“You don't need much grain.”
“Whatever helps.”
She filled part of his wagon.
Not excessive.
Harold pulled out his wallet.
Emma shook her head.
“No.”
“I pay.”
“Later.”
“Emma.”
“Later.”
He stared.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the barn.
Thirty Walker cattle eating.
Healthy.
Standing.
“Your dad would be proud.”
Emma’s face tightened.
Harold saw it.
“Sorry.”
She looked down.
“No.”
She took a breath.
“I hope he would.”
Harold nodded.
Then left.
By afternoon, three more farmers came.
Emma insisted on knowing herd size and available hay before giving grain.
One man became angry.
“Why do you care?”
“Because if you have hay for four days and someone else has nothing tonight, they get more.”
The man stared at a sixteen-year-old girl telling him what he could have.
Six months earlier he might have laughed.
He did not now.
He answered.
Thirty-seven cows.
Two days hay.
Emma gave him enough supplement to stretch it.
Earl arrived near sunset.
Not in his usual clean feed-store pickup.
An old flatbed with snow packed around the wheel wells.
He climbed out slowly.
For once, he had no joke.
Emma stood beside the grain shed.
Earl looked at the containers.
“You really saved that much.”
“Not all.”
“How much did you lose?”
“About thirty-eight percent initially.”
“You tracked it?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
He walked closer.
Touched one sealed bin.
“How’d you keep it?”
Emma explained.
Sorting.
Drying.
Testing.
Ventilation.
Temperature.
Blending.
Earl listened.
Then asked:
“Who taught you?”
“My dad.”
“All that?”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
“He taught me not to assume.”
Earl looked away.
Snow moved across the yard.
“I shouldn't have laughed.”
Emma said nothing.
Earl continued.
“I especially shouldn't have said what I said about your father.”
Emma looked at him.
“That one wasn't funny.”
“No.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“I knew him twenty years.”
“I know.”
“He would've bought those sacks too.”
Emma blinked.
“What?”
Earl smiled slightly.
“Maybe not sixty.”
“Forty.”
She almost laughed.
“He was cheap.”
“Your father could squeeze a nickel until the buffalo cried.”
Emma laughed.
The first genuine laugh she had shared with Earl in months.
Then he became serious.
“I need help.”
“How many customers?”
“Too many.”
“What can you get delivered?”
“Highway opens tomorrow maybe.”
“If wind stays down.”
“Maybe.”