She Wanted to Drive My Tractor

I chuckled.

"I don't know about that. They weren't all that interested in me when I was in high school."

"Well, girls don't know what they're looking for when they're that young. I sure didn't, and I made a mistake."

"Oh, how so?"

"The mistake was that I married Jerry. He was a good-looking guy, like you, and he was always nice to me. I thought we were happy for the first six months. He'd go off on his sales trips and leave me alone, but when he came back, we'd go out to dinner and then...well, you know. That lasted until I was doing the laundry one day and found what looked like face powder on one of his white shirts. I asked him about it and that led to our first and last fight.

"He first tried to tell me it was something he'd picked up at a hardware store. When I said it looked like face powder and asked him how he'd get that in a hardware store, he just grinned and said I should know it was lonely out there in the country because I'd told him that. One thing led to another until I said I was lonely too when he was gone, so maybe I'd find somebody to keep me company too.

"Jerry got mad then. He slapped me and said I was his wife and if he even thought I'd sleep with another man, he'd kill me. I waited until he'd gone off on another sales trip and then packed up everything I'd brought with me and drove to my uncle's farm in Milmine.

"I'd never told Jerry anything about my uncle, so I didn't think he could find me there. He did though. He used his old charm and talked my mother into telling him. He said he'd made a big mistake and just wanted us to put that behind us and get on with life.

"I'd told Uncle Robert about what happened. He said if Jerry had done it once, he'd probably do it again. When Mom called me and said Jerry was on his way there, Uncle Robert got a pitchfork and went out and sat on the front porch. When Jerry drove up at their house and asked if I was there, Uncle Robert told him to get off his property. That's when the real Jerry came out.

"Jerry yelled at Uncle Robert and said he was going to go through their house and find me, and then take me back to Rockford. Uncle Robert wouldn't let him through the door. He just told Jerry if he tried anything, he'd wish he hadn't. I guess Jerry believed him, because he got back in his car and left.

"After Jerry drove off, Uncle Robert said he was worried that Jerry would really hurt me if he ever got hold of me again, and that I should find a lawyer and divorce Jerry. He got me hooked up with a lawyer he knew, and I filed for divorce the next day.

"It surprised me a little that Jerry didn't contest it. I guess he didn't really love me like he said."

"He didn't try to stop the divorce?"

"Nope. His lawyer said Jerry told him to agree to the divorce but that he wanted to keep everything he had before we were married. I don't really care about that. Other than some clothes, Jerry never bought me anything, so all I'm out is about a year of my life. It still hurts though."

"I can't imagine how that would feel, but it sounds like it's for the best."

"Yes, I know it is. I just wish I hadn't let Jerry get to me like he did. He was so smooth and so convincing. I really thought I loved him."

Gwen laughed.

"I guess that's why he's such a good salesman. I won't make that mistake again, not if I can help it anyway."

I saw Frank's crew loading up and stood up.

"Time to get back to work, Gwen."

"Well, thanks for listening to me. I can't really talk to Uncle Robert or Aunt Liz like this. They think I was crazy for marrying Jerry in the first place. Mom and Dad still like him, so they're no support either."

I found myself saying it before I thought.

"You can tell me whatever you want, Gwen. I don't know if I'll understand, but I'll listen."

Over the next two weeks, we finished all the fields of seed corn and then went back through them a second time. All corn plants don't tassel at exactly the same time, so there are always some that pop up a few days after the first. We had to get those too, because in order for the crop of seed corn to be considered a hybrid, 99.7% of the female tassels had to be pulled. The guys walking the fields would pull any the girls missed to get the rest.

It was Wednesday of the third week when Gwen told me her divorce was final.

"Jerry's lawyer brought them to Uncle Robert's house last night. I signed them and he gave me a copy. I'm single again, for all the good that does."

I was a little confused by that statement.

"I thought you'd be happy to be single again."

"Oh, I'm happy I'm not married to Jerry any more. I just had hopes of having a family of my own someday. That probably won't happen now."

"Why not? You're still young."

Gwen looked at me and frowned.

"Jeff, men will buy a used car or a used tractor. They don't want another man's used wife. They want to be the first."

I had to think on that for a bit because I'd never had reason to think about it before. I'd just assumed any woman I married would be a virgin. Nobody had ever told me that's what was right, but I realized I didn't know anybody who'd married a woman who'd been married before. Well, there was old Mr. Adkins. He married Maude, but they were both in their sixties and both widowed.

I looked at Gwen.

"I suppose some men feel that way, but I doubt all of them do. You'll find somebody, I'm sure. You're pretty enough and you're nice enough."

I saw her frown then.

"Well, thank you for saying I'm pretty enough and nice enough some man would actually want to be with me."

"No, that's not what I meant. I just meant that any man who would put the fact that you're divorced above everything else would be missing out on something."

"Yeah, maybe by the time I'm fifty. You don't know what it's like, but I do because I've seen it before. One of my cousins got divorced when she was twenty-six. That was five years ago and she's still single. Men run the other way as soon as they find out she's been married before."

It was time to get back to work, and I was glad. Gwen seemed to be really upset, and I didn't know what to say to make her feel better.

She was back to her old self by the end of the day. I thought she'd already gone, but on my way to my truck, she yelled at me.

"Jeff, can you wait a minute?"

I stopped to let her catch up. When she did, she put her hand on my arm.

"Jeff, I shouldn't have done what I did at lunch, and I'm sorry. It's just that you're pretty easy to talk to. I won't do it again, I promise."

Before I could say anything, she patted my arm and said "See you tomorrow", then turned and left me standing there.

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Detasseling only takes about three weeks, so after another week, we were done. That last day, I'd backed the detasseling machine into the shed and was walking back to my car when Gwen caught up with me.

"Well, Jeff, it's been fun, sort of. I wish it had lasted longer though. I guess I'll have to find a real job now."

I smiled.

"It was good to have you on my machine. If you need a reference, feel free to give my name. You're a good worker and I'll tell that to anybody."

Gwen got in her car then and waved as she drove away.

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I went back to our farm and start getting ready for the fall harvest season. Our combine sickle needed new sections and a few guards, and there were a couple belts I'd noticed looked a little ratty. Our big farm truck needed an oil change and the brakes were squealing, so they needed to be replaced too.

The tractors and wagons needed looking to as well. The tractors had sat idle since I finished cultivating, and they'd need oil changes and maybe a battery charge. The corn picker would need to be looked at as well. The wagons would need the axle bearings checked and greased, and there was always at least one tire that would need a new tube.

All that stuff needed to be done so as soon as the beans and corn were dry enough to pick I could hit the fields and get the crop in without having to stop. Even a small rain could delay the harvest because the corn and soybeans would absorb moisture and I'd have to let them dry out again before picking any more.

The corn wasn't quite as much of a problem because I'd put it in the corncrib to let it finish drying. I could hold it there and let it dry out until the price went up later in the year and make a little extra money. I didn't have any way to store soybeans back then, so they went from the field to the grain elevator.

The elevator always checked for moisture content, and if it was too high, they'd dock me a few cents a bushel. If it was really high, they wouldn't accept it at all because it would rot in the bin. That caused heat and could cause enough heat to catch the bin on fire. It the moisture content was too low, we'd get docked for shattered beans. Two years before, Dad and I had bought a small moisture tester so we'd know when the grain was ready to pick.

The first week of September I hand shelled a quart of beans and used our moisture meter to check them. They were a little high still, but the weather forecast was for a week of sunshine and temperatures in the nineties. Two days later, I drove the combine to the bean field and Dad drove the big truck. When I filled the bin on the combine, Dad would pull the truck along side the combine and I'd empty the beans into the truck. When the truck was full, he'd drive it to the elevator.

Dad made the first trip to the elevator at about nine that morning. It was a little after eleven when I had the truck full again. Dad said I might as well go with him to dump the beans. We'd eat lunch after that and then go back to cutting.

Dad drove the truck up on the scales at the elevator. Jimmy came out and got his sample and then took it back inside to test the moisture content. Dad and I followed him inside. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard a familiar voice from my right side say, "Hi, Jeff. How's it going?"

I turned to see Gwen smiling at me from behind a desk.

"Hi, Gwen. I didn't expect to see you again."

"You probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for Uncle Robert. He found out the elevator needed someone to keep track of grain coming in and going out. I applied, and I got the job."

"I'm happy for you. How's everything else?"

"Pretty good. I rented a house two weeks ago, so I'm not living with Uncle Robert anymore. It's not a very big house and I don't have much furniture yet, but it's someplace I can call home. You'll have to come see it sometime."

I figured Gwen was just making small talk. In my experience, it was pretty common for someone to say you need to come see my new tractor or my new cow. They weren't really asking you to do that. It was just a way of saying they're proud of what they have.

Jimmy came back with the weigh slip from the scales and the moisture reading.

"Moisture's twelve and a half percent. Mark'll dump you over at the elevator as soon as he's done with that wagon."

I told Gwen I'd probably be seeing her again, and then got in the truck with Dad. As soon as the wagon pulled out of the dump platform, Dad drove the truck in until the front wheels dropped into the lift, put the transmission in neutral, and shut off the engine. We got out, Dad opened the endgate of the truck, and soybeans began spilling out onto the grate in the floor.

Mark, the guy who worked the elevator, started raising the lift slowly to keep the flow of soybeans going. When they slowed to just a dribble, Mark lowered the lift until the truck was sitting level again. I climbed into the truck bed, took the number twelve scoop shovel that was stuck between the bed and the truss rod, and shoveled the rest out the end gate. After Dad closed the end gate, I put the shovel back, got in the cab, and we drove back on the scales. Dad asked me to go get the final slip that showed how many bushels we'd dumped.

Jimmy was standing in front of Gwen's desk when I walked inside. He looked up and then held out the paper.

"Two hundred and fifty three bushels, Jeff. I expect you'll be back this afternoon."

"Yeah, probably at least twice."

"Well, Mark has to take his wife to the doctor so I'll be running the elevator. Gwen knows how to run the scale and do the moisture tests. She'll take care of you."

Gwen waved as I walked out the door and got in the truck. I put the weigh slip in the glove compartment as dad started the trip home.

We'd driven a couple miles when Dad chuckled.

"You know that sweet little girl back there?"

"Yeah. She rode my detasseling machine this summer, but she's not really a girl. She's twenty."

Dad chuckled again.

"Looked to me like she likes you. Maybe you oughta find out if she does or not."

"I think she's had her fill of men for a while. She was married before she divorced her husband. I don't think she's looking for anything except to get her life back on track."

"Sounds like it bothers you that she was married before. Does it?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it."

"It woulda bothered me when I was your age. Wouldn't now though."

"Oh, why?"

"Well, times have changed. Used to be a man and a woman got married and stayed together no matter what happened. There were a lot of married couples sleeping in separate beds back then. I saw that in your mama's sister. They had a couple of kids, but after that the only thing that showed they were married was their wedding rings.

"Oh, she cooked and kept house, but it was always kind of cold in that house if you know what I mean. I never got the feeling either one of them was happy. Your mama and I'd go over to visit once in a while. I talked to William and your mama talked to Betty, but that was it. I don't think Betty said two words to William any time we were there.

"Shouldn't be that way between a man and his wife. They should be partners, not just two people living in the same house. It wasn't until William had a heart attack and died that Betty seemed to be happy again. Now that she's married Joe, she's a different woman."

Dad chuckled again.

"Besides, when you buy a horse, it doesn't hurt if that horse is already broke to ride."

"Dad, Gwen isn't a horse."

"Oh, I know that, but you know what I mean. You wouldn't be her first, but as I remember, that first time wasn't all that great anyway. Now the times after that..."

We ate the lunch Mom had ready for us, and after Dad took a short nap, we drove back to the field. I started to get on the combine, but Dad stopped me.

"You been leaving some beans because you don't keep the header low enough. You let me finish out today and I'll prove it to you."

He didn't wait for me to answer. He just climbed up the steps of our Gleaner E combine, fired up the engine, and started cutting beans.

Dad had never looked behind me when I combined, at least as far as I knew. I figured he just missed watching the combine reel pull the bean stalks to the cutter bar and then the auger and feeder beater pulling them into the combine. I could understand that. It's a pretty good feeling to see the crop you put so much work into ending up in the combine bin and then the truck.

We'd filled the truck by about three, so I drove to the elevator and parked on the scales. I wasn't out of the truck yet when Gwen pushed a little rolling stepladder over to the truck, climbed the steps, and used a probe to get a sample of my beans. I followed her inside when she took them to the moisture tester.

While we waited for the moisture tester to boil the moisture out of the beans, Gwen weighed my truck and wrote the full weight down on her form. Then she looked up and smiled.

"I figured your dad would be driving in this afternoon like he did this morning. I think he's a really nice guy."

"I didn't know you knew my dad."

"I didn't but I saw the last name on the weigh sheet and asked him if he knew you. He said he was your dad. We had a nice talk about you while Jimmy was doing the moisture check."

I probably should have wondered why Dad had talked to Gwen after she'd told him she knew me, but I didn't have to. Mom had been giving me little hints about grandchildren for the past six months. I'd just ignored them because I didn't have a way to support a wife, let alone a wife and kids. It looked to me like Dad had decided to play matchmaker and make Mom's dream come true.

"Oh...what did he tell you about me?"

Gwen walked over to the moisture tester to weigh the moisture that had condensed.

"Nothing much, just that you were going to have his farm one of these days and that you'd need a wife to help you."

Gwen looked at her scale, then wrote the moisture reading down on the weigh sheet.

"It's twelve percent so you're good. Go on up and have Jimmy dump you. I'll see you again when you're empty."

On my way back to the farm, I thought some about Gwen and about what Dad had said. It irritated me a little. It was like I was being rushed into getting married and I didn't even get to pick the woman. Well, I'd show him. I wouldn't do what he was hoping I'd do.

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I drove the second load that afternoon to the elevator about five while Dad took the combine back to the shop to gas it up and grease everything in preparation for the next day. Gwen was still there and took the sample. I said she must be having a long day if she was still there. She grinned.

"I've been here since six, and I've been busy all day. Everybody's cutting their beans. You'll be the last though. Then I can go home and relax until tomorrow. It's a little lonely sometimes, being there by myself, but I've gotten used to it."

"Yeah, that's what I'll do too. I've been up since five."

Gwen gave me an impish look.

"You going to do that relaxing by yourself or did you find that girlfriend yet?"

We were alone there in the office, but it felt like when we were under that big tree eating lunch during detasseling season. I hadn't intended to talk to Gwen much, but it was so easy.

"No, I'll be by myself. I've been busy getting ready to cut beans and pick corn and haven't had time to look around for a girlfriend. Besides, until I can buy the farm from Dad, I don't really have enough money to do much dating."

Gwen took a look at the moisture meter, then smiled at me.

"You shouldn't worry about having enough money to date a girl. The right girl would understand. Women aren't all about eating out and going places, you know. If you remember, I did that and it didn't turn out very good. I'd just as soon stay home and watch television. Oh, it's done. I'll just weigh the moisture and you can be on your way."

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I didn't relax all that much that night, and I had a hard time falling asleep even though I was beat. I kept thinking about Dad trying to get me and Gwen together. I didn't like that idea, but I couldn't really think of a reason why other than I didn't like him interfering in my life.

Gwen was pretty enough and nice enough...I had to stop myself then. It was like Gwen had said back then while we ate lunch. It wasn't that she was just pretty enough or nice enough. Gwen was just plain good looking and so nice she put most other women to shame. Other than when she'd told me about her ex, I'd never heard her say anything unkind about anybody.

No, I decided, Gwen was what any man with half a brain would want in a woman. I liked her. She was also pretty smart and pretty confident. Like Dad had said, not many women would have had the courage to walk away from a marriage and file for divorce. A married woman had financial security and a place to call home even if her husband wasn't much of a husband. Giving that up was something most women wouldn't have been able to do.

I finally fell asleep sometime after I thought about all that and wondered if Gwen had just been being nice about me seeing her house or if she really meant it.