The first combine stopped at my gate, and a woman in a faded cap climbed down. She was my neighbor, Doris Keller, whom I had not spoken to in two years. “Earl Tennant, you stubborn old fool,” she said, smiling through tears. “Did you think we would let you do this alone?” Behind her, thirty drivers began to climb down from their cabs, holding thermoses.

I could not speak. Doris pulled a folded paper from her pocket and held it out. It was a list of names, written in a dozen different hands. Beside each name was a date and a short note. I read the first line, and my chest tightened. It said, “1998, Earl pulled my husband’s tractor out of the creek and never sent a bill.”