Chapter 32
Speak up.
Say something. Step up.
Elijah studied his dirty boots while his dad handed out an updated inventory list for the three-ring circus otherwise known as a retirement sale that would begin in fifteen minutes on the Eash farm outside of Hughesville, Maryland.
They were selling everything before retiring to Pinecraft, Florida—even their winter clothes.
In order to accommodate forty years’ worth of accumulated belongings, the Millers were doing three simultaneous auctions: household goods, furniture, and appliances; farm equipment and tools; and livestock.
“Elijah, you’ll spot for me for the household goods, appliances, and furniture.”
Toby studied the thick sheaf of papers for a second.
He snatched a stubby pencil from behind one ear and used it to scratch a spot above his left eyebrow.
“Emmett is coordinating the item lineup.
Dat’s got the livestock.
Daadi has equipment and tools.”
Once again Elijah wasn’t one of the callers.
His family had conspired to give him the easy way out, even while insisting he come on the road as a substitute for Jason.
His brother would be well enough to resume his duties next week.
In fact, he’d argued to come to this auction but had been overruled by his wife.
The mixed message didn’t help Elijah’s state of mind. He should step up. Volunteer. Do what he came to do. So why didn’t he?
It wasn’t an either-or.
He could still craft toys and sell them at Homespun Handicrafts.
No, that wasn’t it.
Elijah still wanted his own business.
The thought of stepping onto the platform, mic in hand, still filled him with dread.
He still wanted Bonnie in his life in the worst way.
He couldn’t pursue a new life on a foundation built on failure.
He would see himself as a failure.
Right or wrong, so would his family.
Speak up.
Say something. Step up.
If this was to be his life, now was the time to prove it.
To his father.
His brothers.
To his family.
To himself.
“I’ll do my best.”
Elijah swiveled to see Daadi trudging up the trailer steps.
Despite his stooped shoulders and arthritis-gnarled hands, he presented a commanding figure.
Even so, something was missing in his usual take-charge tone.
“What’s wrong, Daadi?”
“My heart’s doing that hippity-hop thing again.”
That hippity-hop thing, otherwise known as atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, according to the doc.
Grandpa kept postponing a visit to the cardiologist recommended by his doctor—much to Grandma’s chagrin.
“Do you need to go to the ER?”
Toby dropped the papers on the counter.
“Elijah can take you.
We’ll get a volunteer to spot for me.”
“Nee.
It’ll settle down on its own.
It always does.”
Grandpa plopped onto a collapsible stool.
“Calling the auction will take my mind off it.”
“Nee.
If you won’t go to the ER, you need to rest.”
Elijah straightened his shoulders.
He picked up the inventory.
“I’ll stand in for you.”
Grandpa reached for the stack of papers.
“It’s not necessary—”
“Mammi will tan our hides if we let anything happen to you.”
Elijah batted Grandpa’s hand away.
Tucking his list under his arm, he sidestepped his brothers and headed for the door.
“She didn’t want you out here in the first place, and she was right.
I’ve got this.
You rest.”
“Who put you in charge?”
Grandpa’s words chased Elijah down the steps.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.”
Elijah kept walking.
Toby, Emmett, and Dad joined him.
A sense of unity he’d never felt before swept over Elijah.
You can do this.
He summoned Declan’s voice. “You have a nice cadence for someone who’s never called an auction.”
He could do this.
The three platforms with sound equipment had been spread across the fairgrounds in order to make room for the crowds and to lessen the overlap of the sound system they used for calling.
The crowd thickened as they drew closer to the equipment and tools platform.
Farmers in John Deere or Massey Ferguson caps mingled with Plain buyers in straw hats in the blazing June sun only a few feet from the steps.
They parted as the Millers strode through.
A few hailed Toby and Dad. They were well known among the perennial auction-goers.
No one knew Elijah.
Looking neither left or right, he clomped up the stairs.
You can do this.
Nee, I can’t.
Not alone.
It wasn’t Declan’s voice anymore.
Elijah didn’t need Declan.
He couldn’t rely on his own strength; that was obvious.
He needed to rely on someone far more powerful.
Gott, You make all things possible.
I need Your help.
I can’t do this alone.
I’m here.
You’re standing on solid rock.
I have your right hand.
The iron claw that gripped his lungs eased.
Elijah gulped in air like a man reaching dry ground after nearly drowning in swift-moving rapids.
He stopped near the podium where the mic lay.
Not yet.
He didn’t have to pick it up yet.
Instead, he focused on the list in his hand.
At first the words swam as if they, too, were caught in the eddy and swell of river rapids.
Then, miraculously, they righted themselves.
An alfalfa mower, three generators, a tedder, a side delivery rake, a flatbed wagon, a propane-driven motorized baler, a hitch cart, a manure spreader, a corn picker, each with their own brief description.
Everything a farmer needed to cut and bale alfalfa, to fluff and dry the hay, to sow and reap alfalfa, corn, rye, barley, and wheat on a 161-acre farm in south-central Maryland.
Elijah forced his gaze to the crowd, growing with every second that ticked by.
He waited for the paralyzing fear to inundate him.
The ice to encase his body even as sweat soaked his shirt and made his hands too slick to hold the mic.
He waited for his mouth to dry and stomach cramps to send him to his knees doubled over.
None of that happened.
He heaved another breath.
I’m here, Elijah.
I’m here.
You’re not alone.
He picked up the mic.
“Good morning, friends.
Guder mariye.
Welcome, bewillkumm! Let’s not mess around, folks.
Let’s get down to business before it gets any hotter this fine summer morning. Are you ready?”
The crowd responded by clapping, whooping, and cheering.
No pressure.
He loosened his grip on the mic.
Do it.
Get it over with.
“First up a Safford Bush Hog ten-foot hay tedder.
Ground driven.”
The words came, slowing at first, then picking up speed.
The folks closest to the platform had the best view of the piece of equipment used to fluff and turn newly cut alfalfa so the hay would dry evenly.
“We’ll start the bidding off at $1,500, which is on the low side.
You know it.
I know it. So let’s get it rolling.
“Bid 1,500, 1,500.
Bid 1,500.
I’ve got 1,500, 2,000? Who’ll give me 2,000? Bid 2,000? Bid 2,500.
2,500.
Who wants in? Now 3,000. 3,000. Bid 3,000.”
A Plain man stuck up his bid card for the first time.
“Danki, friend.
I’ve got $3,000.
Bid 3,500? Bid 3,500?”
“$3,200!”
A Plain man, with a toddler on one hip and two girls hanging on to his legs on either side, shouted it out.
“That’s ...that’s okay.”
Elijah trod closer to the platform’s edge.
Despite obvious use, the tedder was in decent condition.
Not new, but well cared for.
“Come on, folks.
Bid $3,500. Who’ll give me 3,500?”
The newbie Plain man lifted his card.
“Bid 3,500.
Bid 4,000.”
“$3,750.”
The family man lifted his bid card with his free hand.
“Driving a hard bargain, aren’t you?”
Elijah pointed at the tedder.
“This is a gut piece of equipment.
Well cared for.
Someone give me what it’s worth.
Bid 4,000.”
So it went.
Back and forth.
In the end Family Man walked away with a new addition to his farm equipment at $4,200.
Almost exactly what Toby had written on the inventory as a target price.
Sometimes they found just the right groove to make it happen.
Now to build momentum.
He grabbed his travel mug and gulped down a mouthful of water.
His gaze caught Daadi sitting on the first row of bleachers. His grandfather raised his hand and flashed a thumbs-up. His grin said it all.
A-fib, my foot.
No matter.
Elijah checked his list.
Generators.
Used generators were bargains almost every Plain home could use.
They went quickly and for good prices. So did the side delivery rake, the hay-loader, a hitch cart, a manure spreader, on and on. Now his shirt was soaked in sweat. Not from nerves but a hard workout up and down the platform. Get through it. One item at a time. One sale at a time. This would never be his dream job, but he could do it. He was doing it.
One of the Eash sons, acting as Elijah’s spotter, filled his travel mug twice.
Steady water consumption was critical.
A dry mouth made it difficult to keep up the pace.
So did dehydration.
At noon they took a thirty-minute break for lunch.
Elijah took a sack weighted down with two sets of cheeseburgers with everything on them and curly fries, a carrier heavy with two large ice-cold root beers supplied by the Eashes to the bleachers.
He settled next to Grandpa.
“I know what you did.”
“You’re crushing it up there, Enkel.”
“Your heart is fine.”
Elijah partitioned out the food and drinks.
“It’s mean to make us worry about your health.”
“My heart is feeling better.
Its rhythm synced up right about the time you sold that tedder.”
Grandpa wiped the grease that dripped from his burger with a napkin.
“Of course, it won’t be so great after I eat this heart-attack-waiting-to-happen.”
Grinning, he took a huge bite and proceeded to chew happily.
“I could go get you a salad.”
“Bite your tongue.”
Food muffled Grandpa’s words.
“Rabbit food.”
Grandpa maintained that people his age had earned the right to eat whatever they wanted.
Besides, eating red meat, potatoes, and an endless supply of homemade bread and desserts hadn’t killed him yet.
Elijah demolished most of his burger before he bothered to try again.
A man worked up a powerful hunger calling an auction.
“What made you think this time would end any different than the first one?”
“I didn’t.”
Grandpa ripped open a ketchup packet.
He squirted the contents all over his curly fries.
“I prayed it would.
I just knew you’d never get on with your life if you didn’t get back on the platform.
Sort of like falling off a horse. You have to get back on.”
“Nothing like falling off a horse.
Mostly no one sees you.
Maybe just family.”
“You know what I mean.”
Grease shone on Grandpa’s lips.
Crumbs from the bun nested in his beard.
Elijah handed him a clean napkin.
He waved it like a flag.
“I know we’ve been hard on you. Your dat, your brieder. Me. It was wrong of us. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are who you are. You shouldn’t have to change on account of us. Gott made you who you are. To hear Bart tell it, Gott gives us each gifts. We’re supposed to use them. The gift of strutting on a stage ain’t yours. That don’t make you less-than. It just makes you different. In fact, it means you’re sticking by your church vows better than we are.”
The heavy stone on Elijah’s heart rolled off.
“We’re supposed to bow to the greater gut.
To put our needs last.
The family business needs me.”
“We’ll get by.
Emmett will go to auctioneering school in the fall.
Your kossins have shown an interest.
Your onkel Leif doesn’t object.
We’ll be fine.”
“Dat doesn’t think so.”
“You leave your dat to me.”
Grandpa hid a burp behind arthritis-riddled fingers.
“He has gut intentions.
Faith, family, community.
He forgets he was the only one of his brieder—my seh, your onkels—to join me when I started the business.”
“They didn’t grow up in the business.
You farmed when they were kinner.”
Elijah had heard all these reasons in the stories Grandpa told over the years.
“Dat was the youngest.
He wanted to be just like you.”
“True, but I wanted all my buwe to join me.
Partly because I wanted us to stay together as a family.”
Grandpa shrugged, then heaved a sigh.
“But also because it would make it easier for the business to be successful.
Joseph, Mark, and Leif couldn’t see themselves on a platform, blabbing into a microphone in front of a crowd of strangers any more than you could.
It wasn’t just nee, it was NEE in all capital letters.
Respectfully, of course. My buwe are gut men. Your mammi made sure of that.”
“Why did you decide to start an auctioneering business when most Plain Gmay didn’t allow it?”
“I saw a need, a void, and I knew it would be a gut way to pay the bills.
Farming wasn’t as profitable as it used to be.”
Grandpa stuck his trash into the greasy bag and shut it.
“I knew my plot of a hundred acres wouldn’t be enough farm for all my buwe to support their families.
I needed something else to pass down to them.”
“One of these days Dat will pass it down to his seh.”
“Those who want the business.
There’s no sense in shoving a livelihood down your kinner’s throats.
Making them miserable isn’t gut for business.
Your onkels taught me that.”
“I never thought to ask them.”
“You should, next time you see them.
They’ll tell you.
How you spend your life is important to Gott.
He gave you gifts.
He expects you to use them. Sometimes that means standing up for yourself.”
“So that’s why you pretended to be sick so I would get up there on the stage?”
“I don’t want you to feel like a failure.
Now it’s up to you to do the rest.”
For the first time in months, no clouds or fog obscured the road ahead.
“Hey, Elijah, it’s time.”
Dad zigzagged through the crowd that was quickly returning.
“I heard you did a decent job this morning.
Which is gut.
But there’s no time to slow down.”
That was Dad.
Easy on the compliments.
Which was fine.
Elijah rose.
He took Grandpa’s trash and stuffed it in the bag. He’d toss everything on his way back to the platform. “I don’t plan to slow down. I’ll finish the auction.”
He sucked down the last of his root beer, then toasted his father with an empty cup.
“Tomorrow I’m headed home.”
“But we still have auctions in Mechanicsville and Bird-in-Hand.”
“I’m going home, Dat.”
Elijah brushed past his father.
“I have to start my life there.”
“But—”
“Let him go, Charlie.”
Grandpa’s voice held notes of pride and command.
They were music to Elijah’s ears.
“I reckon there’s a girl involved.
Your fraa will be peeved if you stand in the way.”
What might have been said after that didn’t concern Elijah.
He had work to do.