Part 6

SWEET CORN. Grown by Caleb & Hannah Lund.

Hannah set up her bucket. The same overturned pickle bucket she’d stood on all last summer at Grandma’s stand. She’d brought it from home.

She climbed up on it. She set the Folgers coffee can on the tailgate beside her. The one with the stickers. She’d made a change box out of an old tackle box from the garage.

Caleb stood beside the crates with his arms crossed. Ready to haul.

Chief Barnes came out of the station with his coffee.

He was wearing his blue department T-shirt and a ball cap. He walked slowly across the apron toward the truck.

He looked at the crates of corn.

He looked at the leaning cardboard sign with its crooked R.

He looked at Hannah standing on her bucket.

“Look at this operation,” he said.

He reached into his shirt pocket.

He pulled out a five-dollar bill.

He held it out.

Not to Jeff. Not to me.

To Hannah.

“First bag’s mine,” he said.

Hannah took the five. She looked at it for a second.

Then she put it in the coffee can, and she picked up a baker’s dozen from the crate. Thirteen ears, tied with twine.

She handed it to the chief with both hands.

“Thank you for your business, Chief Barnes,” she said.

He took the corn.

He didn’t put it in his truck. He didn’t take it home.

He carried it into the bay. He walked past Engine 1, up to the front of the truck.

He set the corn right on the engine’s hood. Right in the middle. In front of the big chrome grille with NEW BREMEN FIRE in gold letters across the top.

Where the whole town could see it through the open bay door.

Part Thirteen: Everybody Came The crew came first.

There were five of them. Volunteer firefighters. A plumber, a teacher, a farmer, a guy who worked at the Crown factory, and a nineteen-year-old named Tyler who’d just finished his EMT training.

They walked out of the station one at a time. Each one bought a dozen.

Then they took out their phones.

I don’t know who posted it first. Maybe Tyler. Maybe the teacher.

But by seven-thirty, there was a picture on the New Bremen Community Facebook page. A baker’s dozen of sweet corn sitting on the hood of Engine 1. A little girl on a bucket behind a pickup truck. A cardboard sign.

Stop by the firehouse this morning! These two kids grew their own sweet corn. $5/dozen. Chief bought the first one.

Then everybody came.

The hardware man came. Gene Moeller, who’s run Moeller’s Hardware on Main Street since his father retired. He bought two dozen and said his wife would kill him if he didn’t.

The church ladies came. Six women from St. Paul’s, in their aprons, on their way to set up the rummage sale in the church basement. They bought a dozen each. One of them, Mrs. Kremer, who was ninety, made Caleb carry hers to her car.

The mail lady came. The milk truck driver came. The high school softball coach came and talked to Hannah for ten minutes about her swing.

Cars started lining up at the four-way stop. People pulled over on Monroe Street and walked. Somebody brought their kids. Somebody brought their dog.

Hannah stood on her bucket the whole time. Counting change. Making small talk. Telling everyone, “We grew it ourselves. Behind our shed. My brother read four books about it.”

Caleb hauled. He never sat down once. Up and down from the truck bed, bringing fresh crates to the tailgate, carrying bags to cars for the old folks.

Jeff and I stood off to the side by the flagpole. We didn’t help.

The kids didn’t need us.

At ten o’clock, Jeff drove home and picked twenty more dozen. He came back with them at ten-forty.

They were gone by eleven-thirty.

At eleven-forty, Caleb came around the truck.

He was sweaty. His T-shirt was soaked. His hands were green from corn silk.

He walked right up to me.

“Mom,” he said. “We sold forty dozen.”

“Forty dozen?” I said.

He nodded. He couldn’t stop grinning.

“Before noon,” he said. “Forty dozen before noon. Hannah counted.”

He looked at the coffee can on the tailgate.

“That’s two hundred dollars,” he said. “In one morning.”

Part Fourteen: The Buick That’s when the tan Buick turned off the highway.

I saw it coming from a block away. I knew that car. A 2006 LeSabre. Tan, with a dent in the back bumper from a deer on Route 66 in 2019. A Lund Family Reunion sticker in the back window.

My stomach dropped.

Grandma Dean parked it crooked.