The Older Farmer laughed before he even reached the tree.
The Young Farmer heard him coming through the orchard grass, his boots striking hard ground while three men followed from the pickup parked beside the lane.
She kept painting.
The white coating climbed from the base of the young apple trunk to just beneath the lowest branches.
The Older Farmer stopped beside her.
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
The Young Farmer dipped the wide brush into the galvanized bucket.
“Working.”
“That isn’t farming.”
She painted another slow stripe.
“Looks like farming from here.”
One of the men near the pickup laughed.
The Older Farmer pointed down the row.
Nearly every trunk in the first four acres had already been coated white.
Against the green spring grass and brown branches, the orchard looked strange enough to attract attention from the county road.
“You’re painting apple trees.”
“Yes.”
“White.”
She glanced at the brush.
“That appears to be the color.”
The men laughed again.
This time she looked up.
The Young Farmer was twenty-eight years old, though most people in the valley spoke to her as though she were fourteen.
Her grandfather had planted the oldest trees on the property.
Her father had expanded the orchard.
Then illness, debt, and three disastrous growing seasons had reduced the family farm to eighteen surviving acres by the time she inherited it.
The Older Farmer owned almost six hundred acres across the road.
His family had grown apples in the valley for thirty years.
His packing shed handled fruit from half the county.
His trucks carried the name of his farm in letters large enough to read from a quarter mile away.
And since the funeral, he had made three offers to buy her land.
Each offer arrived with the same explanation.
Selling would be sensible.
She was young.
The farm was small.
The equipment was old.
The orchard had been neglected.
There was no shame in knowing when to quit.
The Young Farmer had rejected all three offers.
The first politely.
The second firmly.
The third without responding.
Now the Older Farmer stared at the white trees as though her refusal had finally caused permanent mental damage.
“You know what white paint does to a tree?”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you spent good money making an orchard look like a row of fence posts.”
The Young Farmer set the brush across the bucket.
“It isn’t house paint.”
“What is it?”
“An orchard trunk coating.”
He snorted.
“That what they call it online?”
She rose.
Dirt covered one knee of her jeans.
A weathered brown hat shaded her face, and her long hair had been divided into two loose braids to keep it away from the work.
“No.”
“I learned about it from university extension notes, orchard management trials, and old records my father kept.”
The Older Farmer’s smile weakened slightly.
Then returned.
“Your father didn’t paint his trees.”
“Not often.”
“Exactly.”
“He also lost forty-seven trunks to southwest injury after the freeze nineteen years ago.”
The Older Farmer stopped smiling.
One of the men behind him looked toward the trees.
The Young Farmer continued.
“I found his repair notes.”
“He wrote down which trunks split, which side the damage appeared on, and which blocks had thawed fastest after sunrise.”
The Older Farmer folded his arms.
“Your father also knew how to listen to people with experience.”
“So do I.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
She picked up the brush again.
The conversation was over as far as she was concerned.
It was not over for him.
The Older Farmer grabbed the bucket handle.
The Young Farmer’s hand snapped around it before he could move it more than a few inches.
Neither released the handle.
The men by the truck stopped laughing.
The Young Farmer looked directly at him.
“Let go.”
“You’re wasting time.”
“My time.”