Red

Dispatch 6

It’s beautiful. Well, if you look at it in the right light. And maybe don’t look too close so you don’t see that dent there. And I guess the paint is kind of worn. There’s a little rust here and there.

How it looks doesn’t matter to me. I have no doubt it has earned its blemishes. 

This little tractor was born in the peacetime wake of WWII. I wonder what it has seen over the years. Do tractors think about changes in music or movie stars? I guess not.

I wonder who brought it home, shiny and new? A vet newly returned from the Pacific Theater, newly married and waiting for the birth of his first child? An old farmer who has saved all his life for it, hoping it will ease his aching back and let him eke out an existence a few more years? 

What was that first day like? Did its new owner celebrate? Maybe a quiet but excited turn around the field to try it out? Was it just another day? Added to a shed full of tractors already working hard?

What kind of work did it do? Did it plow the ground or haul logs? 

I don’t know much about its life before now. It spent at least twenty years in the shed of a welder who used it to mow his pasture. When he died it went to his son-in-law who sometimes mowed with it but mostly let it retire in his machine shed.

And now it lives at my house. 

It has come to my house by way of my son, who is enamoured with the fact that it was born the same year as his grandmother and runs better than she does. 

It still starts after eighty years. Someone added an electric starter long ago, though the original hand crank still works. The seat has been replaced. The mower underneath isn’t original either. Everywhere I look are signs that someone chose repair instead of replacement. 

It looks smart as it comes off the trailer. We have to be careful since the trailer is high and the tricycle front end makes fitting the ramps difficult. We improvise with some hardwood plywood we have lying around. 

My son puts it to work mowing in the field. They pass back and forth, maybe a few more times than they need to. My son looks proud. Somehow, the tractor looks happy.

 I can’t help but wonder if someday he’ll watch his child drive this tractor around the yard.

I watch the grass shrink under them until the sun starts to set. Then I go lock up the chickens and wait for dark. I think they’ll be done then.

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