“Your dad,” he said finally, “would’ve said a blind mule plants straighter.”
Phil didn’t answer.
“He’d have said you could lose a hog in those skips. He’d have said whoever set that planter ought to be made to eat the seed tags.”
“I expect he would,” Phil said.
“What’d that outfit charge you?”
“Twenty-eight dollars an acre. Plus seed.”
“Hm.”
Butch let that sit there.
“You know what else Albert would’ve said?”
“What.”
“He’d have said it’s the eleventh of June, and it isn’t lost yet. Corn’s forgiving if you get to it. That needs sprayed by Monday. It needs nitrogen put on beside the row. And that pivot needs to be walking before the Fourth of July, or you can forget the whole business.”
Phil looked over at the pivot.
“I don’t know how to start it.”
“I know you don’t.”
