Not sales calls.
Research.
His mother insisted he use a script.
“Hello, this is the farm boy from north of Hawthorne.”
No.
Too childish.
“Hello, I’m cataloging replacement plates for older mechanical planters.”
Better.
He called farmers from church directories.
Numbers from implement-shop bulletin boards.
Names his father supplied.
“What planter do you run?”
“What model?”
“What crops?”
“Do you have spare plates?”
Most farmers were amused.
Some answered seriously.
He marked everything.
By February, the notebook contained forty-seven farms using plate planters old enough to need discontinued parts.
Within forty miles.
His father stared at the list one evening.
“That many?”
“Yes.”
“I thought most were gone.”
“People keep them for beans.”
“Some use them for backup.”
“Some can’t afford newer planters.”
His father read names.
“I know half these men.”
“Call them.”
The boy looked up.
“Why?”
“Ask whether they’d buy.”
The first real sale happened February 18.
A farmer needed four sorghum plates for an old four-row planter.
The boy had seven.
He charged five dollars each.
Twenty dollars.
The farmer paid without bargaining.
After the truck left, the boy stood holding the bills.
His father leaned against the barn door.
“How much did those four cost you?”
The boy calculated.
“About eighty cents.”
His father whistled.
The boy smiled.
His father immediately ruined it.
“Don’t get greedy.”
“I’m not.”
“You just made twenty-five times your cost.”
“So?”
“So remember that the man needed them to plant.”
The boy folded the money.
“What should I charge?”
His father shrugged.
“Enough to make it worth your work.”
“Not enough to punish somebody for needing what you have.”
That became his rule.
Spring approached.
The county changed color.
Snow disappeared.
Fields softened.
Seed trucks moved.
Farmers repaired machinery.
The boy’s plate business remained small.
A few sales.
Three dollars.
Eight.
Fifteen.
One set for thirty.
By March, he had earned $147.
Not enough to make anyone “beg.”
Not enough to justify the auction crowd’s attention.
The older farmer who had mocked him stopped at the feed store one Saturday.
He saw the boy.
“How’s the scrap empire?”
The boy answered:
“Fine.”
“Make your fortune?”
“Not yet.”
The farmer laughed.
“Knew it.”
Then he bought two sacks of mineral supplement and left.
The boy watched him go.
The feed-store owner said:
“Don’t mind him.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
The boy smiled.
“Mostly.”
The owner looked toward the door.
“He runs an old six-row planter.”
The boy looked back.
“What model?”
The owner grinned.
“I thought you didn’t mind.”
The boy took out his notebook.
“What model?”
The answer would matter six weeks later.
The spring of 1979 arrived wet.