Tool Storage

by marksluce

Herbert Patterson sits at the kitchen table, drinks his coffee, pokes at his steak and eggs and worries about his spread. He’s got more acreage and head of cattle than he can handle, not enough money in the bank and a wife not suited for the farming life, even though she cooks like a farm wife. Marjorie manages the chickens and hogs just fine, but she refuses to get on a tractor, and she has made it clear she wants to move back to Ellsworth.

“Why don’t you just sell out to Jarvis? He knows this land better than your daddy, or his daddy, did.”

“What’ll he pay with? No bank’s going to give a hired hand that kind of money.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Herbert broaches the deal with Jarvis as they feed the cattle. “I’ve been working this land since before you was born. I’m happy just working, and I don’t want to go fooling with money men and deeds,” Jarvis says.

Herbert coaxes Otis Sanford to buy the section that fall by agreeing to pay Jarvis’s wages for a year. With a handshake, Herbert leaves three generations in another man’s hand.