Ellis reached in carefully.
The bundle was heavier than expected.
They set it on the workbench.
Unwrapped it.
A black metal document box appeared.
Unlike the safe, it was not locked.
Eli looked at his grandfather.
Ellis said, “Your forty dollars.”
Eli opened it.
No money.
No gold.
No jewelry.
Papers.
Old photographs.
Receipts.
Maintenance notebooks.
Folded surveys.
An iron object wrapped separately in cloth.
Eli's excitement dimmed for half a second.
Then Ellis picked up the first document.
“1928.”
The paper crackled.
They carried the entire box into the farmhouse.
Mae cleared the kitchen table.
Under the yellow overhead light, they began arranging the contents.
The photographs showed Harland Feed and Machine Works decades earlier.
Workers standing beside equipment.
Farmers posing near newly dug drainage channels.
Teams of horses pulling machines.
Men knee-deep in mud beside timber-lined waterways.
Eli picked up one photograph.
Seven men stood beside a narrow channel with shovels.
Handwriting on the back listed family names.
Mercer was one of them.