“Awright,” he said, “that’s that! Is Queen doin’ good?”
Whitewater Queen was doing as well as could be expected and her fourth heifer-calf was a miracle of Guernsey beauty.
“Awright! Veal that danged bull-caaf. That’s White Chief’s second bull outa White Rose. I’m done. We’ll take her to Hilltop Acres next time. And that’s that!”
He dusted the fertiliser and land plaster from his patched canvas jacket:
“It blowed some,” he said. “I oughta waited. Cost me five dollars, mebbe. I thought it might rain; that’s why. It’s one dum thing after another. It allus comes like that.”
He scraped the bottom of his crusted boots against the concrete rim of the manure pit.
A bitter winter with practically no snow; dry swamps; an April drouth; a disastrous run of bull-calves with no market,—and now, after twenty years, a girl baby!
How was a man going to get ahead? How was he to break even? Twenty years Odell had waited for sons to help him. He should have had three or four at work by this time. Instead he was paying wages.
“I guess Fanny’s kinda bad,” remarked the foreman.
Odell looked up from his brooding study of the manure.