The manager looked at her.
“How much yield?”
She opened her notebook.
The adults stared.
She had recorded plant counts.
Sample pods.
Field sections.
Extension estimates.
The manager took the notebook.
His expression changed.
“You did this?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward her father.
“These numbers accurate?”
“As far as we can measure.”
The manager calculated.
“If prices hold…”
The Farmer Father leaned forward.
“We can cover most of the balance after harvest.”
“Most.”
“Yes.”
“Still not all.”
The Farm Girl asked, “What if we sell water?”
Both men turned.
“What?”
She had thought about the reservoir.
Not the water itself.
The knowledge.
Several neighboring farms sat below the ridge.
Some had fields close enough to temporary pipe routes.
Her father stared.
“You can’t sell enough water to make thousands.”
“No.”
“But maybe after harvest we help fields.”
The bank manager looked unexpectedly interested.
“How?”
“Rent pipe.”
Her father frowned.
“We barely have pipe.”
“Now.”
She looked toward him.
“But everyone has pieces.”
Silence.
The manager tapped the notebook.
“What exactly are you proposing?”
The Farm Girl did not have an exact proposal.
She hated admitting it.
“I don’t know yet.”
The manager almost smiled.
Her father did.
The meeting ended differently than expected.
Thirty-day extension.
Not mercy.
Collateral.
The bank manager believed the crop had improved enough that immediate foreclosure might recover less than waiting.
It was cold reasoning.
The Harpers accepted anyway.
Another month.
Harvest would begin within three weeks.
The soybeans continued recovering.
Not all.
Enough sections turned green that the field no longer looked entirely dead from the road.
Drivers slowed to look.
Newspapers heard.
A reporter from Wichita arrived.
The Farm Girl hated him immediately.
He asked her to pose beside the valve pretending to turn it.
“I already turned it.”
“Could you turn it again?”
“It’s open.”
“Pretend.”
“No.”
He looked toward her father.
The father shrugged.
“Her system.”
The reporter eventually photographed her tightening a real coupling.
The article appeared Sunday.
TEN-YEAR-OLD FARM GIRL BUILDS DROUGHT IRRIGATION FROM SCRAP.
The Farm Girl disliked the headline.
“It says I built it.”
“You did,” her mother said.
“Dad helped.”
“So?”
“The neighbors helped.”
“So?”
“Grandpa built the reservoir.”
Her mother smiled.
“Articles are small.”
“What does that mean?”
“They cannot hold everybody.”
The girl frowned.
She did not like that either.