On the big red farm tractor sat a tall, thin sixteen-year-old boy. Cautiously he steered the dangerous machine along the hillside.  He glanced fretfully at the horizon where gray clouds lined up like army tanks rumbling toward him ready for attack.  That storm could ruin the hay that had been drying for three days in the hot sun.  It was his responsibility to get that dried grass bailed and stored in the barn to feed to the cattle this winter.  As the boy steered the tractor, the bailing machine dropped twine-bound bales of hay on the field ready for pick-up.  Around the field he went, looking back at the work he had done, and ahead at the work that remained. 

            He thought of the evening before when his mother had written the cost of gas and twine into the ledger book.  The ledger was where they would record their success or failure in the family venture of small farming.  He saw his mother’s eyes shine happily as she said, “ If we’re successful, Ted, we could live independently for the rest of our lives.  You know I’ve told you about how, in the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, the bankers took Grandpa’s farm.  He’d be proud to see that we got the family back into farming and making a living at it.”

            Ted sat up proudly in his chair, “If we work hard, mom, I know we can do it.”

            “You three are good little workers,” his mother replied. She smiled at Ted, his sister, Nell, and their younger brother, Charlie.

            Now, on the dirt road that led to the field, Ted saw his younger sister, Nell with Charlie and his mother walking through the field.  Even though it was ninety degrees, they were dressed in long pants, long-sleeved shirts with thick gloves and heavy leather shoes all worn to protect them from the sharp dry grass in the bales of hay.  He watched as they began picking up the heavy bales and heaving them up onto the truck.  Nell climbed up onto the load and tugged the bales into place, stacking them like building blocks wedged higher and higher until the truck was full.

            Once they had filled the truck, they drove it back to the barn where they threw each cumbersome bale into the hayloft, rebuilding the stack inside the barn.  The whole process of haymaking sent pollen, bits of grass and insects into the air.

            Still out in the field on the tractor, Ted watched as a spray of dust came out the back of the hay bailer.  The day was hot and humid.  He was glad he was not in the barn where it was even hotter and dustier with angry wasps and bees hovering near the roof.  The tractor shimmied and groaned under him.  Overhead the big purple cloud rose like a clenched fist.

            His sister and brother returned to the field with the truck and began loading it again.  Stopping the tractor near them, Ted ran over to greet them.

            “I’ve finished this field,”  he said then gulped down water from the canteen that his mother handed him.  His sister poked the last of a sandwich into her mouth. 

            “Didn’t you bring me one? ” he asked.

            His mother responded, “We didn’t have time.  You can eat when we’re done.”

            His sister looked apologetic while his mother continued, “You’ve got to finish that second field,” she said, “ That storm’s really catching up with us.”

            He looked bitterly at the two women and slung the canteen over his shoulder.  His mind was weak with hunger and his body shook as if he were still on the tractor.  To work without eating!  It just was not fair.  How would she feel if he had an accident now?  She always gave him the hardest work.  “This is what men are for. They are always strong,” she would say.  He did not feel strong, he felt nauseous and weak. The last time he felt this bad was when she put the rifle in his hands and told him to shoot his sick dog.

            He gulped down more water from the canteen, reached for the stick shift and shifted gears.  The tractor rumbled down the dirt road toward the other field.  A thought occurred to him. He could stop at the house on his way to the field and get a sandwich.  Mom would never know.  So, this is what he did. 

            After he had grabbed some food, he hurried to the second field.  He had produced only ten bales, when the truck appeared at the edge of the field.  Overhead, thunder rumbled. The ground shook. Ted watched as his sister and younger brother struggled to heave the bails onto the truck in a muscle straining, sweat dripping race against nature. 

            “I finished.  I’ll take the tractor back to the garage now,” Ted yelled to his mother.

            “Park it here,” his mother commanded,  “We need help getting this hay to the barn.”

            Dutifully he got down from the tractor and began lifting the bales into the truck.  He could see his sister, Nell, was getting tired.  She angrily pulled and tugged at the bales as though they were a disappointment she was trying to grapple with.  He remembered overhearing what mother had told her yesterday.  “Nell, only the boys will inherit the farm.  You have to find a good husband. That’s the only way you’ll get anything in life.”

            Now in the field, mother was calling, “Hurry up Nellie! Can’t you see that storm’s coming? ”

            “Mom, we’re not going to get it all in,” Nell screamed, “ That’s all there is to it.”

            “We must. What will your father say? ”

            Father was away at the mill, earning money to finance this farming venture.  He would not be back until late afternoon.  The children struggled more and more with each bale, clumsily tripping over them, sneezing and coughing from the dust.  Thunder exploded overhead.  Lightning jumped from cloud to cloud.

            “We could just pile them up and put a tarp over them,” Ted proposed.  “They’d stay dry enough.”

            “No, they won’t,” mother yelled,  “ I don’t want to hear any more talk. Let’s get it in now.”

            This load was ready for the barn.  They climbed onto it and rode it back.  Then out to the field again with Nell driving, and mother rolling the bales to the truck.  Ted and Charlie threw and pulled bales into place.  Now, this load was done.  Back to the barn they went; then back to the field.

            “Let’s just pile the rest of it here and put a tarp on it,” Ted suggested. He kicked a bale and watched it tumble over. 

            His mother’s temper broke. She threw down her hat and screamed. “Shut up and load this truck,” she yelled.  “I am sick of you telling me how to run this farm, you’re only a child.”

            A flame of anger flared up in him that could have torched the field even in the lightly falling rain.  He thought he had a voice in what would someday be his.

            The rain began falling in larger drops.

            “Let’s get back to the barn with this load,” mother called.  Once it was in the barn, they raced back to the field for more.  Exhaustion made the children giddy and silly.  Suddenly a bale burst open scattering its contents on the ground. 

            Mother screamed. “I don’t want any fooling around.”

            They all laughed at her.  Ted could see that she was afraid of them.

            “Get this truck to the barn,” she commanded.

            “Take it to the barn, sister,” Ted scoffed.  Charlie added, “Let’s take a short cut through the swamp.”

            “Ok, let’s do that,” Nell said, giggling and climbing into the cab of the truck.

            Mother stood in the field watching. “If you take that truck into the swamp, I swear I’ll beat you.”

            Looking down from the top of the load, Ted could see Nell’s resentful glare as she looked up at him from the driver’s side. The truck lurched; Ted and Charlie wobbled and reached for a bale to keep themselves from falling off the load.  Nellie was steering the truck toward the swamp.

            Ted could not believe it.  This truck, loaded with so much hay, would sink in the mud to its axles.  How could his sister do it?  Even though he knew the work of getting it out would come to him, he laughed hysterically, held on tight and rode the load into the deep soft mud.

            Ted looked back at their mother on the bank, at the edge of the field swearing and stomping her feet.  Claps of thunder accompanied her.

            Nell got out of the truck.  Seeing the truck sunk in the tall grass and mud, she looked up surprised that she had done such a thing.

            “You might as well come up and join us,” said Ted.  She did so and they sat in the rain watching their mother stomping her feet all the way back to the farmhouse.

            “What do you think she’s going to do?” Charlie asked.  They were silent.

            “She just expects too much,” Ted grumbled.

            “She does,” Nell added, “ and what’s the reward?”

            “I heard you don’t get any of the inheritance,” Ted said.  He sat there exhausted, almost delirious.  A bale of yellow-brown hay began to look like Goldie, his border-collie mix.

            The rain was soothing.  Listening to it as it hit the metal cab of the truck, it painted the vehicle a bright shinny blue.

            “Here she comes,” said Charlie.  They looked up the dirt road to see an angry mother slapping the ground with a big leather belt, her face contorted with hate.

            “I can’t tolerate this,” said Ted.

            “Neither can I,” said Nell.  They both looked at Charlie.  He was his mother’s favorite and most likely to take her side.

            “All right,” mother screamed as she approached, “I want you to get down from that truck. Now!  Unload it and pull it out of the swamp with the tractor.”

            “Oh, no,” Ted pleaded.  “It’s dangerous; I don’t want to do that.”

            “You get down here right now or I’m coming up to get you,” mother growled.  Without waiting, she started to climb up the back of the stack of baled hay.  The belt dangled from her hand.

            Ted deftly lifted a bale of hay and held it above his mother’s head.

             “Leave me alone, mother, I could easily drop this and kill you.”

            He saw Nell lean over and give their mother a revengeful glare.  Charlie sat quietly on the top of the bales, with his head down watching the rain soak into the hay.

            “I’ve had it with you, mother,” Ted said glaring down at her.

            Nell confirmed, “Me, too.”

            Mother gaped up at them in shock.  Slowly she backed down off the load and stood on the ground.  She stared up at them in disbelief.  The rain began falling heavier.  She burst into tears, then turned and limped toward the farmhouse, dragging the belt in the grass.

            The children sensed a new power and freedom sitting there in the quiet rain, a victory against something for which they had no name.