To Tom, every completed row was a small answer. The machine pulled, the soil opened, the seed dropped, and the furrow closed behind it. When he reached the far turn, he looked back across the field and saw straight lines where there had been broken tracks and warning tape. He did not rush the next pass. He let the speed remain steady, trusted the plan he had helped build, and paid attention to the ground rather than to the clock alone.
At noon Ray drove over with a cooler and a folding chair that had one short leg. Gary arrived from his own field carrying a thermos and a paper bag of sandwiches, insisting that he had come to check whether Tom was treating his tractor properly. Jenny brought lemonade from the house. The four of them ate on the grassy shoulder of the road while the planter sat quiet in the field. Nobody turned the meal into a celebration, but Tom noticed that everybody seemed to stay longer than necessary.
Ray asked whether the repaired area had shown any new settling. Tom told him he had seen none and that he was checking after each rainfall as Dana recommended. Gary said he would be more careful around the old drainage lines on his own ground, which surprised Tom because Gary seldom admitted anyone else's misfortune had taught him something. Jenny passed him another sandwich and said that perhaps every farmer ought to spend an afternoon comparing maps rather than guessing what a field contained. The suggestion met with affectionate complaints, but nobody dismissed it.
"When we were kids," Gary said, "Harold used to make us walk the drainage ditch after storms. I thought he just wanted somebody else to pick up the branches."
Tom smiled. "He did want that."
"He always stopped at the outlet on the Creek Forty. Every time. I'd forgotten until you found the map."
Ray looked toward the water. "He had a reason for doing it. Didn't always explain his reasons, though."
"Neither have I," Tom said. "Maybe that's something I ought to change."
They finished lunch without solving any more of the world's problems. Tom returned to the tractor, and the others went back to their own work. He planted through the afternoon until the sun moved west and long shadows reached across the lower end of the field. When the last planned row was complete, he lifted the planter and let the tractor idle at the headland. The screen showed forty acres accounted for, six days later than he had intended.
Six days could matter in a spring corn season. Tom knew the later planting might reduce the yield of his best ground and that good weather could not be promised into existence. He did not tell himself the delay was meaningless. It had cost money, time, and the easy confidence with which he began the month. Yet the other three hundred sixty acres had been planted on schedule, the Creek Forty was safely back in production, and no one had been hurt.
He phoned Jenny. "It's done," he said.
There was silence for a moment, and then she asked, "All forty?"
"Every row we planned. Six days late."
"I'll take it," she said.
"So will I."