Their next conversation was not about stones at all. Thomas asked how much time Eli had spent hauling them, and Eli tried to estimate the hours without making the number seem as large as it was. His father pressed him to count the trips, the labor, the damaged wheelbarrow wheel, and the portion of the field the experiment occupied. "A method that saves a plant but takes a hundred hours for one row may not save a farm," he said.
Eli had not considered the question in those terms. He had thought about the cost of buying tools or replacing seed, but his own time had seemed free because nobody paid him for it. Thomas explained that labor was never free, even when a family did the work itself. Every hour spent carrying rock was an hour not spent repairing the barn, clearing weeds, or earning money on a neighbor's tractor.
Together they made a new calculation. There were stones available from piles that other farmers wanted removed, and the family owned the wheelbarrow and hand tools already. Carrying them by hand across the entire four acres would be impossible, but a small sled drawn behind the old garden tractor might move several loads at once if Thomas could repair its hitch. Eli started to smile, then caught himself and reminded his father that they still did not know whether a larger patch would be worth the effort.
"Good," Thomas replied. "Now you're thinking like somebody who can afford to stay in business." He stood, dusted off his knees, and looked across the field again. "Let's wait another week, check the roots, and see what the weather brings. If the difference holds, we'll talk about a larger test."
The week passed slowly. Eli recorded morning and afternoon observations, checked the surviving plants for new growth, and resisted the temptation to invite every skeptical neighbor to inspect his work. Ruth noticed he was eating breakfast faster, as though getting to the field might protect the plants from some unnamed danger. She told him not to hurry through meals and reminded him that learning patience did not count for much if he could only practice it while lifting stones.
The weather was cooperative only in small ways. A mild shower arrived before dawn on Thursday, leaving the soil damp without cutting fresh gullies through it. The afternoon turned hot and windy, yet by evening Eli could still feel moisture in the protected section while the exposed ground had dried near the surface. He checked again the next day, finding the difference still present but less pronounced.
At supper he reported the results without exaggeration. The stones had not kept the soil wet for days beyond reason, and two of the comparison areas had performed differently despite receiving nearly the same rain. Eli suspected the organic matter and the depth of loose soil mattered as much as the stone cover. Thomas nodded and told him that admitting uncertainty was a useful thing in a profession where the weather delighted in proving men wrong.