“Every one of us laughed.”
That embarrassed people.
Good.
Dean believed embarrassment could be educational in the correct dosage.
The processing buyer eventually met Silas at another sale.
He recognized him.
“You cost me a good cow.”
Silas stared.
“You stopped bidding.”
The man laughed.
“Fair.”
Then:
“You still got her?”
“Yes.”
“How’s she doing?”
Silas told him.
The buyer shook his head.
“I should’ve looked at the feet.”
“Yes.”
The answer was so immediate that the man laughed again.
“You’re not going to let anybody feel better, are you?”
Silas thought.
“About what?”
“Never mind.”
At home, Otto’s health declined.
Not suddenly.
Slowly.
The kind of decline families adapt to one inconvenience at a time until one day they realize the entire household revolves around illness.
He needed more help dressing.
Then getting from chair to bed.
Ruth became tired.
Silas saw it.
He began doing more barn work without being asked.
Chickens.
Feed.
Water.
Cow.
Calf.
One evening he found Otto looking through the green notebook.
The old man had reached the page from auction day.
Silas sat beside him.
“You remember?”
Otto nodded.
He pointed at:
NOT SICK? HURTING.
Then looked at Silas.
“Good.”
Silas smiled.
“You always say that.”
Otto shook his head.
He worked for the next word.
“Look.”
Silas waited.
Otto pointed at his eyes.
Then the notebook.
“Look.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Listen.”
Silas frowned.
“To cows?”
Otto shook his head.
Then pointed around the room.
At Ruth.
At Silas.
Toward the barn.
Everything.
Silas understood something without being able to explain it.
Look.
Listen.
That was what Otto had been teaching all along.
Not cattle alone.
People.
Situations.
Land.
Silence.
What did not fit the obvious story.
The old man died two years after the auction.
Quietly.
In his sleep.
Ruth found him early one morning.
Silas was ten.
He knew something was wrong before she called his name.
The house sounded different.
Grief has a sound.
Sometimes it is crying.
Sometimes it is a building with one person missing.
Silas sat beside Otto for several minutes before the funeral home came.
He placed his green notebook on the blanket.
Then took it back.
Ruth watched.
“Changed your mind?”
Silas nodded.
“He gave it to me.”
Ruth understood.
At the funeral, Dean Aldis came.
Dr. Loomis.
Howard Pell from the creamery.
Several Ferris auction regulars.
Men Silas barely knew approached him and said:
“Your grandfather taught me plenty.”
“Otto helped me with a heifer once.”