The Row With His Name On It

The Saw

Ben ran the Larsons’ tree through the shaker. Hannah helped Tyler feed it through the baler. The baler stuck halfway, the way it had been sticking for three seasons, and Hannah had to push the trunk while Tyler pulled.

I stood up from the stool. I picked up Erik’s bow saw and walked over to Kurt.

By then there were two more cars coming up the lane. A family from Stratford I knew a little, with three kids in the back seat. An older couple in a Buick.

I held the saw out to him, handle first.

He looked at it. Then at me.

“The baler’s been sticking since 2023,” I said. “Erik never fixed it. I bet you can.”

He did not take the saw yet.

“Fifteen dollars an hour,” I said. “Every Saturday and Sunday from now till Christmas. And every planting day in April, because nobody planted this year and we’re behind.”

I said it in a normal voice, not loud. But the family from Stratford was getting out of their car ten feet away, and the older couple was right behind them, and Megan and Tyler were still standing by their tree. Everyone heard it.

“Half of what you earn comes off what you took,” I said. “I’ll keep the count. Half goes home with you, because Katie and Sam are going to have a Christmas.”

Kurt looked at me for a long time. His jaw was working. I could see him wanting to say something, a hundred somethings, and choosing none of them.

Then he reached out and took the saw.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

He walked over to the baler. He looked at it for about thirty seconds. Then he went into the barn and came back with a crescent wrench and a can of WD-40, and he lay down on his back on the frozen ground in his Carhartt and went to work.

The Morning

It got busy after that. It always does, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. By ten o’clock there were eleven cars parked in the field along the lane.

I sat at the card table and took the money and gave the change and wrote out receipts for the people who wanted them. Hannah handed out saws and tags and pointed out which rows had the tallest trees. Ben ran the shaker until his face was red with cold and pride.

And Kurt ran the baler. He had it fixed by a quarter after nine. A sheared bolt in the feed rollers, he said, and a chain that had stretched. He did not make a speech about it. He just fed trees through and tossed them up into truck beds and onto car roofs and tied them down with twine.

Around eleven Kim from the lab drove up with her husband. She had come back to buy a second tree for her daughter.

She saw me at the table and stopped dead. Then she saw Kurt at the baler. Then she looked back at me.

“Nicole,” she said. “Oh, honey. I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t,” I said. “Go pick a good one. Row nine has the best shape this year.”