The Year Money Grew on Trees - Aaron Hawkins [39]
"Thanks a lot, Brother Brown. I uh, uh..." I couldn't decide what the most important thing to ask was. I finally said, "Can you tell me what this thing does?" pointing at the mysterious machine.
"Call it a disc. Use it to mix up the soil. Good for weeds too," he said, and continued toward his house.
"Thanks again," I called.
"Thank you," yelled Lisa and Jennifer.
We climbed back on the tractor and wagon for the slow ride home. I noticed that no one's shoes were wet. A little muddy, but dry at the socks. As I leaned over the side of the wagon watching the road, I remembered where I had seen those aluminum siphoning pipes before—Mr. Nelson's old shed.
***
After school the next day, Amy, Sam, Michael, and I headed across the road to try and find our irrigation gate. We climbed to the top of the embankment, and the boys and I began inching our way toward the trees and plants that grew next to the deep, fast-moving water.
"I don't want to sound bossy, but maybe that isn't the safest thing to do," yelled Amy.
"What should we do, then?" I called back.
"I don't know for sure, but you boys are all pretty clumsy, and I don't want them to have to fish your drowned bodies out of the canal."
We decided it would be safest if only Amy and I got near the water's edge. Sam and Michael were supposed to walk along the top of the canal watching us so they could run for help if Amy or I fell in. The boys didn't like the plan much, but Amy told them they had no choice.
Amy and I made our way carefully along the canal's edge, holding on to the trees and weeds to avoid slipping into the water. After an hour of searching, Amy spotted a rusty wheel hidden in some willows.
"This has to be it!" I shouted. "Sam and Michael, pile a bunch of rocks up on the bank so we can find it again."
We moved aside the trees, and I grabbed the wheel and tried to turn it. It wouldn't budge, even when Amy and I tried turning it together. It took half a can of mo tor oil and the leverage of a long metal bar to finally get the wheel moving. I gave a cheer as the gate creaked open and water began to swirl around it.
"Guys, go see if it's coming out somewhere across the road," I called. Sam and Michael took off across the road and ducked through the barbed-wire fence that bordered the trees.
By the time I caught up with them, water was pouring out of the ground and spreading over one corner of the orchard. Some was making its way into a ditch like Brother Brown's, but most of it was flooding through the trees, carrying weeds, dirt, and manure with it.
"I don't think it's going where it's supposed to," said Sam, dancing around the spreading water.
"Turn it off! Close the gate!" I shouted to Amy, who was still across the highway.
We stopped the flood and returned to inspect the damage. "We need a better ditch if we want to use those pipes," said Amy. There were still traces of the ditch Mr. Nelson must have used, but after years of neglect, some spots had completely caved in.
"I think this is the type of thing you need a plow for," I said while moving some of the dirt around.
"Why don't we hook that plow in the middle of the orchard up to the tractor?" suggested Sam, always eager to use the tractor.
When we went to look at the plow, I shook my head doubtfully. "I'm not sure how you'd connect it to the tractor. And it's so heavy, I don't think we could move it into place, anyway," I said, kicking it.
"We'll have to get our dads to help again. Jackson, go get your dad and I'll get mine. I'll pull the tractor over by this thing, and we'll meet you back here," said Amy decisively.
Our dads moaned and complained but followed the tractor out to the plow. They circled around it a few times, talking with each other about how it might attach. My dad then backed the tractor up to it, and Uncle David and the rest of us pushed against the