The farmer shook his head. "Too many people doing other things, like making shells and guns, like sitting in fox-holes or flying planes."
The woman sat rocking, her hands together in her lap. "It won't work," she repeated.
"It'll work," said the farmer. "Right now, it'll work. Yes, we've got milkers and shuckers, and we've got hatchers for the chickens. We've got tractors and combines and threshing machines. They're all mechanical, all right. But we don't have mechanical farmers, yet. The pumps, the tractors, the milkers don't work by themselves. In time, maybe. Not now. We're still ahead of them on that. It'll work."
"Go out to the fields, Henry," his wife said, her voice like the sound of a worn phonograph record.
"No," the farmer said, taking a pipe from his overalls. "I think instead, I'll just sit in the sun and watch the corn. Watch the birds on top of the barn, maybe. I'll fill my pipe and sit there and smoke and watch. And when I get sleepy, I'll sleep. After a while I might go see August Brown or Clyde Briggs or maybe Alfred Swanson. We'll sit and talk, about pleasant things, peaceful things. We'll wait."
The farmer put the pipe between his teeth and walked to the door. He put on his straw hat, buttoned the sleeves of his blue shirt and stepped outside.
His wife sat at the table, staring at nothing in the room.
The farmer walked across the barnyard, listening to the sound of the chickens and the sound of the breeze going through the corn. Near the barn, he sat upon an old tree stump and filled his pipe with tobacco. He lit the pipe, cupping his hands, and sat there, smoking, the smoke spiraling up into the bright warm air.
He took his pipe from his teeth and looked at it. "Pipe of peace," he said, laughing inside himself.
The breeze was soft and the sun warm on his back. He sat there, smoking, feeling the quiet of the morning, the peace of the great sky above.