The Cherry Logs From the Home Hill

I heard later that by the end of the week, three different farmers had called the mill in town and asked Lyle, polite as you please, whether he’d mind if they came and watched him grade their logs this time.

I didn’t feel good about any of that, and I didn’t feel bad about it either.

I hadn’t said a word against my cousin to anyone. The boards had done the talking. That’s all I’d wanted from the start.

On Tuesday afternoon, I was out at Dad’s place helping him carry the twelve cherry boards up into the dry corner of the hay loft, where he wanted to stack them on stickers to air-dry over the winter.

We were just coming down the ladder when we heard a truck in the yard.

It was Lyle’s pickup. He parked by the porch and turned off the engine and sat there for a minute.

Then he got out, and he walked to the bottom of the porch steps, and stopped there.

Dad walked across the yard and up onto the porch and stood at the top of the steps.

I stayed a few feet back, by the porch post. I wasn’t going to say anything unless I had to. This was between the two of them.

Lyle took off his cap and held it in both hands. He looked older than he had on Thursday. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept much, and I believe that was true.

“Uncle Arvid,” he said. “I heard about Saturday.”

“I expect you did,” Dad said.

Lyle turned the cap around in his hands. “I don’t have a good reason,” he said finally.

“The mill’s in trouble. The bank’s been on me since spring. I’ve been grading short on anybody I thought wouldn’t check, and I told myself it was just to get through the winter.”

He looked up at Dad. “But I did it to you. You taught me to run a saw when I was twelve years old. I knew what was in those logs the minute I saw the ends. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”

Dad didn’t say anything for a while. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his plaid coat and took out the check.

It was still folded the way he’d folded it in the truck, once, very neat. He held it out.

Lyle came up the steps and took it. He looked at it in his hand.

Then he tore it in half, and in half again, and again, until it was little pieces, and he put the pieces in the pocket of his jacket.

“I’ll make it right with Orrin,” he said. “And the others. I’ve already started. I called the bank this morning and told them where things really stand. I’d rather lose the mill honest than keep it like this.”

Dad nodded slowly. “That’s the first good thing you’ve said,” he told him.

“I’ll say this once, Lyle, and then I’m done saying it. There won’t be a next load. Not from this place. Not from me.”

“I know,” Lyle said. “I wouldn’t expect it.”

Then Dad looked at him a long moment, and something in his face let go a little.

He jerked his head toward the kitchen door. “Coffee’s on,” he said. “Your aunt made a coffee cake. You might as well sit down.”

Lyle stood there like he hadn’t heard right. Then he followed Dad into the kitchen.

Mom poured him a cup without a word and cut him a piece of coffee cake, and the three of them sat at the table.