A Seed in Spring

A Seed in Spring is a 1948 novel written by Edward Thompson and published by the Macrae Smith Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kirkus Reviews described the novel, which opens in May 1926 in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), as “a thorough-going novel of a particular scene, in a particular place, which is dependent on types of characters rather than the characters themselves, and as such is not as complete a book as it might be.” The title comes from a toast delivered by one character in the book: “Here’s to cotton, cotton, an’ more cotton, / A seed in spring, a bale in autumn.”

Thompson (whose full name was John Edward Thompson) was born in Pine Bluff and raised in the home of his uncle, Thomas Jordan Collier II; he also spent much of his childhood on the family plantation in Altheimer (Jefferson County). He studied at the University of Virginia and then joined his mother in California, pursuing a career in journalism before turning his hand toward writing novels. He published two books prior to A Seed in Spring’s publication: Listen for the Laughter (1942) and Take away the Darkness (1944), both of which are set in Arkansas.

The novel begins with fifty-five-year-old Thomas Granbury Jordan III (“Old Tom”) driving to the home of Jefferson and Sarah Phillips for a dinner honoring the engagement of eldest son twenty-nine-year-old “Young Tom” to twenty-four-year-old Virginia Phillips. This engagement is but “another step in Old Tom’s long dream and determination to make his older son eventually the world’s largest individual cotton planter,” as the Phillips family owns the plantation adjoining Old Tom’s near Altheimer and all three of the Phillips sons had died in World War I. Young Tom, however, has the sense of “being trapped in some nameless and enormous conspiracy.”

As the story progresses, Young Tom evinces an attraction to Stella, the new bride of the rather brutish Rutherford Pierce, a cousin of Sarah Phillips; there is little love between Stella and Rutherford, and in fact, Rutherford has had numerous affairs and is pursuing Effie, a young Black woman whom he hires as a maid for his wife. Rutherford’s father, Bolton, who holds the title of “The Largest Individual Cotton Planter in the World,” essentially owning the town of Rob Roy (Jefferson County) and all the land around, wants his wastrel son to settle down and take over the family business, but that life has no appeal to Rutherford. Meanwhile, sensing that Young Tom’s attentions are directed elsewhere, Virginia insists, one Sunday after church, that he make love to her, hoping that physical intimacy will strengthen their bond.

However, Old Tom later sees his son in the company of Stella—and discovers that the Phillips land has a $75,000 mortgage against it, which leads him to consider ways to pay that off so Young Tom will not be saddled with the debt via marriage; in part, this entails selling some timber on his land and merging his cotton brokerage with that of local businessman John Loudoun. When Stella discovers that Rutherford has had sex with Effie, she leaves the house, staying the night at the Hotel Pines before moving back into her Aunt Anna’s boarding house. But while Stella is visiting the Phillips family plantation with Virginia, she encounters Young Tom in a clearing amid the trees his father has just sold, and they have sex. Afterward, when she returns to town, Stella buys railroad tickets to St. Louis, determined to leave, but the next morning, after she had already boarded the train, Young Tom races to get on board right before it pulls from the station.

Meanwhile, a mill workers’ strike in New England leads to those mills rescinding the contracts they had with the Jordan and Loudoun brokerage, leaving the company in an insolvent position, given that good weather has produced a glut of cotton. That evening, Young Tom’s sister Mary (who had created a minor scandal ten years prior by marrying James Barnett, “a Yankee”) comes to the family house with a note that Young Tom had sent to her from the station. At the news that her son has fled and that the family faces financial peril, Kitty (Katherine King Jordan), the matriarch of the family, collapses and dies.

Old Tom later essentially disinherits his eldest son by giving the family home in Pine Bluff to Mary and his interest in the brokerage firm to James. Old Tom’s younger son, twenty-seven-year-old Richard, decides to leave his law practice and take Young Tom’s place helping his father with the cotton business. They are able to bring in an impressive crop in the fall, but Richard is shot and grievously injured while stopping a lynch mob from killing Lucky, one of the plantation’s hired hands who suffers from tuberculosis; Richard survives, coming to consciousness two weeks later in early November. Near Christmas, Stella writes to Mary to explain that Young Tom had had a nervous breakdown upon hearing news of his mother’s death but is doing better; they are married and have a dairy farm in Modesto, California. Upon receipt of his own letter from Stella, Bolton Pierce changes his will, disinheriting Rutherford and leaving almost everything to Stella, thus ironically assuring “the fruition of Old Tom’s dream for his eldest son.”

According to a January 2, 1949, article in the Arkansas Gazette, the book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Thompson turned down an offer of $75,000 for the film rights of A Seed in Spring, preferring to produce it through a motion picture company he had recently established, Mutual Artists, Inc. According to a July 1950 report in the Gazette, Thompson planned to conduct most of the filming in Pine Bluff. However, nothing seems to have come of this endeavor.

For additional information:
“Author Plans to Shoot Novel’s Movie Version in Pine Bluff.” Arkansas Gazette, July 25, 1950, p. 28.

“New at the Library.” Arkansas Democrat, August 1, 1948, p. 36.

“Review of A Seed in Spring.” Kirkus Reviews. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/edward-thompson/a-seed-in-spring/ (accessed October 14, 2026).

Sherwood, Diana. “Arkansas Novelist.” Arkansas Gazette, January 2, 1949, p. 1B.

Thompson, Edward. A Seed in Spring. Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith Company, 1948. Full text online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101682902 (accessed October 14, 2026).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas