Tim and his Pa worked their way through the corn. They started on the north side of the field, up by the red clay road, and walked across, one row at a time. Tim went a few steps ahead, pulling the leafy bits open, and his Pa came right behind. They’d check and double-check each and every stalk.
As they went Pa told stories. He told tales of knights, dragons, mighty wizards and princesses. Then, when the sun stood good and high, they stopped for ‘lunch’. They sat in the clearing under my post, put stuff in their mouths, and chewed. Only after they’d eaten did Pa set to teaching Tim his letters. He drew them in the mud with a finger, and I rolled my head down, looking over their shoulders. I liked my letters, numbers too, but for me the lessons ended too soon.
Pa and Tim got back to work and finished the field. Then, when everything was said and done, they left me. The door of their little cabin closed, smoke started from the chimney, and the sun set on another day.
That was life. I watched over the field, over my farmer, and the pattern stuck. They’d pick bugs, stack firewood, and sometimes, just sometimes, someone passed along on the road.
Watching and listening, day and night, is tiring work though, and it got harder and harder to stay awake. In the end I couldn’t keep my head up, it drooped to my shoulder, and I was sure there’d be trouble to follow.
I fell asleep on the job and woke with my farmer holding my head in his hands. He stood on a stepladder, a smile plastered on his face, with Tim standing a pace or two behind. He didn’t yell or get mad at me for dozing off, but carried his ladder off again. Falling asleep though, it worried me.
For long as I could remember Elder Field had corn, mud and loads of quiet. Those things never changed, never went away, but I dozed off again and again, and every time I found two different, two changed people looking up at me.
Pa’s hair eased from brown into a shade of silver, as if he walked around with a head full of moonbeams. The wrinkly bits around his eyes got deeper, and Tim, he grew up. The boy I’d known, who’d picked bugs, ended up standing taller than his Pa. He looked right as my post and nearly as skinny.
Together they’d give me a stir, and the next day they’d set to picking bugs as usual.
“Your great-grandpa left Elder Field,” Pa said as he carefully picked a beetle from a corn stalk. “He left, travelled the world, and saw all sorts of things. My stories, well, most of ‘em come from him. He did things out there, but he said there was magic here, something he’d never found anywhere else.”
“I know. You’ve told me, but I’ve never seen any sort of magic. It’s just a cornfield. What’s so special about that?”
“It’s where you belong. Its home,” and with that said Pa went quiet.
“I need to see things,” Tim said.
Pa eyed bugs.
“I need to make my fortune.”
Pa picked a bug from a leaf.
“I need…”
Pa stopped. He paused, and lifting his head, his back stuck in a slump, he looked up to Tim. Pa took a step or two closer to his boy, his bare feet covered with mud, wrapped his arms around Tim’s skinny middle and gave a good squeeze. He did it all with a yellow and green critter squirming between his finger and thumb.
Letting go, Pa’s arms dropped to his sides and the hug ended. Tim stood ever so still. Like a pumpkin he barely moved, and Pa, he went back to minding the corn. He went through the rows, nobody’s work to check, and nobody double-checking his.
