by Nella Tyler
I’d worked right up until the third trimester of my pregnancy before giving birth, and eventually, I was sure that I’d probably be needed out in the fields again—enough to merit spending a half day, or a few half days out there—before the next harvest came. But in the meantime, I was null and void.
“You should put an ad in the classifieds, Dad,” I suggested. “I’m sure there are lots of guys in town who’d be willing to work hard for a decent paycheck. Hell, we’re not that far away from the college—you might be able to get a strapping young athlete to help you out in the fields.” Tuck and Dad both laughed, but I could see that Dad was actually mulling the idea over.
“I’m not going to have time to go through all the applications on my own,” he said after thinking it over.
“I’d be happy to help you screen them,” I told him. “I’ll even help you get the ad put in.”
“You seem pretty anxious to get someone out here,” Tuck said, giving me a playful-suspicious look. “Getting lonely, sis?” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m a single mother with a baby,” I pointed out. “No one is going to pay me any mind, even if I wanted them to. But Dad deserves some help around the farm to make the new expansion pay off.” I reached out for my dad’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Let’s head back to the house,” he suggested. “Give me a chance to think about it over dinner.” We walked back from the new expansion together, cutting across our own fields, still fallow from the winter.
It would be planting time soon, and even if Dad hadn’t bought the new plot of land to add onto the fields we already had, I probably would have suggested he find someone to help. He wasn’t so old yet that he absolutely couldn’t work the land, but neither he nor Mom were as young as they used to be—and with only me and Tuck to help them, they were going to start losing money soon if they didn’t hire out.
We started talking about what I planned to put into the vegetable garden once it was time to start planting there. We could get staples in town, and sometimes I liked to get something we couldn’t grow ourselves in the Iowa climate—oranges or peaches, things like that—but like most farmers, we grew and kept as much as possible: chickens for eggs and the occasional stew, tomatoes, squash, and beans in summer, cabbages, carrots, and other cold-weather vegetables in the fall and winter. I liked to experiment sometimes, getting different seeds from exchanges for stuff like heirloom tomatoes, different kinds of berries, or melons.
When the growing season would be at its peak out in the fields, Mom and I would be canning and freezing as much as we could. The farm made a good bit of money, but it went a lot farther if we didn’t have to buy much in the way of food. “I think I’m going to do a big herb garden this summer,” I said as we got closer to the house.
“Herbs aren’t much for eating,” Tuck pointed out. “Can’t have a salad made of ‘em, even.”
“But they make other stuff taste better, and one of the seed exchanges we belong to has some interesting stuff—chocolate mint, Thai basil, things like that.”
“Just make sure it’ll actually grow here before you put all that work in,” Dad suggested.
I’d bought seeds from a catalogue once that I had thought—hoped—would bring me armfuls of beautiful flowers. I’d been maybe fourteen at the time and just starting to really pull my weight around the house. Instead of beautiful flowers, I’d ended up with a bunch of dead sticks in the ground when the summer heat scorched the plants, and no amount of water or fertilizer could keep them alive.
When I’d gone crying to Dad about the failure, he’d looked up the plants and showed me that they were for a completely different “zone”—that had been the problem. Ever since then, I always checked twice or even three times before I took on a horticultural experiment, but I was pretty sure I’d never live that failure down, no matter how long I was on the earth.
“What have we got for supper tonight, Kimmie?” I could smell the meal Mom had made as soon as we got to the front door; I’d helped her early on, but she’d taken over the project when Dad had come home with the paperwork that proved his ownership of the new plot of land alongside our farm and Tuck and I had gone out with him to inspect it.
“Chicken and dumplings, with some of that corn relish you like so much and strawberry bars for dessert,” Mom told him. “I think we might still have some ice cream in the outside freezer if you really want it, but it’s still too cold for my blood.”
It was starting towards spring, but late at night, there was a chill in the air. I’d be grateful for my jacket when I left the main house with Addie to go to the guesthouse on the other end of the backyard.
I’d moved in after things had gone south with the father of my child, and while I’d felt a little strange at first, I’d actually gotten comfortable in the cozy little place with its two bedrooms, tiny kitchen, and old-fashioned furniture. My parents didn’t have guests that often, anyway—that was why they’d offered the mini-house to me, instead of making me move back into my old room.
I got my daughter out of the family room where she’d been playing with some of her toys in her playpen and loaded her up into her high chair. Addie didn’t eat all that much in the way of real food just yet, but I made a point of seating her at the table for every meal and giving her a little bit of everything so she’d get used to meals gradually—and so she wouldn’t get to be a picky eater like Tuck had been as a kid. I helped Mom serve up big bowls of the chicken and dumplings and a little plate of the delicious, rib-sticking food for my little girl, and we all sat down to eat.
“Autumn seems to think I’m going to need some help managing that extension,” Dad said to Mom after we’d all had a few bites of food.
“I still say we can handle it on our own,” Tuck insisted, wiping his mouth at the corners after devouring a big chunk of stewed chicken. “We’ve got equipment, and it’s not like it’ll take as much effort as the larger part of the field.”
“But you two barely managed to keep up with the rest of the farm last year,” Mom pointed out. “I think hiring someone on makes sense; it’ll give you some insurance that you’ll get the most out of the new land.”
“That was pretty much what I was starting to think,” Dad admitted. “And since Autumn volunteered to help me get through all the responses, I think it’s what we’ll do.”
“How much are you going to pay?” I checked on Addie briefly. She was smearing one of the noodle-like dumplings against her lips, not really eating it, but she’d managed to get some of the carrots and peas into her mouth.
“I’ll have to see what everyone else is paying,” Dad said. “I don’t want to cut into my profits too hard, but I also don’t want to lowball anyone who’d work hard for me.” I nodded.
“The Hendersons up the way pay about $11 an hour, plus benefits,” I told him. “That seems like a decent deal to me—especially since you’re only hiring one guy. And he won’t be working the whole year, just most of it.”
“Man, it’d be nice to be an employee instead of an owner,” Tuck joked.
“Oh hush,” I said, shaking my head. “When have you ever hurt for money since you started working for Dad full time?”
“I’m just saying,” Tuck said with a shrug.
“Anyway,” Dad interrupted, breaking up the fight between me and my brother before it could really start, “I’ll put together an ad and we’ll get it in the paper. I’ll check around on pay and benefits first, and you’ll screen out the applications. Deal?” I nodded.
“It’s a deal, Dad.”
Chapter Two
Cade
I flipped through the paper while sitting on my front porch, drinking my first cup of coffee for the day. There were times when I considered canceling my subscription, but since it was only a couple of dollars a week, I’d never quite given it up.
I was always grateful to have the subscription when whatever job I was working came to an end and I needed to find something to replace it. Otherwise, the coup
ons in the Sunday edition were pretty good, and I liked to do the crossword puzzles during dinner—at least, when I was working.
It was my day off, and I thought about skipping ahead to the Accent section for the puzzles, but I knew I’d be better served to immediately go to the Classifieds.
My latest project, helping build a new community development west of town, was finishing up for the season and with it my job would be finished; I needed to find something fairly quick to take up the slack. I took another sip of my coffee and found the ads, setting aside the rest of the paper to enjoy after I looked over the job openings.
I normally tried to stick to construction jobs as much as possible, but there were only so many of those going on at any given time, especially in a small town like Ohanzee Plains. I couldn’t afford to be too picky—anything I was qualified to do, that at least was honest, I would try for.
Of course, as I looked over the ads, it was obvious that the meth problem the sheriff’s department talked about on the news from time to time wasn’t getting any better. Some of the postings were to sell items that weren’t all that valuable, and I could only assume that the sellers were either in debt or looking to buy drugs. I skimmed the section for a few moments, pausing to make sure that I didn’t have anything to offer any of the people seeking to buy. Once I was sure that wasn’t the case, I moved onto the jobs.
The little town I’d lived in all my life didn’t have a whole lot of jobs in any kind of long-term sense. A good chunk of the population was farmers, and most of them tried to maintain their own fields and ranches as much as they possibly could.
There was always a good bit of seasonal work, including the construction jobs I normally tried to go out for, and there was always day labor—cleaning up the highway, clearing brush, things like that, if I got really desperate for money in between larger jobs.
I’d done handy man work more than once in my life, starting back when I’d been in high school: mowing lawns, doing basic home repairs like replacing window sashes and things like that. I could take apart and put back together a basic motor thanks to the shop electives I’d done in high school, but I’d never gotten certified, so any kind of permanent mechanical repair job was out of my reach.
I looked at each one of the postings carefully, trying to decide if it would be worth applying for. Some of them, where I recognized the company or the person posting the ad, looked good only if you didn’t know the personalities you’d have to deal with.
Mrs. Evans wanted a handyman, but I knew for a fact that she tended to want to get eight hours of work for the price of five, which wasn’t something I was interested in fighting another time. Nathan Ellis wanted someone to help him clear the back 40 on his farm, but that job would only last a week—and I knew he tended to be a little late paying.
I put my coffee aside and started looking at the entries more seriously, taking a pen out of my pocket and marking the ones that looked the likeliest. I managed to find a couple of listings that sounded like they’d be good options—most of them pretty short term, but they would be better than nothing. A house-painting job would probably last about a week, but the pay listed was good, and the family—the Smiths—was solid, I knew.
There weren’t very many families in the town that I’d never met, even with a few people starting to come in as first generation residents. The kind of work I usually ended up doing made it easy to get to know lots of people.
There was a longer-term job listed for helping hands to do some packing for a local farm equipment company—that would probably last about a month, and the pay would be decent, even if it didn’t come with any benefits. As long as I didn’t get sick or injured, I could make enough probably to float me for two months if I was careful.
Farm Hand Needed! The ad jumped out at me as I came to the end of the last page. Nelson family farm is looking for help to cover newly purchased land. $13/hr. Frequent meals provided. Experience not necessary, but a plus.
The ad surprised me; I knew the Nelson family mostly by reputation—they had a good one. But as far as I knew, they’d never hired anyone on for more than a week or two for the purposes of helping with the harvest. Then again, if Robert Nelson had purchased more land to expand his fields, it would make sense that they’d want to pull someone on for the whole season.
I had gone to school with the Nelson kids, and I was pretty sure I’d heard gossip now and then about the son and daughter—that Tuck was dating so-and-so, or that Autumn had gotten pregnant with her boyfriend. I assumed that she’d probably married the father of her child. That was the usual course of things in town.
The ad mentioned that it would be months of work, and at $13 an hour, it was nothing to sneeze at, especially with the meals that they were going to occasionally offer their worker in addition.
Of course, I realized that even with a good reputation, it was possible the Nelsons would be as bad as any of the people I was trying to avoid working for, but it seemed less likely to me. The ad included an email address to write to and requested a work history and references. I considered who I could ask and how to go about submitting a work history. I had a resume that I used for time to time—I could update it with my most recent project and send it on its way.
I set the newspaper aside and finished off my coffee, thinking about the problem of applying for the farm hand job the Nelsons had available. I was pretty sure it would be a popular opening. It was a good few months of work at least, and it was a good pay rate.
But I was also pretty sure that none of the other temporary guys I was working with at the construction site were looking seriously for a job yet—we were slated for an early completion bonus. Those who weren’t going to give themselves a week off probably already had work lined up at another construction site, probably in the next town over. There’d be the usual seasonal workers applying, and people new to the town hungry for any job they could get. But I liked by chances overall.
I remembered that I had Robert Nelson’s phone number from someone—they’d gotten it when they’d repaired one of his tractors and had passed it along to me as a contact in case I was looking for handyman work.
I could call Robert directly and see if he would give me an interview, instead of bothering with the email situation. That might give me an edge. Of course, it might also piss him off that I wasn’t obeying the instructions in the ad, but that was a risk that I was willing to take.
I found the number in my old address book and dialed it on my phone; I considered adding it as a contact, but that wouldn’t make sense unless I actually started working for the Nelsons. I waited as the other end of the line rang once, twice, three times—and I was sure that Robert Nelson was going to let it go to voicemail. But then I heard the ringing stop. “Hello?”
“Mr. Nelson?” It occurred to me—too late—that my friend could have given me a wrong number either accidentally or on purpose.
“This is him,” the man on the other end of the line said. “Who’s this?”
“Good morning, Mr. Nelson,” I said, putting on my best company manners the way my mom had taught me years before. “This is Cade Wilson—I went to school with your son and daughter years ago.” Before Robert could say anything, I kept going. “I saw your ad in the newspaper and thought I’d contact you directly.”
“You’re the first one to show that kind of initiative,” he said with amusement in his voice. “My daughter’s already starting to get emails from folks looking to fill the position.”
“My friend Cal Peters worked for you a while back and he gave me your number—he thought I might ask you for some handyman work sometime if I got into doing it again. But when I saw the ad, I thought I could maybe get in touch with you, see what it is you’re looking for more specifically.”
“As I’ve never hired anyone to work the farm for me before, I’m not sure I know,” he admitted. “Have you worked on a farm before?” I nodded, even though I knew Robert Nelson couldn’t see me.
“I wor
ked planting and harvest at my uncle’s place every year growing up,” I said. “And, I’ve done the occasional stint working fields for fertilizer or pesticide in the past when I was between construction jobs.”
“Are you working for anyone right now?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But my contract will be finishing up in a few days—before you’re going to need anyone to start.”
“I’m going to need the help sooner rather than later, but if you’re free starting a few days from now, that works for me,” he said. “I’d like to have you out to the place, have a chat about the details of the job. Can you come out this Sunday?”
“I can definitely do that,” I told him. “As long as you don’t mind me coming by after church.”
“Not at all,” Robert said. “We’ll be there ourselves, anyway. Do me a favor and send your information to my daughter—she’s scheduling everyone and I don’t want to foul up her program.”
“I will email her my resume and contact information just to keep things kosher,” I promised.
“Then, I’ll look forward to seeing you Sunday afternoon,” Robert told me. “Thanks for giving me a call, Cade.”
“Not a problem, Mr. Nelson. I’ll see you this weekend.” I hung up with him and went back into the house to find my laptop.
It took me a little while to find my resume in my files, but once I did, I updated it with my most recent jobs and put in a few references at the end before sending it off to the email address from the ad. I wrote a little note, mentioning that I’d already called Robert, and that I looked forward to dropping by the farm that weekend to check things out, and sent it off before going back to the classified ads.