Somebody had set Ruthann’s old jar on the plank table. The one that said Flowers for the Post Hall. I do not know who found it or who thought of it, but it was there, and before the afternoon was out it was full.
Not with ten dollar bills. With ones, and a few fives, and the kind of change a kid empties out of his own pocket when he does not understand yet but he can feel that something is being asked of him. It bought flowers that Christmas. It bought a lot of flowers.
And that was when Chet’s truck came up the field road.
I saw it in the mirror, the farm truck with the pumpkin patch sign still magnetic on the door, and my stomach went down, because here it was, the thing Bud said was coming, and I had promised Pastor Al I would not do this at Chet and now Chet was forty feet away and climbing out of his truck with his jaw set and the whole county standing there to watch whatever happened next.
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Chet walked up through the parted crowd to the side of the wagon. Nobody said anything. Pastor Al took a step like he might get between us.
Chet stopped at the wagon and he looked up at the men in the hay, and I watched him find Walt Pruitt in the front corner with the maple leaf still in his hand and the lap robe over his knees.
And Chet’s little girl, Katie, eight years old, came out of the crowd before anybody could catch her and took her daddy’s hand and said, loud, the way an eight year old says things, “Daddy, is this Grandpa’s ride? Is this the one Grandpa used to do?”
The whole gate heard it. Chet heard it.
He stood there with his daughter’s hand in his and his father’s old soldiers looking down at him out of the church wagon, and he opened his mouth to say something.