Read Online Big Wheat by Richard A. Thompson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard A. Thompson
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around here?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly from around here and wouldn’t mind a ride. You’re kind of a foggy character, Charlie Bacon.”
“Maybe I got confused, being taught all that respect.”
He laughed. It was an easy, likeable laugh, with no trace of sarcasm in it. “I like that. Anyway, factories make all the tricky stuff now, and folks stick it together themselves, is the thing, except for the really complicated machines. But when the tricky stuff breaks, that’s when they need somebody like me. If it’s got gears or wheels or chains or belts, I can fix it. You give me the right materials, I can even make a new one. Anything mechanical.”
“Steam engines?”
“Sure, why not? They’re just another machine, only hotter and heavier than most. More ways to get hurt on them, too, and more ways for them to hurt themselves.”
“Wow. I mean, that sounds like a fine thing to be. How does somebody get to be something like that?”
“It’s a fine thing to be if people pay their bills like they should and if you don’t get burned or cut or crushed or crippled and maimed in any of a hundred ways. Yeah, it’s good stuff. I hate the money end of it, though. Farmers are tighter than a mouse’s asshole.”
“Just some of them, I think. The big ones, mostly. They think having a big spread and some machinery gives them the right to talk down to everybody else while they rob them.”
“Sounds like you know the type, all right. What does it mean, that you’re not exactly from around here? You following the harvest?”
“Well, the north half of it, anyways. I just started, about a hundred miles south of here. My brother says I’m on a vision quest.” That, also, came out of his mouth with no conscious volition at all. Had he referred to his brother just because he didn’t know how else to describe George Ravenwing? Whatever the reason, just as the Indian had predicted, he felt as if he had just stepped over a threshold, into a world where things were not what he had grown up with. And it felt as irreversible as it was exciting. He decided he had better say something else, quick, before he had to explain a vision quest.
“What’s a vision quest? That anything like a holy grail?”
Too late.
“I think it’s a lot like it. But I don’t understand it all that well, so I don’t talk about it.”
“Except to me.”
“Yeah, well, that sort of surprised me, too.”
“How old are you, Charlie?”
“How old should an apprentice machinist be?” He was twenty-three. But he thought that might be too old for an apprentice, and he suddenly found that he wanted to be one. Could he pass for eighteen? Twenty?
“You can forget that apprentice idea. I have a hard enough time feeding the people I got now. I’m on my way to the Bjorkland spread, to put a planetary gear I welded up into a Case separator. You’re welcome to tag along and watch, but after that, you’re on your own.”
“Fair enough.” More than fair, in fact
. The people he’s got now? What might that mean
? Did the man have sons who would inherit the trade? He decided not to ask. Not yet, anyway.
They rode in silence for another half hour, then turned into a driveway by a hand-painted sign nailed to a fence post. The top of the post also had a planter box with daisies growing out of it. “Oleanna Farm,” the sign proclaimed. Charlie had a silent chuckle at that.
They pulled into the middle of a circular gravel area that had all the farm buildings arrayed around it —house, barn, granary, chicken coop, hog house, corncrib, and a three-bay machine shed. Beyond the barn, acres and acres of shocked wheat marched off to the horizon, and in front of it, sitting idle, stood a new dark green Case threshing machine and a black Minneapolis overmounted steam traction engine. The engine looked as if it had steam up, but nothing was moving. The thresher had a big flat panel removed on the side where the huge belt-pulley stuck out.
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly from around here and wouldn’t mind a ride. You’re kind of a foggy character, Charlie Bacon.”
“Maybe I got confused, being taught all that respect.”
He laughed. It was an easy, likeable laugh, with no trace of sarcasm in it. “I like that. Anyway, factories make all the tricky stuff now, and folks stick it together themselves, is the thing, except for the really complicated machines. But when the tricky stuff breaks, that’s when they need somebody like me. If it’s got gears or wheels or chains or belts, I can fix it. You give me the right materials, I can even make a new one. Anything mechanical.”
“Steam engines?”
“Sure, why not? They’re just another machine, only hotter and heavier than most. More ways to get hurt on them, too, and more ways for them to hurt themselves.”
“Wow. I mean, that sounds like a fine thing to be. How does somebody get to be something like that?”
“It’s a fine thing to be if people pay their bills like they should and if you don’t get burned or cut or crushed or crippled and maimed in any of a hundred ways. Yeah, it’s good stuff. I hate the money end of it, though. Farmers are tighter than a mouse’s asshole.”
“Just some of them, I think. The big ones, mostly. They think having a big spread and some machinery gives them the right to talk down to everybody else while they rob them.”
“Sounds like you know the type, all right. What does it mean, that you’re not exactly from around here? You following the harvest?”
“Well, the north half of it, anyways. I just started, about a hundred miles south of here. My brother says I’m on a vision quest.” That, also, came out of his mouth with no conscious volition at all. Had he referred to his brother just because he didn’t know how else to describe George Ravenwing? Whatever the reason, just as the Indian had predicted, he felt as if he had just stepped over a threshold, into a world where things were not what he had grown up with. And it felt as irreversible as it was exciting. He decided he had better say something else, quick, before he had to explain a vision quest.
“What’s a vision quest? That anything like a holy grail?”
Too late.
“I think it’s a lot like it. But I don’t understand it all that well, so I don’t talk about it.”
“Except to me.”
“Yeah, well, that sort of surprised me, too.”
“How old are you, Charlie?”
“How old should an apprentice machinist be?” He was twenty-three. But he thought that might be too old for an apprentice, and he suddenly found that he wanted to be one. Could he pass for eighteen? Twenty?
“You can forget that apprentice idea. I have a hard enough time feeding the people I got now. I’m on my way to the Bjorkland spread, to put a planetary gear I welded up into a Case separator. You’re welcome to tag along and watch, but after that, you’re on your own.”
“Fair enough.” More than fair, in fact
. The people he’s got now? What might that mean
? Did the man have sons who would inherit the trade? He decided not to ask. Not yet, anyway.
They rode in silence for another half hour, then turned into a driveway by a hand-painted sign nailed to a fence post. The top of the post also had a planter box with daisies growing out of it. “Oleanna Farm,” the sign proclaimed. Charlie had a silent chuckle at that.
They pulled into the middle of a circular gravel area that had all the farm buildings arrayed around it —house, barn, granary, chicken coop, hog house, corncrib, and a three-bay machine shed. Beyond the barn, acres and acres of shocked wheat marched off to the horizon, and in front of it, sitting idle, stood a new dark green Case threshing machine and a black Minneapolis overmounted steam traction engine. The engine looked as if it had steam up, but nothing was moving. The thresher had a big flat panel removed on the side where the huge belt-pulley stuck out.
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