The Moisture Reading Everyone Saw

Marcy is the county extension agent. She has her office three doors down from my desk, and she has a degree in agronomy and a coat with the county seal on the back that she wears to every field day. She is fifty-two and married to a hog farmer, and she is the least dramatic person I know.

I told her what I thought was happening. I told her about Conrad’s meter and about the tickets in the recipe tin. She listened without a word and then she opened the cabinet behind her desk.

“This one gets checked against the reference samples every September,” she said. “It was done in September. It will read within a half point of anything honest.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“I’ll bring it.” She took her coat off the hook. “I do not want it leaving the building without someone who can testify to what it read.”

I had not asked her to come. She just came.

Then I called Pete at the seed dealer, who lent me a second meter, a newer Perten with a good screen. He asked what for and I told him the truth. He was quiet for a second.

“Take it,” he said. “Take it and keep it a week if you need to. I’ve been hearing talk.”

I did not ask what talk. I wrote his name on my hand so I would not forget to bring it back.

Then I baked caramel rolls. Two dozen, Thursday night, after work. I knew the line would be long on Saturday, and men who stand in line for forty minutes in October get cold and tired and mean.

I did not want to humiliate anyone. I wanted to be able to say, if anyone asked, that we had brought breakfast.

Curt said I was out of my mind. Then he put the rolls in the truck cab on Saturday morning and wrapped a dish towel around the pan to keep them warm.

“If Brent throws a fit,” Curt said, “I will be standing right behind you.”

“He will not throw a fit.”

“Why not?”

“Because he will want everybody to think he has nothing to hide.”

We got to the elevator at ten. It was a clear bright morning, cold enough that you could see your breath, with the first hard frost still white along the base of the fence. The sky was that deep North Dakota blue that looks like it was ironed.

There were eight trucks in front of us when we pulled in. There were more behind.

I knew most of them. Gunnar Pedersen, who has been farming since he was nineteen. Kenny Rask, in his green seed cap, eating a sausage biscuit. The Ostby brothers, who have not agreed on anything since 1994 but sit in the same truck on harvest Saturdays. Alma Rudd’s grandson, hauling for her. A man from Jamestown I did not know.

Marcy was already there, parked by the fence. She wore the county coat. She had the extension office meter in a canvas bag, and she set it on the tailgate of Curt’s truck like it was a wedding cake.

Pete from the seed dealer drove up a few minutes later and handed me the second meter. He did not say hello to anyone. He just stood by Marcy with his hands in his jacket pockets.

I carried a roll over to Gunnar Pedersen’s window. “Mind waiting a few extra minutes?” I said. “I’ve got breakfast.”