Able was the first of Eartha’s young relatives to really get going. He began by cutting down most of the trees on his land. He cut down pine trees and spruces, beech trees and birches, oak trees and maples. He cut down trees that gave shade to the forest, homes to the birds, and nuts to the squirrels.

The trees Abel cut down were sent to pulp mills that made paper, power plants that made electricity, and saw mills that made lumber. Abel’s plan was to use the money from the trees to lay out roads and build buildings so that many people could live on his land. Eartha started to think that Abel was going to win the contest and win all of her land.

Beau was almost as busy as Abel. Beau cut down a few trees, but not nearly so many as Abel did. Instead, Beau worked on reshaping his land, building up low spots with dirt from high spots, to make the land level. He built dams on some streams to make ponds. And when Abel had truckloads of soil left over from digging cellars, Beau used Abel’s leftover dirt to fill in his marshes to make the land dry.

Beau’s plan was to use his land to make a vast park, open to the public for a small fee, a park with rolling green lawns, tall shady trees, and dozens and dozens of flower beds, all connected by a long gravel path. Eartha thought that Beau was off to a pretty good start.

Carson was another story. Try as she might, Eartha could not figure out what Carson’s plan was. Unlike Abel and Beau, Carson didn’t seem like she ever left her land. But she didn’t seem to be doing all that much work. She didn’t cut down any trees. She didn’t move any dirt. From time to time, she went around with a basket collecting this and that, and sometimes she moved a plant or two from here to there, but other than that, it looked to Eartha as if Carson was letting her land get the better of her.

After a couple of years, it seemed like things were beginning to get the better of Abel, too. He had bulldozed all of his roadways, and had dug all of his cellars, but when his expenses turned out to be more than he had expected, he ran out of money. His trees were all gone, and he had nothing left to sell. Without any money, Abel had to abandon his big project, and his land was left with no trees, shrubs, or grasses, just bare soil with nothing to hold it in place when the rains came.

In no time at all, Abel’s land was a big muddy mess. With nothing but mud – and no plants at all – most of the animals who had lived on Abel’s land left their homes in search of the food and shelter they needed to survive. Eartha saw all of this and realized that Abel had not done very well with his land.

Beau, however, appeared to be making great progress. His landscaping was flawless, and the park was beautiful. Every flower bed was a perfect square or rectangle or circle or oval. Every flower was in its place, the tall ones in the center of a bed, the low ones near an edge. Beau had selected his flowering plants so that in each part of the park, on every day of the spring, summer, and fall, there was something in bloom, and within each flower bed, the colors of the blossoms all matched each other.

Beau’s only problem came in the spring, when bright yellow dandelions popped their heads up and speckled the smooth green carpet of lawn that stretched between his well-ordered flower beds. Beau hated the disorderly dandelions and spent weeks and weeks each year with a pointed tool, digging up every single dandelion by its long root. But in spite of Beau’s dandelion problem, Eartha was starting to think that Beau was going to win the contest and all of her land.

Carson was another story. While Beau seemed to be busy all the time – pruning his boxwoods and dusting his roses and mulching his flower beds – Carson appeared to be aimless, just wandering around her land, poking in the dirt here, plucking a few leaves there, tossing out seeds for the birds somewhere else. And when Carson wasn’t doing those things, she was doing other strange-looking things, like bringing in cartloads of cow manure from a dairy farm down the road.

Strangest of all, each spring when Beau threw away all the dandelions he had so carefully uprooted, Carson collected them and replanted them on her land, on a broad grassy slope that faced the south and the warm spring sun.

When Beau first saw Carson’s enormous dandelion patch, he called it Dandelion Hill and laughed himself silly. Eartha just scratched her head and wondered how she had ever thought that Carson could possibly be the right person to take care of her land.

Look for part 3 of Dandelion Hill in next week’s Sunday Monitor.

Parker Potter is a former archaeologist and historian, and a retired lawyer. He is currently a semi-professional dog walker who lives and works in Contoocook. His work usually appears in the Opinion section. This is his first intentional foray into writing fiction.