The Year Money Grew on Trees - Aaron Hawkins [31]
"We're fertilizing, like I told you," I yelled back.
"Do you know what this smells like?"
"Pretty well, yes."
"And look at you, you're all filthy! You're going to get sick."
"We've got to do it, Mom. It's part of the job. I don't like it either."
I guess she hadn't really understood what we were doing until she saw half the orchard now covered in manure. Her face filled with disgust as she realized we had hauled a part of the dairy to her and dumped it right in front of her house. She gave a scream of frustration as she stomped back home.
The next day she tried to persuade my dad that we shouldn't be allowed to continue. He thought the whole situation was funny and simply said, "Well, honey, you know being a farmer is not all glamour. It's about connecting with the soil too."
Mrs. Nelson seemed just as revolted as my mom. She caught my attention one day when we were returning from a dairy run. I shouted for Sam to stop the tractor so she could talk to us.
"Hi, Mrs. Nelson," I called out.
As she walked closer, her eyes became bigger and she turned her head away.
"Jackson, what is that smell?" she said as she grimaced.
"We're fertilizing, the natural way."
"Do you have to?"
"If we want a lot of apples. Didn't Mr. Nelson ever fertilize like this?"
"Oh, no! I would never have let him back in the house!"
She marched away in a huff. I smiled, thinking that if Mr. Nelson had never bothered to fertilize, maybe he had never gotten all he could out of the trees. Maybe we would have an edge. We had better.
***
We finished with the manure work on the second Saturday after we had started. When we pulled away from the dairy, a very small part of me was sad to wave goodbye to Jerry, who had been so good to us.
No matter how many times I washed my shoes after that, they never stopped smelling. They were only good for working in the orchard from then on. They were only Fastbacks, some generic brand my mom had bought, but I was still tired of wearing my dress shoes everywhere. I asked my mom if I could get next year's school shoes early so I wouldn't have to wear my dress shoes anymore. I was hoping to get some high-tops because some of the kids at school were starting to wear them.
"It's your own fault you ruined the pair you had, so you can wait until next fall," she told me.
She was clearly paying me back for the smell that was now always there when you walked out of the house.
I hid my dad's tarp in the orchard, buried under some weeds and dirt. That, too, was never going to be the same. I hoped he would forget about it or think it had blown away.
I knew I owed Sam and Michael everything if those trees ever produced apples. There's something about standing knee deep in a pile of manure together that makes you feel close to someone, and I was feeling very emotional as the three of us hosed off the tractor after our last run. "Guys, I just want to say that was the worst experience of my life. I don't know two other people who would have helped with it. You're, like, the best friends I have," I blurted out.
"I'm never doing it again," said Michael sharply.
"Yeah, that's for sure. I don't think I ever even want to talk about this again. Let's just keep it all between us," said Sam, holding his soggy shoes.
We nodded our heads in agreement. I called to the girls, who were walking out of the orchard, and motioned them over. Sam and Michael sprayed them with the hose as soon as they were in range.
"Hey, Amy, here's a little taste of what we got," yelled Michael as he drenched her.
Chapter 8
Save the Blossoms
It was early April. I hadn't noticed it while shoveling manure, but on close inspection the trees were beginning to look a different color. Up and down their reddish-brown branches, little specks of green were breaking out.
Sam, Michael, and I had joined Amy cutting down the weeds poking out from the manure layer surrounding each tree. It was nice to be listening to the radio again, even if we had to hear "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" twice an hour. And compared with being covered