She Paid $55 for a Sealed Farm Barrel — 24 Days Later, Everything Changed
Chapter 3
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
So Junie walked to the clerk's trailer and counted out $55 in fives and ones she had earned gathering eggs and selling vegetables all summer, while the line behind her snickered. The clerk wrote her a receipt for one large iron canister, contents unknown.Cal was waiting at the bottom of the steps. "Listen, kid. I don't want you crying to your mama tonight. Cut those wires right now. If there's anything in there but moldy straw, I'll buy it off you for $100 cash."The whole yard waited."No, sir," Junie said. "I'm not going to open it.""Why the devil not?""Because my grandpa said never break a lead seal in a sale yard. You break it in front of people who know what they're looking at, and who can write down what they saw."Cal's grin went thin. Then he laughed even louder and spread his arms wide to the crowd. "You hear that, folks? The girl's waiting on the Department of Agriculture!"The whole yard laughed again, because it was the funniest thing anyone had heard all week.Her mother, Karen Halverson, heard about it before her shift at the grocery store was over. Three different people called her; the third was laughing so hard she could barely make out the words. She drove out to the Lindquist place still in her apron, and found the yard nearly empty, her daughter sitting on top of the canister with Wendell standing next to her like a bodyguard."Junie Karen Halverson," she said, and then she ran out of words."I paid for it with my own money, Mom.""Honey, it's not the money." She looked at the size of the thing. "We have nowhere to put it. We can't pay anyone to haul it. It has to be gone in seven days.""I'll haul it," Wendell said."Wendell, I can't ask you to do that.""You're not asking. In the flood of '08, Tobias Halverson brought his combine over and cut my whole crop while the water was up to his knees. Wouldn't take a dime. I've owed this family a favor for eighteen years. Diesel on a Saturday morning—that's all it costs me."Neil Lindquist walked over while they were talking. He was the great-nephew who had driven down from Minneapolis to sell off the estate, a tired, decent man in a windbreaker who had spent the whole day watching strangers dig through his family's things."I'm glad it's going to you," he told Junie honestly. "I was about to pay Cal Rudd $300 to haul it off."