We sat there for a long time without talking. The tractor and baler worked their way slowly up the field toward us, thump, thump, thump, the bales sliding up onto the wagon one after another. Reed stacked them in a perfect crisscross pattern, five high.
Grandpa kept his eyes closed. His lips were moving a little.
I leaned closer.
He was humming. Off-key, the same three lines over and over.
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves…
I had to look away out the driver’s side window for a minute.
When I looked back, I saw a figure walking across the stubble toward us from the north end of the field.
It was Brock.
He’d parked his big white Ram pickup on the road by Retta’s mailbox and was walking slowly across the cut field toward my car, his hands in his pockets, his John Deere cap pulled low. I learned later that Linda at the feed store had told him what we were doing that afternoon. I’d mentioned it when I bought the twine.
He reached the car and stopped on Grandpa’s side, beside the open window.
He didn’t say a word.
Grandpa opened his eyes and turned his head slowly. He looked at Brock for a long time. His grandson. The boy he’d raised in a tractor cab after Lars died. The farmer he’d signed over all his machinery to.
Brock took off his cap.
Then Grandpa started to speak.
“Brock,” he said. His voice was soft and rough. “Do you know who the last person was to run that baler before your cousin’s boys?”
Brock swallowed. “You were, Grandpa. In 2017.”
“No.” Grandpa shook his head slowly. “I mean the last person besides me.”
Brock didn’t answer.
“Your father,” Grandpa said. “Lars. August of 1988. The summer before the accident. He baled this same field. Walt Kopp’s field. Walt hired us to put up his brome that year because his baler broke.” He looked out across the field at the old pink baler thumping along. “You rode on the wagon that summer, Brock. You were five years old. Your father stacked and you sat in the middle of the load like a little king. You fell asleep on the bales on the way home every night.”
Brock’s face went white.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“I know you don’t,” Grandpa said. “You were five.”
Down in the field, the baler thumped. A bale slid up onto the wagon. Reed caught it.
“When your father died,” Grandpa said, “I almost sold that baler. I couldn’t look at it. Every time I hitched it up, I saw him on the wagon. But your grandmother said, ‘Arvid, that baler is the last thing Lars touched that still works. Don’t you dare sell it.’ So I kept it.” He paused. “And I kept baling with it. Every summer. For thirty years. For him.”
Brock put his hand over his eyes.
“When I signed the machinery over to you last winter,” Grandpa said, “I didn’t tell you about the baler. I thought you’d know. I thought you’d remember.” His voice cracked. “I should have told you. That’s on me, not you.”
“Grandpa,” Brock said. His voice broke. “I sold it to scrap. For three hundred dollars.”
“I know,” Grandpa said. “Retta told me. She came to visit me at Prairie View in July.”
I turned and stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I’ve known since July,” Grandpa said, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Retta Kopp can’t keep a secret to save her life. She told me the Lindeman baler was running in Walt’s field again. She said, ‘Arvid, your granddaughter’s boys are making hay.'” He looked at me. “I’ve been lying in that bed for six weeks waiting for you to come get me.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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