Gordon hitched up his leather belt buckle with one hand and rested his other palm on his pump handle.

“That oak ridge is the best eighty acres in Dunn County, Amy.

Keep it that way.”

“I plan to,” I said.

I drove the last three miles to the farm, turned up the gravel drive, and parked next to the barn.

By the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the first light powdering of winter was blowing across the bottom cornfield.

Sunlight poured through the clean glass of the kitchen window onto the worn oak table where my grandfather used to sit every afternoon with his battery radio.

I reached into the deep wooden drawer next to the pantry and took out Arvid’s green canvas ledger.