The Baler My Cousin Wanted to Scrap

Two thousand bales. At nine dollars apiece. Eighteen thousand dollars, gross, from a three hundred dollar baler that was going to be scrap iron.

After Retta’s share, the parts, the twine and the diesel, the boys each had over four thousand dollars in the bank. Tucker’s was going to a used pickup. Reed’s was going nowhere, he said, until he figured out what he wanted most.

But that wasn’t what I thought about that night, lying awake with my arms aching. I thought about Grandpa.

Grandpa Ansel lived in the assisted living center on the north end of town, in a small room with a window that faced the parking lot and a picture of my grandmother on the dresser.

He was 88. His legs were bad and his hearing was going, but his mind was clear as a bell. He still read the farm paper front to back every week and could tell you the price of wheat at three different elevators.

I didn’t tell him about the baler because I was afraid. Afraid of how it would feel to him, knowing Brock had almost scrapped it without a word. Afraid it would break down the one day I brought him out to hear it.

I wanted to bring it to him finished, or not at all.

So on the Saturday after bale 2,000, I went in the morning and signed him out at the front desk. The aide helped me get him into my car, with his walker folded in the trunk and a pillow behind his back.

“Where are we going?” he asked, looking out the window at the parking lot.

“For a drive,” I said. “Just out to see some fields.”

“In August?” he said. “There’s nothing to see in August but beans and dust and grasshoppers.”

“You’ll see,” I said, and I almost laughed, because that was exactly what Brock had said to me in the machine shed that day in June.

I turned in at Retta’s field gate and stopped and shut off the engine. The second cutting lay in long windrows down the field, curing in the sun. Cordell’s green tractor sat at the near end with the old red baler hitched behind it.

Tucker was on the tractor. Reed was standing on the wagon. My husband stood by the chute with his gloves on. Cordell stood beside the tractor with his hands in his overall pockets, waiting.

Grandpa went very still in his seat.

He leaned forward and looked through the windshield for a long time. His hands came up off his knees, just a little, like he wanted to reach for something.

“Jana,” he said, so quietly I barely heard him. “Is that my baler?”

“It’s yours, Grandpa,” I said. “The boys got it running. Cordell helped.”

I rolled his window down so he could hear, and I lifted one hand to Tucker on the tractor.

Tucker pushed the power takeoff lever forward. The flywheel started to turn, slow and then faster, and the old baler started to thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The plunger packing the hay. The needles swinging up and the knotters clicking over.

A bale slid out the chute and dropped onto the stubble, tied tight on both strings.

Grandpa closed his eyes.

He didn’t say anything for a long time. He just sat there with his eyes closed and listened. His hand found my arm on the seat between us and held on. His fingers were thin as kindling, but his grip was strong.