knew the family could field its own baseball team with the children alone, and the neighbors openly start calling it a cult.

Price Ranch was approximately a 1-mile square of mostly untouched trees and hills. At the center of it sat a relatively new 3-bedroom 2.5 bath doublewide mobile home. The parents lived there with the youngest three children, and the entire family dined there. The living, kitchen, and dining area was open, and so there was more than enough room for two dining tables. Upon the sudden death of Mr. Price’s father five years prior, the family used the small inheritance to purchase this home. The grass that had been dug up to lay the foundation and run the electricity and water had never been replaced. What survived of the lawn after many a children’s game of soccer and kickball consisted entirely of weeds and thorns.

Set back 20 yards on either side of the main house sat two identically square brick homes, built from a kit purchased in the Sears and Roebucks catalog back when that was a thing one could do. Many people, including Junior’s recent ancestors, did just that. The taller two-story one, built by Mrs. Price’s grandfather Emanuel Ward, housed the eldest boy Bill, aged eighteen. He watched over his two next youngest brothers. They were aged twelve and ten. In the other, built by Emanuel Ward for his son, Mrs. Price’s father, lived Junior and Suzy. The arrangement raised eyebrows, but the Prices had very little choice. The small home was always eventually going to be a home for the older children just as it was for the Ward family. Once the children reached a certain age, they moved out to learn responsibility, but not too far away that they could get in too much trouble.

The big house was connected to Bill and the boys’ house with a breezeway that came off the back of the garage and connected to the front porch. There was another covered walkway between the original two homes. If one wished, and one rarely wished, one could go from house to house to house without ever being exposed to the elements. This allowed the Prices to have just one electric bill and pay property taxes on only one home.

Junior was never any trouble and was, by all accounts, an excellent influence on all of the children in the family. It is uncertain how or why things like this happen, but Junior Price was born with an uncanny sense of right and wrong. She was the only child in her entire graduating class at Unincorporated Nowhere to never once be called to the principal’s office for anything. She was never called for disciplinary problems, nor was she called because she was named student of the week, month, or year. Granted, she started school early and skipped a grade, and she was only 16 at the time she earned her diploma, so leaving no indelible mark on her community could be explained that way. However, the real reason Junior was never called to the principal’s office was that she never drew any attention to herself in any way.

She didn’t speak up in class, but she always answered when called upon. She never offered her opinion in a debate but always gave one when asked. She never told anyone who was not her younger sibling what to do, and even then, she only made suggestions. She never ever told anyone not to do anything. She never felt it was her place to comment on how others chose to live. To that end, she never stopped a friend from going to a party where there would be drinking, nor did she turn anyone in for cheating on a test. She never went to a party that had drinking, nor had she ever cheated on a test, nor let anyone cheat off her test. By keeping herself to herself, she created a cloak of invisibility. Even her scarves, her only recognizable definable feature, were not enough of a branding mark to allow her to stand out. Everyone knew her name, as was the way of living in Unincorporated Nowhere, but no one knew much else. She was often described as the oldest daughter of that cult that lived a few miles out of town. She never corrected anyone on this, and that was that.

Junior walked past the big house and waved at her three youngest siblings. Two boys, their names not important enough to mention here, and a girl called Betsy. They called her Little Bit because she looked like a miniature version of her mother and was just a little bit like their father in that she had his hair color. They were having tea on the porch. They waved back. Betsy blew her a kiss, which she caught and brought to her heart. She entered her home through the screen door and dropped her bag on the small table where she and Suzy ate breakfast each day and lunch in the summer and on weekends. She unwound her scarf and hung it over the back of her chair. She pulled the cold-brewed coffee she mixed the night before out of the small apartment refrigerator and poured herself a cup. She dropped in two miniature ice cubes and a dash of French vanilla creamer and sat down to sort the mail.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and unwound the earbuds from around the phone. She pushed them into her ears and hit play on her classic rock playlist. Because she earned her own money as a math and writing tutor after school, she had her own phone. She splurged and paid for an unlimited streaming service because there was no Wi-Fi at The Ranch. The internet was hard-wired. Her unlimited service allowed her to make playlists when she was at school or in town, and then listen to them offline at home. She could afford an unlimited data plan, but she didn’t see the need.

As Eddie Van Halen wailed away, Junior separated the mail into three piles, one for each house. Ms. Grayson wrapped the mail inside the magazines, so Junior pulled the rubber band off and watched the tube open and unfurl. She placed her right hand on the letter from the local community college addressed to Bill as they were desperate to get him to come there instead of joining the Air Force, and with her left on the back of the last magazine, flipped the pile over. She took a sip of her iced coffee and then she got up, went to the junk drawer, and pulled out two more rubber bands. She wrapped up each house’s mail using the same method as Postmaster Grayson.

National Geographic was hers; she put it down to the right. The three magazines for maternity clothing were most assuredly her mother’s. She put those in the middle. Nat Geo Kids was for her brothers. She earned a free subscription when she renewed. She set it to the left. Van Halen made way for the Black Crowes. She found herself bopping her head along as Chris Robinson belted out his lyrics. She was in a rhythm. She knew what bills looked like, she knew what college recruiting letters looked like, she knew what Air Force recruiting letters looked like, and so she filtered them out without having to think.

Just as Robinson belted out the recurrence of jealousy one last time, she flipped over a thick, cream-colored envelope. Brian Setzer’s opening strum of Stray Cats’ Rock This Town started up, and Junior saw her name, in gold embossed writing:

Ms. Frances J. Price Jr.

The return address was Mansfield College. She dropped the envelope as Mr. Setzer described his date as looking so right. Junior pulled the earbuds out of her ears, allowing the Stray Cats to possibly get into a fight without her auditory intrusion.

She felt the heat run through her entire body. She stood up and sat down. She did it again. She looked down at the envelope on the table. She knew what it was. She knew what it meant. She started sweating from every pore. She could feel the heat rising in her body. When she became embarrassed or excited, red blotches would crawl up her neck. They made her look like she was coming down with or recovering from some kind of pox. Dissipation took much longer than the appearance of these temporary but telltale blotches.

Junior was often full of emotions that caused the nervous condition but never the explosive emotional outbursts that would let anyone know she was feeling any anxiety over keeping all her thoughts to herself. The scarves were not simply ornamental; they served a clear function. She picked up the envelope and could see it shaking. She picked up her mug and gulped the coffee in one big gulp. Had she been more clearheaded, she would have remembered what happened to her when she had too much caffeine at once.

She slammed her cup down and picked the envelope up. She flipped it over and slid her finger under the flap. She slid it down to the point in the middle, carefully keeping the entire thing intact so she could possibly frame it one day. She slid her finger up the other side and the flap came up. Inside were four sheets of paper folded in thirds. She opened them up. The first one was a handwritten letter on extremely expensive, ink-absorbing paper.

Dear Ms. Price,

On behalf of Mansfield College, it is my honor to present to you one of the five annual Mansfield Gifts. As you know, this gift is the most prestigious honor that can be bestowed on any student at Mansfield College. Every year, thousands of applicants from all around the world compete for one of these five spots. Clearly, your hard work and dedication have been rewarded.

Enclosed are the documents you will need to send back to accept The Gift and begin your registration for Fall Classes.

Congratulations.

Welcome to the Mansfield Family,

Dr. M. Bennet, President

3

Room and Board

Junior burst into the big house, ignoring her youngest three siblings’ cries to stop and have tea. She was shouting MOM! before the door was even open. Her father was asleep in the recliner, and he jolted when the door banged against the wall. His quick movement slammed his feet down as the foot of the chair locked into place. He swore then grimaced. Oh Dad, I’m sorry. Junior ran over to him to see how she could help him, temporarily forgetting he r mission.

He had been medically discharged from the Navy after an accident on an aircraft carrier deck left him with permanent damage in his right foot. Because he served 10 years, he was eligible for a disability severance package and VA permanent disability. This allowed for a small stipend for the rest of his life, but it also meant he could not take any other work or do much of anything that involved being on his feet for long.

There was debate among the people of Unincorporated Nowhere if Mr. Price’s injuries were really so severe that permanent disability was the answer. He was still a young man in his 30s when the accident happened, and surely, one would not wish to do nothing forever. Mr. Price, being not of sound body, but of sound mind, knew that his wife owned the land on which they lived and the homes that stood there, that he and his family could live comfortably on the money the Navy offered him. Of course, at that time, they had four children with one on the way, and he was most assuredly going to be the last child, so he took the offer and retired young.

While his pride did not stand in the way of him taking the money from the Navy as he felt they destroyed him, and thus owed him the money, it did keep him from using any other government assistance. With each new child, and with each new batch of responsibilities dumped on one of his own children, Mr. Price dug in deeper. He would say that it wasn’t the government’s fault that Fran was so fertile. Even Fran felt that there was no need to take the government’s help. She always said, We have enough help right here as she gave her older children meaningful looks. The line was a mantra, and eventually, they all believed it.

I’m fine. He waved her off as she came over to him. He pulled the handle up and his feet rose again. He exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He scanned his eldest daughter, and noticing the scarfless, blotchy neck, knew something important was happening. What’s the screaming and door slamming about?

Realizing the conversation was being turned back to her, Junior held the envelope out to him. She wanted to see his face as he read the news. He opened it up without looking at the front and unfolded the paper with much less care than she would have liked. His eyes scanned the handwritten note from Dr. Bennet. He looked up at her and back down at it. The information was coming together. His mouth smiled, but his face did not. This made her nervous.

She convinced herself he would change his mind about all of this once he found out the news. He argued against her applying for The Gift. He argued that just because she was so smart and could graduate high school early, it didn’t mean she was ready to go off to some northern college. It didn’t matter that her mother went there and knew members of the founding Mansfield family.

Junior agreed that if she did not win The Gift, she would stay at home and attend the community college. She would take Bill’s car as he wouldn’t need it in the Air Force. Mr. Price agreed to these terms because he ever expected that college would take the daughter of a graduate who, as he put it, never once used her grand education for anything other than figuring out nap schedules and crunching a family budget.

He flipped to the next page, which she knew was the course selections. He read through the options there, and he nodded, keeping the smile plastered on his face. The next page was a roommate preference/personality test. The smile continued. The final page was a bill for 11,000 dollars, the cost of one year’s room and board. They could make payments over the summer, but they would have to pay in full before she matriculated in the fall. His fake smile faltered and Junior thought she saw, for just a second, a smirk, before he returned to his resting disinterested face. She was not expecting that. She had her half of the money in the bank as was part of the deal. He folded everything back up and stuck it back in the envelope. He held it back to her. I don’t know where your mother is. I was actually resting before you barged in. Check the laundry room. He picked up the remote control and turned on the TV.

Junior was disheartened but not defeated. Her father hadn’t said anything for sure, but he hadn’t said No either. He did not object. He neither ranted nor raved. That smirk made her uncomfortable though. Her father was one to scheme and obfuscate, while Junior found schemes abhorrent and obfuscation a waste of good time that could be spent doing something productive. Other than her love for what the family called his music and unwavering love for Mrs. Price, he and Junior had nothing in common. There are only so many conversations a father and daughter can have about the deep cuts on Def Leppard’s Pyromania album, although they did have more than the rest of the family cared to hear.

Junior nodded at her father and turned to walk to the laundry room. It was located off the kitchen and doubled as the entry room from the garage. Her mother always did laundry with the door closed to keep the youngest from coming in and touching something clean with a filthy hand.

Junior opened the door and found her mother folding clothes and putting them into individual baskets. She did laundry for the youngest five, herself, and her husband. Laundry day was every day at The Ranch. Mrs. Price wore over-the-ear headphones attached to a turn-of-the-century Discman. She did not care for downloadable music. She was still convinced that CD sound quality was best. It was a hotly debated topic over many dinners at the adult table. So as not to scare her, Junior flicked the lights on and off. Her mother pulled the headphones off her head and turned around. She had a fake smile plastered on her face. It morphed into an actual smile when she realized she was not going to be told that she had to change a diaper or make a sandwich.

What a pleasant surprise. She pulled her namesake into a hug. She was not due until the fall, all the kids were born in the fall, but she was showing already. She was having twins. She thought that it would be the same as having all the rest of them, but she discovered that was