“For now.”
Bell tapped the index box.
“Anybody can stumble into a crate.”
He pointed.
“Knowing what's in it is harder.”
Malik thought about that.
The original nine hundred plates had looked nearly identical to the auction crowd.
Heavy iron.
Rust.
Scrap value.
The catalog made differences visible.
One plate might be worth five dollars.
Another forty.
Another nothing.
Another could keep a farmer from spending thousands on replacement equipment.
The iron had not changed.
Knowledge had.
Malik began making backup copies of important catalog pages.
His mother insisted.
“What if Bell's shop burns?”
“Why would it burn?”
“Things burn.”
“That's your argument?”
“Yes.”
She bought him another card box.
Malik copied key entries by hand.
It took weeks.
He complained.
His grandmother said:
“You'll complain harder if the first box disappears.”
He copied faster.
By the time Malik graduated high school, the seed-plate business occupied an entire wall of Bell's back room.
Shelves.
Labels.
Boxes.
Catalogs.
Mailing envelopes.
Part numbers.
The original crates were mostly empty.
Common stock sat in lower bins.
Rare numbers were separated.
Damaged pieces were clearly marked.
Malik still remembered exactly where many original plates had come from.
“Whitford crate two.”
“Whitford back corner.”
“Second dealership.”
Bell teased him.
“You remember iron better than birthdays.”
“Parts don't get offended.”
“Your mother does.”
That was true.
The business never became glamorous.
Nobody wrote newspaper stories when Malik sold a twelve-dollar bean plate.
Farmers did not arrive cheering.
Usually they arrived frustrated.
They had a problem.
A broken plate.
An obsolete model.
A crop they wanted to plant.
A dealer telling them:
No longer available.
Malik’s favorite moment happened quietly.
A farmer gave him a number.
Malik checked.
Found it.
The farmer’s shoulders relaxed.
That was the value.
Not iron.
Relief.
Sometimes the entire transaction took five minutes.
A man might have spent weeks searching.
Malik handed him a disc.
Problem solved.
Bell often watched from the shop floor.
One afternoon, after a farmer drove away with two plates, Bell asked:
“Why'd you sell him both?”
“He wanted a spare.”
“You only had three.”
“I know.”
“Now you've got one.”
“I know.”
Bell looked at him.
“You nervous?”
“A little.”
“Good.”
Malik frowned.
“Why?”
“Inventory ought to make you nervous.”
Bell wiped his hands.
“Too much and your money sits on shelves.”
He pointed to the road.
“Too little and customers go somewhere else.”
Malik smiled.
“Sounds like farming.”
“Everything sounds like farming if you stay around farmers long enough.”
The Carter family farm benefited too.
They owned seventy acres.
Not prosperous land.