I put on my glasses and read the line next to the words North Forty, one slow word at a time. In the handwriting of Gus, copied by the register in a clean legal script, it said, “To Harold Lindqvist, who has milked beside me for forty one years: the north forty acres of this farm, with the creek, the old tailgate spot and the sunset, and the white house by the milk house, for as long as he lives and then to whom he chooses.” I could not see the page. Marlys put a hand on my back and pressed a tissue into my fist, and I wept right there in the courthouse like a boy.
She sat across from me and folded her hands. “Gus came in last fall, with a cane and a feed bag tag in his pocket,” she said. “He said, Marlys, I have one daughter who loves this farm for what the land will bring. But there is one man who has loved it for what it is, and I am going to see he is not left out in the cold. He had me record the deed the same afternoon. Then he made me promise not to tell you until after the funeral, because he said you would argue him out of it.” I laughed through the tears, because it was exactly like Gus.
On Monday, the lawyer read the will in the farm kitchen, with the snow piled against the windows. Kristin sat at the table in a camel coat, and her husband stood by the stove with his arms crossed. When the lawyer reached the north forty, the dentist stepped forward. “That is the best land on the place,” he said. “That is the creek, the only water the herd ever had. Without it, the buyer will not take the farm.” The lawyer turned a page. “It is precisely as Mr. Engebretson wrote it,” he said. “The north forty and the white house belong to Mr. Lindqvist.” Kristin put her hand over her mouth.
A feed bag tag marked with the north forty gave one daughter the weekend to bring Harold back to the farm in Black River Falls.
I did not raise my voice. Gus would not have liked it. I took off my cap, and I said, “Kristin, I am not going to put anybody off this farm. You may keep the barn, the house and the rest of the land. All I ask is three things. You will let me visit the cows, wherever they are. You will say my name like it belongs to a person, and not to the hired man. And you will never again hand me a check in an empty barn and tell me I am not needed.” Kristin looked at the floor, and then at her husband, and then she took a step toward me and put her arms around my neck.
The surprise came on Sunday, when I walked into the Lutheran church and found the pews full. The pastor had heard from Marlys, and the church ladies had been baking since Friday. When I walked down the aisle, the whole congregation rose. An old farmer named Gunnar, who had been in the same Sunday school class as Gus, lifted his cap. “Harold,” he said, “Gus told the whole breakfast club that the best thing he ever did was hire your father.” The organ began to play, and the women passed me a plate of hotdish and bars, and I laughed and cried in the same breath.
The money consequences came swiftly. Kristin and her husband had already signed a contract to sell the farm to a developer, and the developer withdrew when he learned the creek frontage belonged to someone else. A farm without water was worth less than half the price. The dentist had borrowed against the sale to buy a lake cabin up north, and the bank demanded payment. For the first time in his life, he sat down with a spreadsheet and discovered what the herd had earned, and what it had cost. His face, I was told, went the color of oatmeal.
I helped them, because Gus would have asked me to. I told Kristin that I would never sell the north forty, and that she could keep the barn and the pasture, and that I would help her find a young dairyman to rent the place. I also told her that I would bring in the hay every June, for free, as long as my back held out. She cried at the kitchen table. “Harold,” she said, “I am so ashamed. I did not know what Dad meant to you.” I told her that he meant a great deal to me, and that she meant a great deal to him.
My son Erik drove down from Eau Claire with his wife and my two grandsons. He stood in the yard of the white house, by the lilac bush, and said, “Dad, I told you to stay out of it. I was afraid, and I was wrong.” I took him in my arms. “Fear is a poor farmer,” I said. “Now I have a house, and a creek.” The boys ran down to the milk house and tried the old cow bell, and one of them pulled the rope so hard that the whole valley rang. I stood in the yard, listening, and the sound went on and on.
With part of the first summer, I started a program in the name of Gus. The Engebretson Hired Hand Fund pays for workers compensation insurance, retirement savings and health coverage for the farm workers of Jackson County, who have worked other men land for forty years and have nothing to show for it. We held the first meeting in the church basement. Thirty one men and women came in work boots. A tiny woman named Ingrid, who had milked cows for fifty years, said, “Harold, nobody ever thought of us before.” I thought of Gus, and I wiped my eyes.
On the first Sunday in June, I drove the old pickup down to the north forty and let down the tailgate. The creek ran clear and bright, and the sun slid toward the trees. Kristin sat beside me, in a plain sweater, with a bottle of root beer. Her husband stood a little way off, not quite sure if he was welcome. I waved him over. For a long while, none of us spoke. Then Kristin whispered, “Harold, what did Dad say here?” I looked at the sky. “He said the cows will still need milking tomorrow,” I told her. “But this sunset will not come back.”