he’d done chores, before he had breakfast, Job began his day with a Bible reading. He read through his Bible twice a year, starting with Genesis, finishing with Revelations. He was in Acts now, Saul on the road to Damascus. Saul before his name change, still persecuting Christians. A flash of light and God was speaking to him. As straightforward as that. No room for doubts.
Job tucked his bookmark into his Bible. Penny had given him the bookmark on his birthday. A purple laminated card with gold lettering that read, “A day hemmed in prayer seldom unravels.”
He closed his Bible, looked around at the hired hand’s cabin. The bare plywood walls, the pile of junk in the corner: socket sets, drill bits and Vise-Grips; stomach tubes and pill pushers. A box of equipment for inseminating the cows: French guns, sheaths, gloves and lubricants. Dehorning wire and handles; castrating rings and tools; hoof trimmers and hoof knives; halters and calf pullers. He couldn’t bring Debbie Biggs home to this.
He reached across the table for Debbie’s letter. The day before, he’d walked out across the road to the mailbox that had been knocked crooked from a game of drive-by mailbox baseball. He’d found her letter inside, along with a pile offlyers and an electricity bill, and opened it there at the mailbox. Her photograph had slid out and fallen to the gravel below.
Job looked down at the snapshot now. She was pretty, pretty enough to intimidate Job. She appeared to be in her early twenties, and somewhat heavily made up. Job worried that a woman concerned about her appearance might not like getting her hands dirty around the farm. But there was no telling from a photo.
He put the photo back in the envelope, tucked the letter in his breast pocket and opened the cabin door to step outside. Maybe Will was right. He should put the matter in God’s hands, put out a fleece.
Job looked over the farmyard, the silos that read:
Jesus is Lord! Hallelujah!
His cows in the pasture and the far bank of the coulee beyond. He prayed silently for a sign from God, that something might fly overhead if God expressed approval. Maybe a duck? He stopped praying, and waited for a reply.
All around him the farm was sketched in the simple lines of a child’s drawing, painted in the primary colours of a kindergarten paint set. The house, a child’s rendition of a house: a white box topped by a red peaked roof. A power line stretched out to thin, elderly power poles that trailed away in descending order into the horizon in both directions. Beyond, rolling fields of brilliant primary yellow, canola in flower. One line defined the prairie horizon. Perfect white and fluffy clouds receded one after the other into blue.
At first Job heard nothing except the northeastern wind that whistled through the windrow of blue spruce behind the house, a sound that rolled tiny bluish balls, the shape of woollen pompoms or tumbleweed, across Job’s field of vision.Then the whine of a yellow Ag Cat, a biplane, popping purple-pink fireworks in the air in front of Job, like the burst of a chive flower. The plane flew so low he could see the jubilant, ecstatic expression on the pilot’s face. Arnie Carlson. His wife, Annie, washed dishes alongside Job at church functions, but after nearly twenty years of marriage, she had given up trying to talk her husband into going to church. Arnie had stopped farming his father’s land years before, rented out the fields surrounding the yard and got himself a pilot’s licence. For a moment Job locked gazes with him. Was this the answer to his prayer?
Please God
, Job prayed,
if you want me to go out with Debbie, make Carlson circle around the house
.
The plane banked, circled the house. Job’s heart leapt, fell. Carlson would have circled anyway, to say hi, as he always did when he flew over. This was no sign from God. Just Carlson showing off.
Job walked across the road to watch the plane as the door to the house slapped shut.
Job tucked his bookmark into his Bible. Penny had given him the bookmark on his birthday. A purple laminated card with gold lettering that read, “A day hemmed in prayer seldom unravels.”
He closed his Bible, looked around at the hired hand’s cabin. The bare plywood walls, the pile of junk in the corner: socket sets, drill bits and Vise-Grips; stomach tubes and pill pushers. A box of equipment for inseminating the cows: French guns, sheaths, gloves and lubricants. Dehorning wire and handles; castrating rings and tools; hoof trimmers and hoof knives; halters and calf pullers. He couldn’t bring Debbie Biggs home to this.
He reached across the table for Debbie’s letter. The day before, he’d walked out across the road to the mailbox that had been knocked crooked from a game of drive-by mailbox baseball. He’d found her letter inside, along with a pile offlyers and an electricity bill, and opened it there at the mailbox. Her photograph had slid out and fallen to the gravel below.
Job looked down at the snapshot now. She was pretty, pretty enough to intimidate Job. She appeared to be in her early twenties, and somewhat heavily made up. Job worried that a woman concerned about her appearance might not like getting her hands dirty around the farm. But there was no telling from a photo.
He put the photo back in the envelope, tucked the letter in his breast pocket and opened the cabin door to step outside. Maybe Will was right. He should put the matter in God’s hands, put out a fleece.
Job looked over the farmyard, the silos that read:
Jesus is Lord! Hallelujah!
His cows in the pasture and the far bank of the coulee beyond. He prayed silently for a sign from God, that something might fly overhead if God expressed approval. Maybe a duck? He stopped praying, and waited for a reply.
All around him the farm was sketched in the simple lines of a child’s drawing, painted in the primary colours of a kindergarten paint set. The house, a child’s rendition of a house: a white box topped by a red peaked roof. A power line stretched out to thin, elderly power poles that trailed away in descending order into the horizon in both directions. Beyond, rolling fields of brilliant primary yellow, canola in flower. One line defined the prairie horizon. Perfect white and fluffy clouds receded one after the other into blue.
At first Job heard nothing except the northeastern wind that whistled through the windrow of blue spruce behind the house, a sound that rolled tiny bluish balls, the shape of woollen pompoms or tumbleweed, across Job’s field of vision.Then the whine of a yellow Ag Cat, a biplane, popping purple-pink fireworks in the air in front of Job, like the burst of a chive flower. The plane flew so low he could see the jubilant, ecstatic expression on the pilot’s face. Arnie Carlson. His wife, Annie, washed dishes alongside Job at church functions, but after nearly twenty years of marriage, she had given up trying to talk her husband into going to church. Arnie had stopped farming his father’s land years before, rented out the fields surrounding the yard and got himself a pilot’s licence. For a moment Job locked gazes with him. Was this the answer to his prayer?
Please God
, Job prayed,
if you want me to go out with Debbie, make Carlson circle around the house
.
The plane banked, circled the house. Job’s heart leapt, fell. Carlson would have circled anyway, to say hi, as he always did when he flew over. This was no sign from God. Just Carlson showing off.
Job walked across the road to watch the plane as the door to the house slapped shut.
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