She Paid $55 for a Sealed Farm Barrel — 24 Days Later, Everything Changed
Chapter 2
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He slapped the canister with the flat of his hand. "Listen up. This here is some old government storage drum. There's nothing inside but moldy straw and dust. Scrap iron's going for $90 a ton, and a crane to haul it away runs 150. This is scrap that costs you money, folks. That's the worst kind of scrap there is."People nodded because Cal was a man in the trade. Nobody bid.Then, from the back of the crowd, a child's voice said, "$55."Garrett Moe knew the girl; everybody in Harlan Creek did. Junie was the granddaughter of Tobias Halverson, the smallest wheat farmer in the valley, who had died two winters back. She had come to the sale that morning with Wendell Pike, who ran the tow and farm machinery shop and had come to look at a trailer. Wendell had left her at the hot chocolate stand with strict instructions to stay out of trouble.Garrett could have refused the bid. A 12-year-old doesn't have a bidder's number. But the canister had cost him twenty minutes, and he wanted it gone."I've got 55," he said, grinning. "From the young lady in the yellow jacket. 60? Anybody? No? Sold! Put it on Wendell Pike's number, since he brought her."Cal laughed, and the yard laughed with him.Wendell came pushing through the crowd a minute later—a big old man with a white beard and gray coveralls, wanting to know what all the hollering was about. When somebody told him, he looked at the canister and at the girl with her hand on it, and he did not laugh at all."Junie, what did you just do?""I bought it, sir. With my own money.""Child, that thing weighs hundreds of pounds.""I know." The girl pointed to the flat lead tag hanging from its wire. "Mr. Pike, look at that: a wheat stalk. Grandpa kept one in a box. He said when the seed bank stamps a lead seal, it means nobody has opened it since the day they sealed it."Wendell bent down and squinted at the tiny stalk of wheat pressed into the soft gray metal. He looked around the yard: at Cal Rudd still wiping his eyes, at thirty people still snickering over their coffee cups. Then he put his big hand on the girl's shoulder."A person's bid is their bid," he said, loud enough for the nearest of them to hear. "Go pay the lady."