“And you still want it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The girl looked toward the dying soybeans.
“Because it’s free.”
Her father almost argued.
Then stopped.
Free had become persuasive.
They drove to the Dalton farm.
The two farmers came out specifically to watch.
One leaned against the barn.
“Well, she convinced you.”
The Farmer Father said nothing.
His daughter began loading pipe.
Some sections were too heavy.
Her father helped.
The farmers offered no assistance.
They watched.
Laughing occasionally when the girl tested old valves.
“Careful,” one called. “That’s precision engineering.”
The Farm Girl found a valve handle rusted nearly solid.
She twisted.
Nothing.
She placed it aside rather than discard it.
One farmer shook his head.
“Girl, that hasn’t moved since Ford was president.”
“Ford is president.”
The man paused.
The other farmer laughed.
“You know what he means.”
The girl returned to work.
Three truckloads later, the Harper farm had acquired a pile of scrap metal large enough to make the yard look worse than before.
Her mother stepped onto the porch.
“Oh my.”
The Farmer Father rubbed the back of his neck.
“That’s about what I said.”
The Farm Girl jumped from the truck.
“I need buckets.”
Her mother stared.
“For?”
“To sort things.”
“Before supper?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“After?”
“Yes.”
That evening, after dishes were washed, the Farm Girl sat beside the scrap pile with a notebook.
She separated pipes by length.
Marked obvious cracks with chalk.
Put valves in one row.
Couplings in another.
Her father watched from the porch.
“You know half that stuff is broken.”
“Not half.”
“What?”
“Twenty-three pipe sections.”
She looked at the notebook.
“Five are bent too badly.”
“Seven couplings are split.”
“Three valves won’t move.”
“One pipe has a hole.”
“That sounds broken.”
“Some of it.”
The Farmer Father came closer.
“What are you thinking?”
She pointed toward the soybean field.
The farm sloped.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The soybean field sat below the north pasture.
Above that pasture, beyond a low ridge, lay the remains of an old cattle lot her grandfather had abandoned before she was born.
The girl had been there many times.
An old windmill tower still stood.
So did a concrete trough.
And a round earthen reservoir.
Mostly forgotten.
“Could water run downhill without a pump?”
Her father frowned.
“Sure.”
“How much downhill?”
“Depends.”
“From Grandpa’s old cattle reservoir?”
Her father stared.
“That thing’s dry.”
“Have you checked?”
“This year?”
“No.”
“Last year?”
“No.”
“The year before?”
He looked toward the ridge.
“That reservoir hasn’t been used since before you were born.”
The girl waited.