After he left, Ben stood with her by the barn. "You can't run a farm on a banker's maybe," he said.
"I know."
"And you can't pay him with trees nobody will buy."
"I know that, too."
He looked at her, surprised perhaps by the absence of argument. Clara told him she planned to repair the wagon, sell the surplus tools, and look for paid work in town beyond her dime-store shifts. She did not say the trees would save everything. That would have been easier and less honest than what she intended. Ben studied the barn door, then removed his cap and scratched the back of his head.
"I'll help you get the wagon roadworthy," he said at last. "But I'm not promising I think staying is wise."
"You don't have to."
He glanced toward the field. "And I still think those sticks are going to rot."
Clara almost laughed. "You can think that while you help me replace the bearing."
They worked together on the wagon that Sunday, speaking mostly about bolts, grease, and the stubborn axle. It was not a reconciliation, and Clara would later think of it as something better than an argument postponed. Her father knew how to fix a wheel. She knew how to hold the parts steady and listen without turning every warning into a personal attack. By sundown the wagon rolled straight enough to sell.
Harold Vance appeared later that week, carrying a clipboard and a county office folder. He was a thin man with thick glasses, polished boots, and a habit of beginning sentences before the other person had quite finished speaking. He had been the extension agent for sixteen years and took his work seriously, often in a way that made people feel their lives were interruptions to his methods. He had heard about Clara's planting from three farmers who could not describe it without laughing, and he had decided to investigate the condition of the creek bank for himself.
"Miss Jennings," he said, stopping beside her porch, "I understand you're placing cut branches in flooded agricultural ground. Would you explain the purpose?"
She showed him the note and the rows. Vance read Evelyn's instructions and held the page at arm's length as though hoping more sensible words might become visible. He waded into the shallower section, examining the bark with a little magnifying glass he kept in his pocket, then tried scraping one of the nodes with his thumbnail. Clara asked him not to damage the cuttings before he had any reason to suspect disease. He looked up, faintly surprised to be corrected by the owner of the land.
"They resemble white willow," he said. "The species can be propagated from dormant wood, but this ground has a serious drainage problem. Roots require oxygen. If the water stays too deep, they'll fail, and failure in a wet place can encourage decay."