I’d been in the tomatoes all morning. Tying up the Better Boys and pinching the suckers off the Romas. Dirt on my knees. Dirt under my fingernails. Dirt, probably, on the end of my nose.
I had on George’s old straw hat. The one with the frayed brim and the sweat stain around the band that’s been there since the Carter administration. My blue work shirt with the patches on the elbows. My good rubber boots. The green ones.
Ezoic
The check was from the Methodist church.
Forty dollars. For four rhubarb pies for the bake sale. Reverend Collins had brought it by the house himself on Sunday afternoon and stood on my porch insisting I take it.
“Dot, you’ve been giving us pies for free for forty years,” he said. “Let us pay you once.”
So I took it. And Tuesday morning, after the tomatoes, I walked the four blocks down Main Street to cash it.
Ezoic
I’ve been banking at Farmers & Merchants in Millbrook for fifty-eight years.
