“Depends how deep.”
“How little can soybeans survive on?”
He did not know.
They visited the county extension office.
The agricultural agent initially spoke to the Farmer Father.
The father pointed toward his daughter.
“Her project.”
The agent looked surprised.
Then listened.
He spread field maps across a table.
“Beans need most moisture around flowering and pod set.”
The Farm Girl leaned closer.
“Which rows are still flowering?”
“Depends on planting.”
The Farmer Father answered.
The agent continued.
“If you cannot water the whole field, save the strongest section.”
The girl hated that.
“Let the rest die?”
The agent looked at her.
“Sometimes farming means choosing what can still be saved.”
She stared at the map.
“How many acres?”
“Maybe twelve to fifteen with the water you have.”
The girl’s shoulders fell.
The Farmer Father rested one hand on her back.
Fifteen acres.
Not sixty-eight.
That would not save the farm.
But the agent was not finished.
“You said the reservoir is spring fed?”
“Yes.”
“How fast does it recharge?”
They did not know.
Another test.
They marked the water line one evening.
Measured again twenty-four hours later after drawing down a controlled amount.
The reservoir had regained nearly three thousand gallons.
The Farmer Father checked twice.
“Do it again.”
They did.
Similar result.
The buried spring line still fed it.
Slowly.
Steadily.
The Farm Girl stared at the water.
“So it isn’t twenty thousand.”
“What?”
“It’s twenty thousand plus more every day.”
Her father nodded.
“Until the spring slows.”
“But it hasn’t.”
“No.”
Hope became dangerous.
They tried not to say too much.
The girl adjusted the irrigation plan.
Not flood irrigation.
Controlled turns.
Two branches at a time.
Only late afternoon and early evening to reduce evaporation.
Alternate sections.
Target strongest plants first.
The Farmer Father looked at the new notebook pages.
“You’ve been thinking.”
“Yes.”
“You sleep?”
“Some.”
“Not enough.”
“You don’t either.”
That ended the lecture.
The bank meeting happened the following Tuesday.
The Farm Girl waited outside in the pickup with her mother.
Through the glass doors, she could see her father sitting across from two men in suits.
Thirty minutes.
Forty.
Almost an hour.
When he returned, he did not start the truck immediately.
Her mother asked, “Well?”
“Three weeks.”
The Farm Girl’s stomach tightened.
“For what?”
Her father looked toward her.
“Payment.”
“How much?”
Her mother said, “That’s enough.”
But the Farm Girl asked again.
“How much?”
The Farmer Father answered.
“Seven thousand eight hundred.”
The girl understood only that it was more money than she could imagine.
“What happens if we don’t?”
Silence.