The Tractor No Hand Went Up For

I found Doyle again and I asked him one thing only. I asked if I could stand up on the flatbed hay wagon parked right beside the M, and say a few words to the crowd before lot 40 crossed.

He rubbed the back of his neck a long moment. He said the company could not take a side in this.

I understood that, and I said so. I did not want to cost that good man his job.

Then he looked at me. A woman in church shoes who had not slept, who had driven up in the dark.

He said, I cannot stop a person from standing on a wagon in a free country.

He said, I cannot hand you the microphone, and I cannot hold the crowd for you. The rest is between you and them.

That was all I needed. That was Doyle telling me yes the only way he could.

I found old Walt in the crowd and told him my plan, such as it was. His jaw set hard.

He said, I will be right down front, Darlene. You say your piece, and let these men do the rest. The chant got closer. Lot 30. Lot 34. Lot 36.

My heart was going like a trip hammer. I walked to the hay wagon beside my husband’s tractor.

I put one hand on the rear wheel. And I climbed up.

I Climbed The Wagon

I have never once in my life spoken to a crowd. I taught the six-year-olds in the church basement for a few years, and that is the whole of my public speaking. My knees were water under me.

The flatbed with the auctioneer was two lots away. The chant was rolling.

Nobody was looking at me yet, just a woman standing alone on an empty hay wagon in the morning sun. So I cupped my hands.

I called out as loud as I have ever been in my life. I said, excuse me.

I said, before you bid on this next tractor, I need to tell you whose it is. And then I waited.

The chant stopped. It is a strange thing, three hundred men going quiet at once in an open field.

The auctioneer lowered his microphone and looked over at me. The ring man looked. Every cap turned.

I said, my name is Darlene. I said, my husband is Earl, from down in Scott Township.

A lot of you know him. A lot of you have waved at this tractor in the Labor Day parade for twenty years.

I said, this is his daddy’s 1948 Farmall M. Earl pulled it out of the weeds behind the corn crib and spent four winters bringing it back to life with his own two hands.

I said, he is in the intensive care unit in Fort Wayne this morning. He had a stroke on Tuesday, and his heart quit on top of it in our driveway, and they are not sure yet which way he goes.

My voice broke on the word Tuesday, and I let it break. I did not try to be smooth about any of it.