Papa's Tractor Won't Start
a Tuesday-morning ballad for Old Ruby
Old Ruby was the name of the tractor, and on Tuesday morning Old Ruby had decided no.
Papa turned the key. Old Ruby coughed.
Papa turned the key again. Old Ruby sighed.
Papa turned the key a third time. Old Ruby simply went bik, bik, bik, and then sat there pretending to be a paperweight.
"Hmm," said Papa, which is what Papa says when something is going to take all day.
Big Brother came over with his tape measure (he measures things even when measuring won't help — it makes him feel braver). "Want me to take a look?"
"I'd be obliged," said Papa.
So they opened up Old Ruby's hood, and they peered into her engine, which is a place full of things that look like they should not be touched and probably should not be named. Big Brother poked at a hose. Papa wiggled a wire. A small puff of dust came out and made them both sneeze.
"Maybe it's the spark plug," said Big Brother.
"Maybe it's the gas line," said Papa.
"Maybe," said Middle Brother, drifting over, "it's because she's just tired."
Papa looked at Old Ruby for a long time. He patted her hood, the way you pat a horse on the cheek.
"Could be," he said.
So they did something the manual does not say to do. They sat down beside Old Ruby. They drank lemonade. They told her about the field. They told her about the back fence. They told her, in slow soft voices, all the work she had done over the years, and how good a tractor she was, and how the corn rows would not be the corn rows without her.
Then Papa turned the key one more time.
Old Ruby grumbled. Old Ruby coughed. Old Ruby thought it over. And Old Ruby, with a deep round noise like a friend clearing her throat, started.
Big Brother whooped. Middle Brother high-fived a chicken. Papa took off his hat and held it over his heart for a small respectful second.
"Sometimes," said Papa, climbing into the seat, "machines just want to be talked to, like the rest of us."
Old Ruby chugged out into the field. The morning got back to work.
But Papa kept the lemonade cup on the dashboard for the rest of the year.