Black Single Dad Went Looking for Work on a Farm — He Didn't Know a Millionaire Would Make Him Rich
Chapter 7
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Toby nodded seriously, the way he did when he was given an important job. He crossed his legs, spread the pad over his knees, and began drawing long green lines across the page.Luke walked across the gravel yard to the machine shop. The big doors stood open. Inside, the air was cooler and smelled of gear oil, old grease, and concrete. The John Deere square baler sat hitched to a green utility tractor in the center bay.A man was leaning against the workbench beside it. He was in his 50s, thick through the chest and gut, with a sunburned neck and a faded red cap pulled low over his eyes. A toothpick moved slowly from one corner of his mouth to the other. Embroidered on his shirt pocket was a single name:Wade.Wade Harland had been the foreman at High Meadow for 11 years. He looked Luke up and down without moving from the bench."Help you with something?" Wade said. His tone made it clear he had no intention of helping with anything."Clare sent me down to look at the knotter," Luke said.Wade let out a short laugh. "That knotter's dead. I told her so myself. Dealership told her so." He shifted the toothpick. "Don't know where she found you, but folks like you ought not be poking around equipment this expensive. You break it, it's coming out of somebody's pocket, and it sure won't be yours."Luke heard exactly what the man meant by folks like you. He had heard it in a dozen different voices over the years at feed stores, at county fairs, at the counter of the bank. Some people said it loud, some people said it soft; it always meant the same thing. He did not answer it. He set his hat on the workbench, rolled his sleeves one more turn, and knelt down beside the twine-tying assembly."Suit yourself," Wade muttered. He crossed his arms and stayed where he was, watching, waiting for the stranger to fail.Luke ignored him. He did not need the dealership manual. He gripped the flywheel and turned it slowly by hand, watching the needles rise, the knotter turn, and the twine feed through. He did it again, and a third time.Within four minutes, he saw the problem. The billhook was packed with rust and the frayed leftovers of old sisal twine. That alone would keep the knot from forming. But there was something else: the tension spring on the stripper arm had slipped out of its groove. A spring like that did not usually slip by itself, Luke thought. Not unless somebody had been working on it and put it back wrong.