The Moisture Tester on His Tailgate

Burl Hagan

Burl Hagan is fifty-two. He came to our elevator eight years ago from a bigger one down by Hays, and he is the kind of manager who still climbs the leg himself when it jams.

People here like him, which is not easy for a man who did not grow up here.

He came out of the office at about ten after one.

He had his own cap on and a clipboard under his arm, and his face was the face of a man who has just been told something he did not want to hear but believed.

He walked down the line to Tate’s tailgate first. He did not go to the scale house first. He went to the boy.

“You Tate?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Show me how you ran these.”

Tate showed him. He poured a fresh sample from his coffee can, packed the cap down, and read it out. Twelve point one.

Burl watched every step. Then he asked to see the meter, turned it over in his hands, and looked at the calibration date on the sticker.

“That is a good meter,” Burl said. “Those read within half a point if you run them right. And you ran it right.”

Then he turned and looked at the line, which by now had almost every man out of his cab and standing on the gravel.

He raised his voice just enough to carry, and he said something I will remember the rest of my life.

“I keep a retained sample of every load that comes across that scale,” he said.

“Every one. They are in bags on the shelf in the back of the scale house with the ticket number on them. I am going to rerun the last three days myself, right now, and I want all of you to watch.”

The scale house has a wide front window on the side away from the road. Burl went inside. He walked past Lowell without a word.

He picked up the bench meter screen and turned it around on its stand so it faced out that window toward the gravel.

Then he pulled down the first bag of retained samples and started running them.

The men gathered at that window. I got out of my car then. I could not stay in it any longer.

I walked up and stood at the back of the crowd, behind Arvid, and I could see the screen over his shoulder.

Burl would read the ticket number off the bag, out loud. Then he would pour the sample, wait for the reading, and say the number out loud.

Then a farmer would hold up his ticket, and somebody would say the number on the ticket out loud.

Most of them matched. Most of them matched almost to the tenth.

And each time they matched, Burl said, “That one is right,” and set the bag on a separate pile, and pulled down the next.

Then he got to Arvid’s load from the day before. The screen read eleven point seven. Arvid’s ticket read thirteen point nine.

Burl looked at the bag for a long time, and he did not say “that one is right.” He just set it on a different pile.

Then he got to Tate’s loads. Six bags. He ran every one of them. Twelve point two. Twelve point one. Twelve point three. Twelve point one. Twelve point zero. Twelve point two.

Every one of Tate’s tickets had been marked over fourteen.

Lowell was standing in the back corner of the scale house the whole time, where everybody at that window could see him. He did not leave.

I will give him that. He stood there with his arms at his sides and his reading glasses in his hand, and he watched every number come up.