He Had Ten Days to Save Two Hundred Cattle, but the Widow’s Sons Refused to Lift a Scythe on Sunday
“My father taught us.”
“Good teacher?”
Peter answered immediately.
“Papa said grass is grass everywhere, but men are different.”
“Peter,” Jacob warned.
“What? He did say it.”
Katherine had come to the doorway.
“My husband said many things.”
Peter grinned.
“Mama says some were foolish.”
“Inside, Peter.”
The boy vanished.
Ezra looked at Katherine.
“How did your husband die?”
For the first time, some of the steadiness left her expression.
“Horse kicked him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He lived three days.”
She looked toward the dark meadow.
“He made me promise we would continue to the claim. He wanted land for the boys.”
“That’s a hard promise.”
“Yes.”
“Could’ve gone back east.”
“We could.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She seemed surprised by the question.
“Because I promised.”
At dawn they began.
The mower chattered into the grass.
Jacob followed with a rake.
John and Peter worked the wet corners with scythes.
Katherine raked behind Sam.
Martin gathered loose hay.
Little Emil carried water in a bucket so large he had to lean backward while walking.
By sunset they had thirteen acres down.
On Saturday they cut fourteen more.
Sam stopped complaining.
That alone impressed Ezra more than the acreage.
Near sundown, Katherine stepped into the field.
“Enough.”
Jacob immediately set down his rake.
John stopped cutting.
Peter looked at the remaining light, then obediently lowered his scythe.
Sam stared.
“We got another hour.”
Katherine shook her head.
“The day is finished.”
“The sun is still up.”
“For us, it is finished.”
Sam turned toward Ezra.
“Boss?”
Ezra looked at the standing hay.
Twenty-seven acres down.
Fifty-three remaining.
He could almost hear a clock ticking.
Then he remembered Fairfield.
She had warned him.
“I hired them on their terms,” Ezra said.
Sam threw his hands up.
“Of course you did.”
That night the boys washed in the creek and changed into clean shirts.
Katherine prepared food ahead for Sunday so little cooking would be required.
Before going inside, she stopped near Ezra.
“You may come tomorrow.”
“To what?”
“We read Scripture. We sing.”
“I don’t sing.”
“Then do not sing.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Sunday morning, Ezra woke in the hayloft to voices.
A hymn.
German words he could not understand.
Yet the melody stopped him.
His mother had sung something like it when he was a boy in Ohio.
Back then, Sunday had meant clean clothes, hard chairs, long prayers, and a father who treated Sabbath rules like fence law.
Ezra had hated it.
At seventeen he left home.
At twenty-seven he was still working Sundays out of spite.
At forty-seven, he no longer needed a reason.
He simply worked every day because stopping felt dangerous.
Sam stood at the corral.
“They’re really doing it.”
Ezra leaned against the rail.
“Doing what?”
“Nothing.”
From the line shack came another hymn.
“We lost a day,” Sam said.
“No.”
“Boss, I know what a day is.”
“We agreed on it.”
“Agreements don’t cut hay.”
Ezra looked across the meadow.
“You worried?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“At least we agree on something.”
That afternoon Ezra walked the far edge of the property, checking the cured rows.
Then he heard the hiss of a blade.
He followed the sound.
John stood hidden behind tall grass, swinging a scythe.
The fourteen-year-old froze when Ezra appeared.
“Put it down.”
“Mr. Colton—”
“Put it down, John.”
The boy tightened his grip.
“Nobody sees.”
“I see.”
“It is only this corner.”
“Your mother said no Sunday work.”
“She does not have to know.”
Ezra stepped closer.
John’s face was pale.
“Sam says we cost you a day. I heard him. If the hay is lost, you will send us away. If you send us away, Mama has no money for the claim.”
“I’m not sending you away.”
“You cannot know that.”
John’s voice cracked.
“I am fourteen. I know money. I know winter. I know what happens when men say there is no work.”
He looked down at the scythe.
“I do not think God cares about one corner.”
Ezra almost told him he agreed.
Instead he remembered Katherine standing beside the stock pens.
She had told him the truth before accepting a single dollar.
Ezra rested one hand on the scythe handle.
“Maybe God doesn’t care about the corner.”
John looked up.
“But I gave your mother my word.”
Silence.
“I hired you knowing the condition,” Ezra continued. “If I let you break it because it’s inconvenient for me now, then I’m the liar.”
John’s grip slowly loosened.
“Go tell your mother what you did.”
John looked terrified.
“She will be angry.”
“Probably.”
“You come with me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re fourteen.”
“That is not a reason.”
“It’s reason enough.”
John trudged toward the shack.
Ezra carried the scythe behind him.
That evening, Peter later reported that Katherine had not yelled.
She had told John he was becoming a man and could someday choose his own path.
She would not force his faith on him.
But she hoped he would understand that a principle kept only when convenient was merely a preference.
The next morning John worked harder than anyone.
And he stayed very close to his mother.
By Wednesday, fifty-nine acres had been cut.
Ezra began to believe they might actually win.
Then the mower broke.
The sound came just before noon.
A hard metallic crack.
The team lurched.
The sickle bar stopped dead.
Ezra climbed down.
The pitman arm had snapped clean through.
Sam arrived at a run.
He looked once.
“That’s bad.”
“I can see that.”
“You can’t fix that with wire.”
“I know.”
“Blacksmith in Fairfield might have one.”
“Ride.”
Sam was saddled within ten minutes.
Ezra stood beside the broken machine staring at twenty-one acres of standing hay.
Behind him came Jacob’s voice.
“We have scythes.”
Ezra turned.
Jacob stood with his blade over one shoulder.
“So you do.”
“Five cutters.”
“Katherine too?”
Jacob nodded.
“In Russia, during harvest, many men cut in one line. The first man sets the pace. Others follow.”
“Can you do twenty-one acres?”
“Not today.”
“How long?”
“Four days. Maybe five.”
Ezra looked west.
The sky was still clear.
But September had a way of changing its mind.
“Start.”
Jacob took the lead.
John followed.
Then Peter.
Then Katherine.
Even Martin worked the edges with a shorter blade.
The scythes moved together.
Hiss.
Step.
Hiss.
Step.
Hiss.
Grass fell in smooth golden waves.
It was beautiful.
And painfully slow.
They cut four acres before dark.
That evening Ezra sat on the shack step with coffee, staring at seventeen acres still standing.
Katherine came outside.
“You count even when there is nothing to count.”
“I’m thinking.”
“No. You count.”
He gave her a sideways look.
“What’s the difference?”
“A man who thinks may find an answer. A man who counts only finds the same number many times.”
Despite himself, Ezra smiled.
“You always talk like that?”
“My husband said I talked too little.”
“Peter makes up for it.”
That earned a laugh.
Then silence settled between them.
“You never rest,” Katherine said.
“I sleep.”
“That is not rest.”
“What is?”
“Not carrying everything.”
He looked at her.
She continued carefully.
“Even Sunday you walk the field. You check the stacks. The fences. The cattle.”
“Somebody has to.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s mine.”
“That does not answer.”
Ezra stared into his cup.
“My father was a church elder. Strict man.”
Katherine waited.
“Sunday meant no work. No hunting. No riding except to church. Sometimes no laughing loud enough to enjoy yourself.”
“That sounds unpleasant.”
“It was.”
“So you became the opposite?”
He looked at her sharply.
She shrugged.
“Peter is not the only one who sees things.”
Ezra laughed once.
“I left home at seventeen. Worked every Sunday I could after that. Suppose at first I was proving something.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know how to stop.”
Katherine nodded as if that answer made complete sense.
“My grandfather said Sabbath is not about proving we are good.”
“What’s it about?”
“Remembering we are not God.”
Ezra’s brow tightened.
“He said the world runs without us one day each week. This is good news.”
“Doesn’t feel like good news when there’s hay down.”
“No.”
“What if it rains?”
“Then we become wet.”
“That your whole philosophy?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“But it is part.”
Thursday morning, a thin haze spread across the western sky.
By noon, the sunlight looked yellow.
Ezra checked the barometer.
Falling.
Katherine noticed.
“How long?”
“Storm could arrive Sunday night. Maybe Monday.”
“How much remains?”
“Seventeen standing. More than half the cut hay still needs stacking.”
She looked toward her sons.
Then she walked away without saying anything.
That evening Katherine approached Ezra beside the corral.
“I need to ask something.”
“Go ahead.”
“My husband’s cousin lives at Cottonwood Springs. Nine miles north.”
Ezra had heard of the German farming colony.
“Gottlieb Reimer?”
“Yes.”
“Thought you weren’t close.”
“We are family.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her mouth tightened.
“We disagreed after Friedrich died.”
“About what?”
“He wanted us to stay with his family. I wanted to continue to our claim. He said a widow with five sons had no business proving herself on open prairie.”
“What did you say?”
Katherine looked almost embarrassed.
“I said an old man with seven daughters had no business telling me what sons require.”
Ezra coughed to hide a laugh.
“He stopped speaking to you?”
“I stopped speaking first.”
“That sounds more likely.”
She ignored him.
“He belongs to a settlement of eleven families. They have men. Boys. Scythes.”
“You want to ask for help.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“That pride cost you much?”
“Enough.”
“And now?”
She watched Jacob helping Emil wash his hands at the pump.
“Now pride is becoming expensive.”
Peter rode north with a letter tucked inside his coat.
He returned at dawn.
Gottlieb’s answer was brief.
He would speak to the families.
Nothing more.
At four Friday afternoon, Sam rode back.
His horse was white with dried sweat.
He carried no replacement part.
Ezra knew before Sam dismounted.
“Nothing?”
“Fairfield doesn’t have one. Blacksmith wired Yankton. Freight Monday at earliest.”
Ezra looked west.
Clouds were building.
Sam followed his gaze.
“We’re in trouble.”
“Yes.”
By sunset only seven acres remained standing.
Thirty-three acres were safely stacked.
Forty acres lay cut in rows across the meadow.
Those forty acres were the danger.
A hard rain could soak them.
Several days of cold weather afterward could rot them where they lay.
Sam waited until the Reimers were inside.
“Boss.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Then save me the speech.”
“No.”
Sam stepped in front of him.
“Every farmer in the territory works Sunday if weather’s coming.”
“I said I wouldn’t ask them.”
“That was before the mower broke.”
“A promise doesn’t become something else because circumstances get inconvenient.”
“This isn’t inconvenient. This is two hundred cattle.”
Ezra’s jaw tightened.
Sam continued.
“You don’t have to order them. Ask. Pay double.”
“They already answered.”
“Ask again.”
“No.”
But an hour later, Ezra found Katherine behind the shack washing clothes.
He stood there longer than he intended.
She noticed.
“You have something to say.”
“Yes.”
She kept scrubbing.
“Then say.”
Ezra hated how weak the words sounded before they were even spoken.
“The weather’s getting worse.”
“Yes.”
“If we had Sunday—”
The washboard stopped.
Ezra looked away.
“I told you I wouldn’t ask.”
“But you ask.”
“Yes.”
She wrung out the shirt and laid it over the tub.
Ezra continued.
“My father used to quote something from the Gospel. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
“I know it.”
“It seems to me there ought to be room for necessity.”
“There is.”
“Then maybe this is necessity.”
Katherine studied him.
“I used this verse once.”
He blinked.
“When John was eight,” she continued, “he had fever. Friedrich rode twenty miles on Sunday for a doctor. We did not question it.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That was a sick child. This is hay.”
“Hay feeds cattle.”
“Yes.”
“Cattle keep a ranch alive.”
“Yes.”
“So where’s the line?”
“I do not know.”
“Neither do I.”
“That is why I do not move it simply because I am frightened.”
The words hit harder than Ezra expected.
Katherine lowered her voice.
“You are afraid.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
She glanced toward the blackening west.
“But fear is a poor preacher, Mr. Colton.”
Ezra heard footsteps.
The boys were standing nearby.
Jacob stepped forward.
“Mr. Colton.”
Ezra’s stomach sank.
Jacob’s face was pale.
“I will not work tomorrow.”
“Jacob—”
“I want to help you.”
“I know.”
“I would cut until my hands bleed tonight.”
“I know.”
“But if Papa’s rule only matters when nothing is lost by keeping it, then it is not worth anything.”
John moved beside his brother.
“I will not work either.”
He swallowed.
“I tried last Sunday.”
Katherine looked at him.
John’s eyes filled with shame.
“I was wrong.”
Ezra removed his hat.
For a moment the cattle, the clouds, the hay, the money, all of it seemed to press down on him.
Then little Emil looked up.
“Mr. Colton angry?”
Ezra crouched until he was eye level with the child.
“No.”
“You look angry.”
“I’m scared.”
Emil considered this carefully.
“Mama says scared is not same as angry.”
“Your mama says a lot of things.”
“Yes.”
Ezra stood.
“I’m sorry I asked.”
Katherine said nothing.
“I won’t ask again.”
That night the air felt heavy enough to touch.
Ezra could smell rain far away.
He lay awake in the barn thinking about cattle ribs showing through winter hides.
Debt.
Feed prices.
Twenty years of work.
Around midnight, he climbed down.
The moon was hidden.
He walked into the meadow until the hay brushed his knees.
Then Ezra Colton did something he had not done sincerely since boyhood.
He prayed.
Not beautifully.
Not confidently.
“Lord,” he said into the dark, “I don’t know if I’m being faithful or stupid.”
The grass whispered.
“I’ve got two hundred cattle depending on me. A machine that’s broke. Weather coming. And one stubborn widow who believes You’ll take care of things.”
He almost laughed.
“I’m not sure which one of You is more difficult.”
Nothing answered.
Ezra looked toward the shack where Katherine and her sons slept.
“I gave my word.”
His voice became quieter.
“I’ll keep Sunday.”
He breathed slowly.
“You’ll have to keep the hay.”
For once, after saying the words, he did not walk the field again.
He went to bed.
And slept.
Ezra woke before sunrise to the sound of wagon wheels.
At first he thought he was dreaming.
Then came another wagon.
And another.
He climbed down from the loft.
Eleven wagons rolled up the ranch track in the gray morning light.
Men walked beside them carrying scythes.
Women rode among sacks of bread, cheese, coffee, flour, and cooked meat.
Children crowded the wagon beds.
One wagon became three.
Three became seven.
Seven became eleven.
Sam came running from the bunkhouse half dressed.
“What in God’s name—”
Ezra stepped outside.
At the head of the procession was an old man with a white beard.
Katherine had already emerged from the shack.
For several seconds she did not move.
Then the old man climbed from his wagon.
He and Katherine looked at each other.
Whatever argument had kept them apart for months seemed suddenly very small.
Gottlieb Reimer opened his arms.
Katherine crossed the distance.
He held her against his chest.
She did not cry.
At least not where Ezra could see.
Gottlieb eventually released her and approached Ezra.
“You are Ezra Colton.”
“I am.”
“I am Gottlieb Reimer.”
Ezra looked behind him.
“How many people did you bring?”
“Enough.”
“How many cutters?”
“Twenty-two.”
Ezra stared.
“Twenty-two?”
“Eleven women can rake.”
Gottlieb glanced toward the children.
“Many children can carry water. Some will be useful. Some will believe they are useful.”
Peter grinned.
Ezra found his voice.
“I’ll pay wages.”
“No.”
“I’m not taking charity.”
“Good.”
Gottlieb folded his hands over his stomach.
“This is not charity.”
“What is it?”
“Katherine asked for help.”
“That sounds a lot like charity.”
“No. Charity is for strangers.”
The old man looked at Katherine.
“This is family.”
Ezra glanced at the workers unloading tools.
“I’m not family.”
“No.”
Gottlieb’s eyes twinkled.
“You are the man whose hay is inconveniently located where we are working.”
Despite the storm and the fear and the exhausting week, Ezra laughed.
“What do you want in return?”
“In October we thresh.”
“All right.”
“We have more wheat than men.”
“You’ll have me, Sam, a team, and whatever machine I can borrow.”
Gottlieb held out his hand.
“Then it is business.”
Ezra shook it.
“Business.”
The meadow transformed.
Jacob and Gottlieb stood at the head of the cutting line.
Twenty-two scythes stretched behind them.
Ezra had never seen anything like it.
The old man lifted his blade.
Jacob lifted his.
Twenty-two men and boys moved.
The sound rolled across the field.
Hiss.
Step.
Hiss.
Step.
Hiss.
A whole wall of grass seemed to bow.
No wasted motion.
No shouting.
The cutters moved as though connected by an invisible rod.
By nine in the morning, the last seven standing acres were down.
Then every cutter traded scythe for pitchfork.
The women came behind with rakes.
Older children drove wagons.
Younger ones carried water.
One toddler repeatedly carried the same empty bucket between two stacks until somebody gave him a biscuit.
Ezra worked without looking at his watch.
Around noon, Katherine climbed onto the same haystack where he was building the crown.
Her hair had escaped its kerchief.
Dust streaked her face.
“You are counting,” she said.
“Not today.”
“No?”
“No idea how many loads we’ve done.”
“You are learning.”
“Don’t get ambitious.”
She smiled.
Ezra suddenly realized something.
“What did your letter say?”
“To Gottlieb?”
“Yes.”
She stabbed her fork into the hay.
“I said I was wrong.”
Ezra nearly dropped his pitchfork.
“You wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“Those exact words?”
“Almost.”
“What were the exact words?”
Katherine narrowed her eyes.
“That is private.”
“I’d like to frame them.”
She threw a handful of hay at him.
At three in the afternoon, the western horizon disappeared.
Clouds rose like a wall.
Someone shouted.
The entire field changed pace.
Four major stacks remained unfinished.
Another had barely begun.
Wind rushed across the prairie.
Loose grass lifted and rolled.
Ezra’s shirt snapped against his back.
Sam climbed onto a wagon.
“Storm’s coming fast!”
“No kidding!”
“You want me to tell it to slow down?”
“Would save time!”
The first cool drop struck Ezra’s cheek.
He froze for half a second.
Rain.
“Move!” he shouted.
Nobody needed translating.
Men pitched hay.
Women raked.
Wagons rolled.
Horses strained.
Children carried ropes and tools and water.
The wind grew stronger.
One unfinished stack began to lean.
Jacob saw it.
“John!”
The brothers jumped onto the stack, redistributed the weight, and packed down the center while Sam and Ezra pitched from below.
Five o’clock.
The sky looked almost like night.
A drop landed on Ezra’s hand.
Then another.
“Two stacks!” Sam shouted.
They moved.
Ezra’s shoulders burned.
His palms had blistered through old calluses.
He saw Katherine stumble.
He reached for her.
She pushed his hand away.
“I can stand.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“You thought it.”
“Just keep pitching!”
“That was already my plan!”
At a quarter to six, only one wagon remained.
Little Emil stood nearby, clutching a handful of hay.
“Out of the way!” Jacob yelled.
“No!”
“Emil!”
“This is mine!”
Nobody had time to argue.
The last wagon reached the final stack.
Every available fork attacked it.
Hay rose.
Wind tore at the edges.
Gottlieb shouted instructions.
Jacob shaped the crown.
Ezra packed one side.
Sam climbed the other.
Katherine worked below them.
Then the wagon was empty.
One small tuft remained in Emil’s hands.
Gottlieb lifted the boy onto his shoulders.
“Go!”
Emil stretched upward and dropped his handful onto the crown.
For one strange, perfect second, everybody stopped.
The entire meadow erupted in cheers.
Then rain struck.
One fat drop.
Another.
Another.
Ezra turned slowly.
Fifteen stacks stood across the meadow.
Round.
Tight.
Finished.
Rain began drumming against his hat.
He looked at Sam.
“How much?”
Sam’s chest rose and fell.
“What?”
“How much hay is safe?”
Sam looked across the stacks.
His face changed.
“All of it.”
Ezra did not trust what he had heard.
“All?”
“Every damn stem.”
Ezra began laughing.
It came out of him unexpectedly.
Too loud.
Too long.
He bent over, one hand against the stack, laughing while rain ran down his face.
Sam stared.
Then Sam started laughing too.
Katherine approached.
She did not laugh.
She stood in the rain looking over the field.
Her lips moved.
Then she bowed her head.
Ezra eventually caught his breath.
“What did you say?”
Katherine opened her eyes.
“Thank you.”
“To who?”
She looked toward the families loading wagons.
“Everyone.”
Gottlieb stopped beside Ezra before leaving.
Rain had soaked his white beard.
“You kept your word.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“That is different from not keeping it.”
“I asked them Friday.”
“Katherine told me.”
Ezra grimaced.
“Of course she did.”
“You were afraid.”
“I was.”
“And you did not force them.”
“No.”
Gottlieb nodded.
“That is why we came.”
Ezra frowned.
“You came because of that?”
“Katherine wrote that you honored our way when it cost you nothing.”
The old man smiled.
“Then she wrote that you honored it when it might cost you everything.”
Ezra looked across the wet meadow.
“You all would’ve let me lose the hay?”
“If today had not been enough?”
“Yes.”
Gottlieb did not hesitate.
Ezra shook his head.
“You people are terrifying.”
“We are farmers.”
“That is not a denial.”
Gottlieb laughed and climbed aboard his wagon.
By nightfall, the meadow was empty except for the Reimers, Ezra, Sam, and fifteen stacks of protected hay.
Rain fell harder.
Ezra stood beneath the barn awning, watching water sheet from the roof.
Sam joined him.
“Well.”
“Well what?”
“I suppose you want me to say you were right.”
Ezra looked at him.
“Were you planning to?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose I don’t.”
Sam grunted.
After a while he said, “Boss?”
“Yes?”
“Next time we got eighty acres and ten days, hire thirty people at the beginning.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all week.”
Sunday morning, rain continued.
No one worked.
For once, there was nothing urgent left to save.
Katherine and the boys gathered in the line shack.
Ezra stood outside for several minutes listening.
Then he opened the door.
Six faces turned toward him.
Peter smiled first.
“I told Mama you would come.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
Katherine handed Ezra a hymnbook.
“It is German,” she said.
“I noticed.”
“You cannot read it.”
“No.”
“You cannot sing the songs.”
“Probably not.”
She moved aside on the bench.
“You may sit.”
Ezra sat.
His hat rested on his knees.
The hymn began.
He did not sing.
Rain drummed steadily against the roof.
For the first time in more than twenty years, Ezra Colton sat through an entire Sunday morning without checking cattle, counting hay, mending harness, inspecting fences, or looking at the sky.
And nothing fell apart.
That winter was one of the coldest in years.
Snow buried fences.
The river froze thick enough to carry loaded wagons.
Ezra’s cattle survived on the hay from the lower meadow.
In October, he kept his promise to Gottlieb and spent nine days helping the Cottonwood families thresh wheat.
Sam went too.
He complained the entire time and was invited back the following year.
The Reimer family finished their claim house before the first heavy snow.
Ezra hauled two wagonloads of lumber north without charging Katherine.
She objected.
He claimed it was payment for a repaired shirt.
She called him ridiculous.
He brought the lumber anyway.
By spring, Jacob was working part-time for Ezra while helping on his mother’s farm.
John became the best scythe man in the county and never again secretly cut on Sunday.
Peter continued talking.
Martin grew six inches.
Emil finally became strong enough to carry a full bucket without spilling half of it.
And Katherine?
She remained stubborn.
So did Ezra.
Which, strangely enough, gave them a great deal to discuss.
Years later, when people asked Ezra Colton about the famous harvest before the September storm, they expected him to talk about twenty-two scythes cutting in formation.
Or fifteen haystacks finished seconds before the rain.
Or eleven wagons appearing out of the dawn.
He rarely did.
Instead he told them about one Sunday afternoon when he caught a frightened fourteen-year-old boy secretly cutting grass.
He told them how easy it would have been to look away.
He told them about a widow who announced her principles before she asked for wages.
He told them about a night when a man who believed himself responsible for everything finally admitted that he could not control the weather.
And sometimes, when the listener was patient, Ezra would tell them the strangest thing he had learned.
A promise is not proven when keeping it is easy.
It is proven when breaking it would solve your problem.
Faith, he came to believe, was much the same.
And every Sunday after that, no matter how much work waited beyond the door, Ezra Colton stopped.
Sometimes he went to Katherine’s house.
Sometimes the Reimers came to his.
Sometimes he understood the sermon.
Sometimes he did not.
Peter eventually learned enough English to translate everything, including several things Ezra strongly suspected the preacher had never said.
But Ezra always sat down.
He always let his hands rest.
Because once, in September of 1886, he had watched a storm roll over eighty acres of hay he could not save alone.
And he had discovered that the world kept turning even after he stopped trying to carry it.
THE END.
