“Well,” she said gently, “at least it’s paid for.”
I tried to laugh.
“Probably the only thing on that farm that is.”
I meant it as a joke.
I had no idea I’d repeated almost exactly what Dad had written in a letter I’d discover months later.
—
The following morning, reality caught up with me.
I owned forty cows.
I’d started the herd years earlier with six bred heifers Dad sold me at cost.
For more than two decades, those animals had grazed his creek pasture during summer and fed
