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Widowed at 70, She Paid $2 for a Sagging Round Barn — By Fall, Cars Lined Up for Miles… — Transcript

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0:00At 70, three weeks after burying her
0:02husband, Eunice Hartwell stood on the
0:05front lawn and watched her
0:06daughter-in-law carry the kitchen chairs
0:08to the curb.
0:10That night, she had a pension check
0:12still weeks away, one brown suitcase,
0:15and $80 counted twice on the edge of a
0:18motel bed.
0:20A county clerk offered her a sagging
0:22round barn in the corn country north of
0:24Indianapolis, empty since the '90s, for
0:27$2.
0:28Eunice laid two worn bills on the
0:31counter.
0:32You'll be farming in circles, Eunice,
0:34the clerk said, and the men in line
0:36laughed that the widow had bought
0:38herself a round coffin.
0:40She only folded the receipt because she
0:42remembered what old Walter used to keep
0:44behind a board in the seventh stall.
0:47What she found there was something the
0:49county had forgotten for 30 years, worth
0:52more than the house she lost.
0:55By October, the cars were lined up along
0:57the road for miles.
0:59The cake stand came out of the house
1:01wrapped in newspaper. Eunice saw it from
1:04the porch steps, her mother's milk glass
1:06cake stand riding in the arms of a hired
1:09man,
1:10and she saw which page they had used.
1:13It was the page from the County Weekly
1:15with Jim's picture on it,
1:17Jim squinting in his good blue shirt,
1:19folded twice around the glass like a
1:21dish towel.
1:23Could you set that one down for me? She
1:24asked.
1:25Ma'am, everything on the kitchen list
1:27goes to the truck.
1:29That's my mother's, Eunice said, and
1:31that's my husband on the outside of it.
1:34His ears went red, and he set the stand
1:37on the porch rail.
1:38Brenda was in the kitchen with a
1:40clipboard, standing where Eunice had
1:42stood for 41 years, between the sink and
1:45the window over the garden.
1:47The realtor comes Thursday, she said
1:49without looking up.
1:51I told you that at the funeral.
1:52I told you twice.
1:54You did, Eunice said.
1:56I thought you might tell me a third time
1:58with a little kindness in
2:00Brenda clicked her pen. It's not about
2:02kindness. It's about the deed.
2:05You and Jim signed this house over to
2:07Michael, and Michael left everything to
2:10me.
2:11That much was true.
2:1312 years ago, after Jim's first heart
2:15spell, a young lawyer had told them it
2:18would be simpler to put the house in
2:19their son's name.
2:21Then Michael had gone off the highway in
2:23the rain 5 years ago,
2:25and the house had gone where his papers
2:27said,
2:28and Brenda had waited until the flowers
2:30on Jim's grave were brown.
2:33In a chipped mug by the sink lay Jim's
2:36reading glasses, folded the way he left
2:38them after the crossword.
2:40Eunice put them in her coat pocket.
2:43Those were on the list, Brenda said.
2:45Then cross them off, said Eunice.
2:48And after a moment, Brenda did.
2:51Caleb came through the back door with a
2:53box marked linens.
2:55He was 15 and all elbows, with Michael's
2:58way of standing with one shoulder low.
3:01When his mother turned to the phone, he
3:03leaned close. I'm sorry, grandma. I told
3:06her it wasn't right.
3:08She says I don't understand money.
3:10You understand more than you think,
3:13Eunice said, and squeezed his thin wrist
3:16and let him go before Brenda turned
3:17around.
3:19At 4:00, the truck pulled away with the
3:21table, Jim's recliner, and the bed she
3:24had slept in since 1985.
3:27What stayed on the porch was one brown
3:29suitcase, a grocery sack of pill
3:31bottles, and the cake stand in its
3:33newspaper.
3:35The motel was out on the state highway
3:37past the grain elevator with a vending
3:39machine that hummed all night.
3:42In room nine, Eunice counted her money
3:44onto the bed spread.
3:46Four twenties.
3:47She counted again because her hands had
3:49shaken the first time.
3:51The pension check would not come until
3:53the third Wednesday, and most of it
3:55already belonged to the hospital for
3:57Jim's last 2 weeks.
4:00She lined up her pills on the window
4:02heart, blood pressure, the little white
4:04one for her knee, and set Jim's glasses
4:07beside them.
4:08Well, Jim, she said, here we are.
4:12She thought about a senior apartment
4:14with a pull cord in the bathroom and a
4:16year of waiting list, and about her
4:18sister's guest room in Florida, and
4:20about the word nobody, which was what
4:23she would be in either place.
4:25She had cried at the cemetery and once
4:28more in a truck stop bathroom, and she
4:30had decided that was enough for one
4:32month.
4:34She lay down in her clothes and asked
4:36herself the only question that mattered.
4:39Where does a woman go at 70 with one
4:41suitcase when every door she had is
4:44closed?
4:46If stories like this one speak to you,
4:48give this video a like and subscribe to
4:50the channel with the bell turned on so
4:52you don't miss the next one.
4:54And now, let's continue.
4:57The county treasurer's office was on the
4:58second floor of the yellow brick
5:00building on the square at the end of a
5:02hall that smelled of floor wax and burnt
5:04coffee.
5:05Eunice had come about a small tax
5:07refund.
5:09She took the stairs one at a time, right
5:11foot first, the way the knee doctor had
5:13shown her. While she waited in line, she
5:15put on her glasses, which hung on a
5:17beaded cord around her neck, and read
5:20the typed list pinned to the corkboard
5:22under the words surplus property,
5:25offered as is.
5:27The fourth line said Albrecht parcel,
5:30County Road 11, round barn and silo,
5:33approximately 4 acres, minimum bid $2.
5:37The Albrecht place.
5:40The moment she read the name, she could
5:42smell it, cider and wet straw and smoke
5:45from the iron stove in Walter's office,
5:48and hear the fall market going around
5:50and around inside that big round room.
5:54At the counter, a heavy-set man with a
5:56gray mustache and a nameplate that said
5:58Dale Pruitt asked what he could do for
6:01her.
6:02She pointed at the corkboard.
6:04Is that real?
6:05Real enough to fall down,
6:07Dale said. Airs quit paying taxes in the
6:1090s. We've tried it at auction four
6:12times.
6:13Roof's going on the north side and it
6:15costs more to tear down than the grounds
6:17worth. So the commissioner said put it
6:19at $2 and see if some fool takes it.
6:22He paused.
6:23No offense.
6:25None taken, said Eunice. I'd like to be
6:27the fool.
6:28I sold pies in that barn every October
6:31for nine years.
6:33She laid two singles from her change
6:35pocket on the counter and smoothed them
6:37flat with her palm.
6:39Dale filled out the form and she read
6:41every word of it before she signed. The
6:43parcel number, the words as is.
6:47He stamped it and grinned under the
6:48mustache.
6:50You'll be farming in circles, Eunice, he
6:52said.
6:53The farmers behind her laughed out loud
6:56and a red-faced man in a canvas coat
6:58said, not quite low enough.
7:00Widow went and bought herself a round
7:02coffin.
7:04Eunice did not turn around.
7:06She folded the receipt into her purse
7:07beside Jim's glasses.
7:10The key was an old iron one with a paper
7:12tag on a wire. Dale held it a second
7:15longer than he had to.
7:17How are you getting out there? I hadn't
7:19got that far.
7:20He sighed through his mustache.
7:22I'm off at 4:30. Wait downstairs.
7:268 mi out of town between fields of cut
7:29corn stalks with old snow in the low
7:31places.
7:32He slowed at a gravel lane with a rusted
7:34mailbox that still said Albrecht.
7:37And Eunice saw the barn.
7:40It stood alone in the stubble like
7:41something set down by a giant hand.
7:45The bottom was a ring of old red brick
7:47waist high and above it the boards ran
7:50straight up once barn red and now peeled
7:53to gray in long strips.
7:56The roof rose in a cone of dark shingles
7:59to a little round cupola with louvered
8:01sides and a weather vane that had lost
8:03its arrow.
8:05On the north side the roof sagged inward
8:08as if someone had pressed a thumb into
8:09it.
8:10Beside it stood the silo, stained
8:13concrete with a dome rusted orange.
8:16The farmhouse had burned in the '80s.
8:19There was nothing else.
8:20"You sure about this?" Dale asked.
8:23"No," said Eunice. "But I'm here."
8:26She carried her own suitcase across the
8:28frozen ruts and opened the padlock with
8:31both hands.
8:32Inside, it was dark and cold and smelled
8:36of dust and pigeons and old hay gone to
8:39powder.
8:40Light fell from the cupola in a gray
8:43column onto the hay chute, which rose
8:45like a round wooden chimney in the
8:47center.
8:48Around it ran the inner ring of stalls,
8:5120 of them, half doors hanging, and
8:54around the stalls, the wide alley where
8:56wagons used to come in.
8:58Pigeons went up all at once with a sound
9:01like applause.
9:03Left of the door was Walter's old
9:05office, a closed stall with a real door,
9:08a small window, a cot frame, and a
9:11little iron stove with its pipe intact.
9:15Dale brought in two armloads of oak from
9:17the wood pile under the tarp by the silo
9:20and a jug of water and left her his
9:22flashlight without asking.
9:24The fire took her almost an hour.
9:27Her knee would not let her kneel, so she
9:29sat on the floor and fed it with her
9:31hands until it caught all at once and
9:34the iron began to tick. She slept on two
9:37horse blankets from a shelf with Jim's
9:39glasses on the table.
9:41The wind went around the barn all night
9:43and never found the end of it because
9:45there was no end.
9:47"No corners for the wind to catch,"
9:49Walter had told her once.
9:51"No corners for the devil to hide in."
9:55In the morning, she tied a red bandana
9:57over her hair, put on Jim's work gloves,
10:00and went out into the inner ring with a
10:01broom.
10:03Her feet carried her around to the
10:04right, the way the market crowd had
10:06always walked.
10:08At the seventh stall, she stopped.
10:11Over the half door, faded almost to
10:13nothing, was a white painted horseshoe,
10:16points up.
10:18She remembered Walter Albrecht in his
10:20canvas apron at the end of every market
10:22day, going into this stall with the cash
10:24tin under his arm and coming out without
10:27it.
10:28Jim had told her a hundred times,
10:30usually in October, usually over cider,
10:34third board from the corner, just above
10:36the brick, push the top and it swings.
10:39He had been 15 when Walter showed him.
10:42She cleared the straw from the back wall
10:44and knelt after all, one knee on a
10:47folded feed sack.
10:48One, two, three.
10:51She pressed the top of the third board.
10:54Nothing.
10:55The wood was swollen with 30 winters.
10:58She took Jim's flathead screwdriver from
11:00her coat pocket, worked it into the
11:02seam, leaned on it with both hands, and
11:05the board groaned and swung out on a
11:08single old nail.
11:10Behind it, in the dark space between the
11:12board and the outer wall, sat a flat tin
11:15box painted green with a wire handle and
11:18a hasp held shut by a twist of bailing
11:21wire.
11:22Eunice did not move for a moment.
11:24Her heart was going hard, and she put
11:27her hand on her chest the way the doctor
11:29had told her to, and breathed.
11:31Then she reached in and lifted it out.
11:35It was heavier than it looked.
11:37She sat back on the feed sack with the
11:38tin on her knees and untwisted the wire
11:41with fingers that were not as quick as
11:43they used to be. Inside, wrapped in an
11:46oil cloth gone brittle at the folds, lay
11:48a ledger with a cracked brown cover,
11:51thick as a family Bible,
11:53and beside it a smaller box of recipe
11:55cards held together with a rubber band
11:58that broke the moment she touched it.
12:00On top of everything, alone, lay a long
12:03white envelope, sealed.
12:06Across the front, in a slanted pencil
12:08hand she knew at once from 40 years of
12:11receipts and price
12:13someone had written
12:14for Jim Hartwell,
12:16open on market day.
12:18Eunice said,
12:20oh,
12:20out loud, to nobody.
12:23It was not much of a word, but it was
12:25the only one she had.
12:27She did not open the envelope.
12:30She held it up to the light from the
12:31door and could see folded paper inside,
12:34more than one sheet.
12:36And she held it against her chest for a
12:37while.
12:38And then she put it back in the tin
12:40exactly where it had been.
12:43It was addressed to Jim, and Jim was not
12:45here to open it.
12:47And the instructions on the front were
12:49plain.
12:50Walter Albrecht had never written a word
12:52he didn't mean. If he wanted it opened
12:55on market day, then it would be opened
12:57on market day. And if there was never
12:59another market day in that barn, then it
13:01would stay sealed. And that would be its
13:03own kind of answer.
13:06But the ledger was not sealed.
13:08She carried the tin back to the office
13:10where the stove had burned down to a red
13:12glow, added two sticks of oak, and
13:15pulled the three-legged chair up to the
13:17table, wedged against the wall so it
13:19would not tip.
13:21She opened the cracked cover.
13:23The first page said, in a careful young
13:25man's hand,
13:27Albrecht Fall Market, 1952.
13:30Underneath ran ruled columns, names,
13:34what they sold, which stall, the stall
13:36fee, and a column marked paid with a
13:39small check in it, line after line.
13:43Mrs. Kessler, apple butter, stall two.
13:46The Dunham boys, pumpkins and squash,
13:49stall five.
13:50Ruth Ann Yoder, quilts, stall 11.
13:54Then the next year and the next. Some
13:57names came back every fall for 20 years
14:00and then stopped. And in their place
14:03came the same last names with new first
14:05names, daughters, sons, the daughters'
14:08husbands.
14:10The handwriting got older as she turned
14:12the pages. It slanted more.
14:15By the 1980s, it was the same pencil
14:17hand that was on the envelope.
14:19She found herself in 1983.
14:23Eunice Hartwell, pies, stall nine.
14:26A check in the PAID column, and beside
14:29it, so small she had to bring the ledger
14:32up to her nose,
14:33cherry, gone by noon.
14:36She laughed.
14:37It came out of her before she could stop
14:39it, a loud bark in the little room, and
14:42it surprised her so much that she
14:44laughed again.
14:45She remembered that day.
14:47The cherry had gone by noon, and the
14:49apple by two, and Jim had driven home
14:52for more flour, and she had baked in
14:54Lottie's oven in town until midnight,
14:56while Lottie sat at the kitchen table in
14:58her house coat and told her she was
15:00rolling the crust too thin. She turned
15:03the pages slowly after that.
15:05The way you walk through a house you
15:07used to live in.
15:081984.
15:101987,
15:12the year it rained every Saturday, and
15:14Walter had written at the bottom,
15:16wet, but they came anyway.
15:191990.
15:21And there, near the bottom of the page,
15:23on a line by itself,
15:25Mikey Hartwell, age nine, pumpkins,
15:29stall nine, with his mother.
15:31In the PAID column, Walter had written
15:33instead of a check, no charge, gave half
15:36to the church jar.
15:38Eunice put her hand flat on the page and
15:40kept it there.
15:42She remembered that, too.
15:44Michael in his red jacket, so serious,
15:47stacking his pumpkins smallest to
15:49largest, and the coffee can of quarters
15:52at the end of the day, and how he had
15:53carried half of it across the ring to
15:55the jar on Walter's table that said, for
15:58the furnace at St. Paul's. And Walter
16:00had shaken his hand like a grown man.
16:04She had forgotten. She had let herself
16:06forget the way you put a picture face
16:08down in a drawer because you cannot look
16:10at it and cannot throw it away.
16:13The last entries were in 1994.
16:16Fewer names, the handwriting shaking.
16:19And at the bottom of the final page,
16:21under the last line, Walter had drawn a
16:24short, straight rule and written,
16:26Last market.
16:28Lottie gone in August.
16:29Can't do the loft stairs anymore.
16:32God bless everyone of you.
16:34She closed the ledger.
16:36Outside, a crow was talking to itself on
16:39the silo dome.
16:40The stove ticked.
16:42Eunice sat for a long time with both
16:45hands on the cracked brown cover and
16:47looked out the little square window at
16:49the stubble fields going away flat and
16:52silver to the edge of the sky.
16:54And she understood that she had not
16:56bought a barn.
16:58A barn was boards and brick and a
17:00sagging roof.
17:02She had bought the place where all those
17:04names had stood for 42 autumns. And
17:08somebody had left her the list. That
17:10afternoon, she spread Lottie's recipe
17:12cards on the table and read them one by
17:15one.
17:16Apple stack cake. Persimmon pudding, the
17:19Indiana way.
17:20Cider donuts. Pumpkin bread for the
17:23church supper.
17:24Sugar cream pie. With a note in the
17:27margin in a woman's round hand. Walter
17:29likes it too sweet. Don't let him near
17:32the sugar.
17:33Eunice read that card three times.
17:36Every Hoosier grandmother knew sugar
17:38cream pie. But Lottie's had always had
17:41something in it Eunice could never name.
17:43And there it was, in pencil at the
17:45bottom.
17:46Nutmeg on top and a whisper of real
17:49vanilla bean, not the bottle.
17:51Lottie Albrecht, Eunice said to the
17:54card, you held out on me for 40 years.
17:58She did not stay at the table long.
18:00A list was only paper unless somebody
18:03did something with it. And she had a
18:04barn full of pigeons and straw and a
18:07stove that ate oak faster than she could
18:09carry it.
18:10She made herself a plan, the way she
18:12used to make a grocery list, on the back
18:14of the motel receipt.
18:16One, clean the office. Two, clean the
18:19inner ring, one stall a day.
18:22Three, find out what is still standing
18:25and what is not.
18:26Four,
18:27do not fall.
18:29She underlined the fourth one twice.
18:32By the end of that first week, she had
18:34cleaned the office and three stalls.
18:37It was slow.
18:38She could sweep for 20 minutes and then
18:40she had to sit on an upturned bucket and
18:43wait for her knee to stop arguing with
18:45her.
18:46She carried water from the hand pump by
18:48the silo in a gallon milk jug, half
18:50full, because full was too heavy. And
18:53she counted the trips the way she
18:55counted her pills.
18:57She learned which boards in the alley
18:58floor would hold her and which would
19:00not.
19:01She learned that the pigeons came back
19:03every evening at the same hour and that
19:05there was no use being angry about it.
19:08She ate peanut butter on gas station
19:10bread and drank instant coffee made in a
19:13saucepan on the iron stove.
19:15And in the evenings, she sat in the
19:17office doorway with Jim's glasses in her
19:19lap and looked at the ring of stalls
19:22going around into the dark. On the
19:24Saturday, she heard a bicycle.
19:26It came rattling up the gravel lane and
19:29she went to the big door and there was
19:31Caleb, red in the face from pedaling
19:34eight miles into the wind with a
19:36backpack on and a loaf of bread sticking
19:38out of the top of it.
19:40He dropped the bike in the frozen ruts
19:42and stood there breathing hard.
19:44Mr. Pruitt told mom at the gas station,
19:47he said. Mom said you'd lost your mind.
19:50I wanted to see if you had. And, said
19:53Eunice.
19:54Caleb looked past her into the barn, at
19:56the column of light falling from the
19:58cupola,
19:59at the stalls going around and around
20:02into the shadows, at the pigeons lifting
20:04off the rafters.
20:06His mouth came open a little.
20:08Grandma, he said. This is the coolest
20:11thing I've ever seen.
20:14Does your mother know you're here? She
20:16thinks I'm at Tyler's.
20:17Then you'd better be home before Tyler's
20:19mother calls her.
20:21I've got till five.
20:22He was already pulling off his backpack.
20:24What do you need?
20:26Eunice looked at him for a long moment,
20:29at the low shoulder that was his
20:30father's, and she held out her hand and
20:33drew him inside out of the wind.
20:36I need, she said, somebody who can climb
20:39a ladder.
20:41The ladder was an old wooden one that
20:43had hung on pegs along the alley wall
20:45since before either of them was born.
20:48Caleb carried it around to the north
20:50side where the roof sagged, and Eunice
20:52held the bottom with both hands and her
20:54good leg braced and told him the rules.
20:58You don't go past the second rung from
20:59the top. You don't step on anything
21:02that's gray and soft. And if I say come
21:04down, you come down without asking why.
21:08Yes, ma'am. Don't ma'am me. I'm your
21:10grandmother.
21:12He went up slowly.
21:14From the top, he could see into the
21:15space between the rafters where the roof
21:17had dropped, and he called down what he
21:20saw. And she stood at the bottom with
21:22her face tipped up and made him say it
21:24twice. Three rafters cracked through at
21:26the bottom end where the rain had come
21:28in for years.
21:30The shingles above them rotten.
21:32The rest of the cone sound. The boards
21:35dry. The cupola solid.
21:38It's only the one piece, Caleb said when
21:40he came down.
21:41Like a slice of pie. The rest is fine.
21:44Then we leave that slice alone, said
21:46Eunice. We rope it off and we don't walk
21:49under it and we find somebody who knows
21:51roofs.
21:53They strung baling twine from stall post
21:55to stall post across that part of the
21:57alley, and Caleb hung a feed sack on it
22:00with do not painted in tar because they
22:03ran out of tar before he could finish
22:04the second word.
22:06Eunice laughed at that until she had to
22:08sit down on the bucket.
22:10Leave it, she said. Anybody who can't
22:13figure out the rest of that sentence
22:14deserves what they get.
22:17He came every Saturday after that and
22:19some Wednesdays when school let out
22:21early.
22:22He told his mother he was at Tyler's,
22:24and Eunice did not ask whether Tyler
22:26knew. Together they cleaned the inner
22:28ring, one stall at a time, going around
22:31to the right, the way the crowd had
22:33always walked.
22:34He shoveled and she sorted.
22:37Anything metal went in one pile,
22:39anything rotten in another,
22:41anything that might be somebody's in a
22:43third.
22:45The third pile surprised her.
22:47A wooden butter paddle with initials
22:49burned into the handle,
22:51a tin sign that said honey, 50 cents,
22:54back when it was.
22:56A child's mitten, [clears throat] frozen
22:58flat, which Caleb wanted to throw away,
23:01and Eunice would not let him.
23:03Somebody's grandmother knitted that, she
23:05said.
23:06Put it on the shelf.
23:08On the second Saturday, a woman in a
23:10barn coat and rubber boots came walking
23:12across the road from the farm on the
23:14other side, carrying a casserole dish
23:16with a towel over it.
23:18She was past 60 with a gray braid down
23:21her back and a face that had been out in
23:23a great deal of weather.
23:25She stopped at the big door and looked
23:27in at the clean stalls and the twine and
23:30the feed sack.
23:31I'm Marlene Voss, she said, from across
23:34the way.
23:35I've been watching the smoke from your
23:37stove pipe for two weeks and telling
23:39myself it was none of my business.
23:41Then I ran out of telling.
23:43That's chicken and noodles.
23:45Eunice Hartwell, said Eunice, and you've
23:48just saved this boy's life. He's been
23:51living on gas station bread.
23:54Marlene stayed for an hour.
23:56She sat on an overturned crate in the
23:58office with a cup of saucepan coffee and
24:00told them that her family had farmed
24:02across the road since 1030,
24:05that she remembered the market from when
24:06she was a girl and that she had cried
24:08the year it stopped.
24:10My mother sold quilts here, she said,
24:13every October. She'd start on them in
24:15January.
24:17Eunice reached for the tin.
24:19She opened the ledger on the table and
24:20ran her finger down the columns through
24:23the 50s and into the 60s and turned the
24:25book around.
24:27Is this her?
24:28Marlene put on her own reading glasses
24:30and leaned in.
24:32Ruth and Yoder, Quilts, stall 11. Then a
24:36few years [clears throat] on, the same
24:38name crossed out in Walter's pencil and
24:40written again beside it.
24:42Ruth and Voss, married.
24:45Marlene took her glasses off and put
24:47them on again.
24:49She did not say anything for a while.
24:51Then she said,
24:53she was so proud of that stall.
24:55She said it had the best light.
24:57It does, Eunice said. The cupola falls
25:00right on it in the afternoon.
25:02I'd forgotten that.
25:04Marlene looked at her.
25:06What are you going to do with this
25:07place, Eunice?
25:09Eunice had not said it out loud yet, not
25:12even to Caleb,
25:13not even to Jim's glasses at night.
25:16She said it now.
25:17I'm going to open the market, she said,
25:20this fall, first Saturday in September,
25:23same as Walter always did.
25:25Caleb stopped with his coffee halfway to
25:27his mouth.
25:28Marlene did not laugh.
25:31She looked out the office door at the
25:32ring of stalls and then back at the
25:35ledger. Well,
25:37she said slowly,
25:38then you'll want a telephone.
25:41Eunice's telephone was an old flip phone
25:44that Michael had bought her for
25:45Christmas eight years ago and that she
25:47had never learned to love.
25:49It held a charge for about a day and the
25:52barn had no electric.
25:54So the calling happened at Marlene's
25:56kitchen table on Marlene's landline with
25:59a coffee can of pencils between them and
26:01the ledger open to the last good decade.
26:04They started in the 1980s and worked
26:07forward because those were the families
26:09most likely to still be somewhere.
26:12Marlene knew half of them by sight.
26:14The other half they found in the phone
26:16book, which Marlene still kept, and in
26:18the church directory from St. Paul's,
26:21which still had a furnace, Marlene said,
26:23thanks in part to a lot of coffee cans
26:26of quarters.
26:27The first call was to a Kessler.
26:30Eunice dialed at herself, slowly, the
26:33numbers off the page through her
26:34glasses. A man answered, and she told
26:37him who she was and where she was
26:39calling from. And there was a long
26:41silence on the line.
26:43The Albrecht barn, the man said at last.
26:46My grandmother sold apple butter there.
26:49I used to sit under her table and eat it
26:51with a spoon.
26:52I know, said Eunice. She's in the ledger
26:55every year from 1952 to 1979,
26:59stall two.
27:00Lady, the man said, are you telling me
27:03that barn's still standing?
27:05Most of it, said Eunice. And it's going
27:08to have a market in it this fall. Stall
27:10two is yours if you want it.
27:12There was another silence.
27:14Then the man said,
27:16my wife still makes it, the apple
27:18butter. Same recipe. Let me ask her.
27:21And Eunice heard him put the phone down
27:23and call out a name into some other
27:25kitchen far away.
27:27Not all the calls went like that.
27:29Some numbers were dead. Some people had
27:31moved to Arizona or to the cemetery.
27:34One woman hung up on her, thinking she
27:36was selling something. One man said,
27:39kindly, that he was 88 and done with
27:42markets, but he would tell his daughter.
27:45But by the end of April, Eunice had a
27:47list on the back of a church bulletin
27:49with 14 names on it.
27:51They were people who had said yes or
27:53probably or let me think about it. And
27:56she had written each one of them into a
27:58new page of Walter's ledger in her own
28:00hand under a heading she printed
28:02carefully at the top.
28:04Albrecht Fall Market, 2026.
28:08The Dunham boys had sold pumpkins in
28:10stall five for 30 years. The ledger said
28:13so.
28:14The boys were dead now, both of them.
28:17But one of them had a grandson named
28:19Travis who did roofing out of a white
28:21van with a ladder rack. And when Eunice
28:24called him and told him about the north
28:26slice of the roof, he drove out the next
28:28morning before she had finished her
28:29coffee.
28:31He stood in the alley with his hands on
28:33his hips and looked up at the cracked
28:35rafters for a long time. Ma'am, he said,
28:38[clears throat]
28:38I can't afford to do this for free, and
28:40you can't afford to pay me what it's
28:42worth. I know that, Eunice said, so I'm
28:45not going to ask you to do it for free.
28:47I'm going to offer you stall five.
28:50Travis looked at her. Stall five? Your
28:53grandfather's stall. Every market for as
28:56long as there's a market. You can sell
28:58pumpkins or roofing or anything you
29:00like.
29:01Travis looked at the ledger she was
29:03holding open for him, at his
29:05grandfather's name in Walter's young
29:07handwriting, and he scratched the back
29:09of his neck.
29:10My grandad always said the best days of
29:12his life were in this barn, he said.
29:15Yeah, okay. I'll bring my cousin.
29:18They came on a Saturday in May, Travis
29:21and the cousin and a boy of about 20 who
29:24never said a word all day and worked
29:26like a mule. They pulled the rotten
29:28shingles off the north slice and
29:30sistered new boards alongside the three
29:33cracked rafters, bolting them through,
29:35and laid felt and new shingles over the
29:38top, a darker gray than the old ones, so
29:41that from the road the roof looked as
29:43though someone had patched a good coat
29:45with a different cloth.
29:47Eunice made them sugar cream pie from
29:49Lottie's card, baked in Marlene's oven,
29:52and sat in a lawn chair in the alley
29:54watching them work.
29:56When Travis came down for lunch and
29:58tasted it, he put his fork down and
30:00looked at her.
30:01That's my grandma's pie, he said. No,
30:05said Eunice. That's Lottie Albrecht's
30:07pie. Your grandma just bought it every
30:10October and pretended she made it.
30:13Travis laughed so hard he had to go
30:15outside.
30:17The white paint came from Dale Pruitt.
30:20He showed up one evening in the county
30:21pickup with eight five-gallon buckets in
30:23the bed and did not get out of the truck
30:26right away. When he did, he looked at
30:28the clean stalls and the patched roof
30:31and the do not sign, which they had kept
30:33because Eunice liked it.
30:35And he rubbed his mustache.
30:37Courthouse job ordered too much, he
30:39said.
30:40It's just going to sit in the garage and
30:42freeze. Seemed to shame.
30:44That's kind of you, Dale. It's not kind,
30:47it's inventory.
30:49He unloaded the buckets himself, one at
30:51a time, grunting, and set them in a row
30:54along the alley wall.
30:56Then he stood there with his hands in
30:58his pockets, the way he had the first
31:00day.
31:01I heard you're opening the market.
31:03I am.
31:04Huh, said Dale.
31:06He looked up at the cupola, at the light
31:08coming down.
31:09My mother used to bring me here for the
31:11cider donuts, he said, and got back in
31:14his truck and drove away.
31:17The painting took all of June.
31:19Eunice could not do the high parts, and
31:21she knew it, and she did not pretend
31:23otherwise.
31:25She did the low parts, from the brick up
31:27to as high as she could reach from a
31:29stepstool with Caleb holding it steady.
31:31Caleb did everything above that from the
31:33ladder, and Marlene came over in the
31:35evenings when it was cooler and did the
31:37stall doors, sitting on a crate with the
31:40radio from her truck playing old country
31:42songs through the open window.
31:45The white went on thick and bright over
31:47the gray boards.
31:49Stall by stall, the inner ring came out
31:51of the dark.
31:53When the late sun came down through the
31:55cupola and hit the white walls, the
31:57whole round room seemed to fill up with
31:59light like a bowl filling with milk.
32:03Eunice had her own way of working, and
32:05the others learned it.
32:07She took her pills at 7:00, at noon, and
32:09at 6:00 from a plastic box with the days
32:12of the week on the lids set on the
32:14office windowsill where the light could
32:16find it.
32:17She wore her glasses on their beaded
32:19cord and put them on and took them off
32:2150 times a day. She did the ladder one
32:24rung at a time and never more than the
32:26third rung.
32:28And when Caleb tried to help her down,
32:29she said,
32:30I've been coming down ladders since
32:32before your daddy was born, and came
32:34down herself.
32:36She sat on her bucket every 20
32:39and did not apologize for it.
32:41And she kept the ledger.
32:43Every gallon of paint, every bag of
32:46nails, every hour somebody gave her, she
32:49wrote it in in a column she ruled
32:51herself, the way Walter had.
32:54Why are you writing down the nails?
32:56Caleb asked once.
32:57Because when somebody asks me someday
32:59what I did with this barn, Eunice said,
33:02I want to be able to show them.
33:05By July, people had started to drive by
33:07slowly.
33:08Then they started to stop.
33:11A photograph had gone around the
33:13internet, Marlene said, though Eunice
33:15did not entirely understand how a
33:17photograph went around anything.
33:19Somebody passing on County Road 11 had
33:22taken a picture of the round barn at
33:24sunset, with the patched roof and the
33:26cupola and the old silo and the big door
33:29open, and inside white stalls glowing.
33:33Under the picture, somebody had written
33:35that a 70-year-old widow was bringing
33:37back the old Albrecht Fall market by
33:40herself.
33:41Caleb showed it to her on his phone, and
33:43she put on her glasses and looked at it
33:45for a long time.
33:47That's a good picture of the barn, she
33:49said.
33:50Too bad about the old woman in the
33:52doorway.
33:53Grandma, that's you.
33:55I know it's me. That's what I said.
33:58Cars came out on Sunday afternoons,
34:01people who remembered and people who did
34:03not.
34:04A man and his wife from Fort Wayne who
34:06had gotten engaged in stall 14 in 1978.
34:11A woman whose father had sold honey.
34:14Three teenage girls who wanted to take
34:16pictures of themselves in the doorway,
34:18which Eunice allowed for the price of
34:20carrying two jugs of water from the
34:21pump. And in the first week of August,
34:24on a hot white afternoon with the corn
34:27standing high and green on every side,
34:30a silver car, Eunice knew, came slowly
34:33up the gravel lane and stopped by the
34:35silo,
34:36and Brenda got out.
34:38She was wearing sunglasses and the kind
34:40of linen pants that wrinkled the minute
34:43you sit down.
34:44She stood a while looking up at the barn
34:46with her hand over her eyes.
34:49Then she walked to the big door where
34:51Eunice was sitting on her bucket
34:52shelling peas into a bowl and she took
34:55off the sunglasses.
34:57Eunice, she said.
34:59Brenda,
35:00this is quite something.
35:03Thank you.
35:04Brenda looked past her into the ring, at
35:06the white stalls, at the twine and the
35:09sign.
35:10Caleb's been here, she said.
35:13It was not a question.
35:14He has, Eunice said.
35:16Most Saturdays.
35:18I'd have told you, but you didn't ask.
35:21He told me he was at Tyler's.
35:23Then that's between you and him.
35:26Brenda let that go, which surprised
35:28Eunice
35:29until she understood that Brenda had not
35:31come about Caleb at all. I'll be honest
35:34with you, Brenda said and sat down
35:36without being asked on the crate by the
35:38door in the linen pants.
35:41I talked to my realtor about this place
35:43after that picture went around.
35:45She says round barns like this one are
35:47worth real money to the right buyer.
35:49There are companies out of Indianapolis
35:51and Chicago that turn them into wedding
35:53venues,
35:54fix them up, put in a bar and a dance
35:56floor, rent them out every weekend.
35:58She says she's had calls.
36:00Has she, said Eunice.
36:02Here's what I'm thinking and I want you
36:04to hear me out because I'm trying to do
36:06this the nice way.
36:08Brenda leaned forward.
36:09You sell it.
36:11My realtor handles it. I handle the
36:13paperwork. You don't have to lift a
36:15finger.
36:16You get a nice place in a senior
36:18community in Fort Wayne, one of the good
36:20ones, with a nurse on call and a dining
36:22room.
36:23You get your life back.
36:25I'll even drive you down to look at
36:26them.
36:27She smiled. Jim wouldn't have wanted you
36:29out here hauling water at 70, Eunice.
36:32You know he wouldn't. Let family take
36:34care of this.
36:36Eunice shelled three more pea pods into
36:38the bowl before she answered.
36:40Her thumb split each pod along the seam
36:43and ran the peas out one motion, the way
36:45her mother had taught her.
36:47You know what Jim would have wanted, she
36:49said, is to be sitting right here
36:51shelling these with me and arguing about
36:53the Pacers.
36:55That's not an answer.
36:56No, said Eunice. Here's the answer. No,
37:00thank you. I'm not selling the barn. I'm
37:03opening the market the first Saturday in
37:05September. You're welcome to come.
37:07Lottie Albrecht's sugar cream pie will
37:09be in stall nine.
37:11Brenda's smile went away the way a light
37:14goes off.
37:15She stood up and brushed off the linen
37:17pants.
37:18I don't think you understand your
37:20situation, she said. You spent your last
37:23dollars on a building that's falling
37:24down. You're living in a horse stall.
37:27You've got no electric and you carry
37:29your water in a milk jug.
37:31You've got my son up on ladders.
37:33If anybody looked at this, a doctor, a
37:36judge, anybody, they'd say you weren't
37:38in your right mind.
37:40Are you saying somebody's going to look
37:41at it? I'm saying think about it.
37:45Brenda put her sunglasses back on.
37:47I'm going to give you a little while.
37:49Then we'll talk again.
37:52She walked back to the silver car and
37:54drove away down the lane, slowly, so the
37:56dust would not get on the paint.
37:59Eunice sat on the bucket for a long time
38:02after the dust had settled.
38:04Then she went into the office and took
38:06her noon pill, which she had forgotten.
38:08And she sat down at the table and opened
38:10the ledger to the new page and wrote in
38:13the column she had ruled for things that
38:15were not nails or paint.
38:17August 6th.
38:19Brenda came.
38:20Said no.
38:22Then she sat looking at the line.
38:24Her hands were steady.
38:26That surprised her a little. She had
38:28expected them to shake.
38:31Caleb came that Saturday with a bruise
38:33on his cheekbone that he said was from
38:35basketball
38:36and a look in his eyes that said it was
38:38from a door he had walked into when his
38:40mother was yelling.
38:41And Eunice did not push him on it.
38:44He worked all day without talking much.
38:47At five o'clock, he said, she took my
38:49phone.
38:50She said I could have it back when I
38:52stopped lying to her.
38:53Did you tell her you'd stop?
38:55I told her I'd stop lying. I didn't say
38:57I'd stop coming.
38:59He looked at his grandmother.
39:01I'm not going to stop coming.
39:03I know you're not, said Eunice, but you
39:05call her from Marlene's every time
39:07you're here, so she knows where you are.
39:10That's not lying, and it's not stopping.
39:13It's just being a decent son. Your
39:15father would have done it.
39:17Caleb thought about that for a while.
39:19Then he went across the road to
39:21Marlene's and made the call.
39:24The last week of August went by like
39:26water. Travis came back and built 20
39:29trestle tables out of salvage lumber,
39:31one for each stall.
39:33Marlene hung her mother's quilts on a
39:35line across stall 11 where the light was
39:38best and said nobody was to buy them.
39:40They were only for looking at.
39:43Dale brought out a county saw horse
39:45barricade and set it up at the end of
39:46the lane with a hand-lettered sign that
39:48said market parking.
39:51And when Eunice asked if the county knew
39:53he had taken it, he said, it's
39:55inventory.
39:56The Kesslers called to say they were
39:58bringing apple butter in 200 jars.
40:01The honey man's daughter called.
40:03A woman Eunice had never heard of called
40:05and asked if there was room for a table
40:07of hand-turned wooden bowls.
40:09And Eunice found a stall for her and
40:11wrote her in because Walter had always
40:13found a stall for somebody new.
40:16Eunice baked.
40:18She had no oven, so she baked in
40:19Marlene's in Marlene's kitchen from 4:00
40:22in the morning until the light came up,
40:24three days running.
40:26Sugar cream from Lottie's card. Apple
40:29with the crust rolled thick because
40:31Lottie had been right about that.
40:34Cherry because it had gone by noon in
40:361983 and she wanted to see if it still
40:39would.
40:40Marlene sat at the table in her house
40:42coat with a cup of coffee and watched
40:44her and did not offer to help because
40:46Eunice had told her on the first morning
40:48that her hands knew what they were
40:50doing, and the only thing that slowed
40:52them down was being helped.
40:54The first Saturday in September came up
40:57clear and cool, with a wind out of the
40:59northwest that rustled the corn standing
41:01tall on every side of the barn.
41:04Eunice was awake before 5:00.
41:07She dressed in the dark in the office in
41:09her good gray slacks and a clean blue
41:11shirt and Jim's old canvas apron, which
41:14she had found in a box Brenda had missed
41:17and which hung down to her shins.
41:19She tied the red bandana over her hair.
41:22She took her morning pill. Then she went
41:24to the shelf where the green tin sat
41:26beside Jim's glasses, and she lifted out
41:29the long white envelope with Walter's
41:31pencil on the front.
41:33For Jim Hartwell, open on market day.
41:37She stood in the doorway of the office
41:39with the envelope in her hands.
41:41Outside, the sky over the corn was going
41:44from gray to pale gold.
41:46Down the lane, she could already see the
41:48first truck coming, Travis's white van
41:51with the ladder rack, and behind it a
41:53car she did not know, and behind that
41:56the Kessler's station wagon with 200
41:59jars of apple butter in the back.
42:01The tables stood ready in all 20 stalls.
42:04The light from the cupola was just
42:06beginning to come down.
42:08She slid her thumb under the flap of the
42:10envelope.
42:11It was old, and the glue was brittle,
42:14and it started to give.
42:16And then, beyond the station wagon,
42:18turning off County Road 11 onto the
42:20gravel, she saw the silver car. If
42:23you've made it this far with Eunice,
42:25give it a like and subscribe because
42:27what comes next is the part of the story
42:30that all of this was for.
42:32Eunice did not stop.
42:34She had waited since March, and she had
42:37told herself on that first morning in
42:39the seventh stall that market day was
42:41market day. And here it was. And Brenda
42:44would take at least 3 minutes to get up
42:46that lane behind a station wagon full of
42:49apple butter.
42:50She opened the envelope and took out the
42:52folded sheets.
42:54There were three of them, lined paper
42:56torn from a pad, written on both sides
42:59in Walter's pencil. And at the top of
43:01the first sheet was a date in the fall
43:03of 1994.
43:06She put on her glasses and read.
43:09Jimmy, it said,
43:11if you're reading this, then you came
43:12back for it, like I always figured you
43:14would.
43:15And it's market day, and that means you
43:18did it.
43:19I'm writing this the week after the last
43:21one.
43:22Lottie's gone.
43:24My legs are going. The kids want me in
43:26town where they can watch me, and they
43:28don't want the barn. And I can't say I
43:30blame them.
43:32They'll let the taxes go and the county
43:33will get it, and that's all right. A
43:35barn's only boards.
43:38I want to tell you what I'm leaving you,
43:40and it isn't the barn.
43:41It's the market.
43:43The market isn't in the barn, Jimmy. It
43:46never was.
43:47The market is in that book.
43:50Every name in there is somebody who came
43:52back.
43:53That's all a market is,
43:55people who come back.
43:57If you've got the book, you can call
43:59them, and their kids will come, and
44:01their kids' kids.
44:02I've watched it happen for 42 years.
44:06I'm giving it to you because you're the
44:07only one of all those boys who ever
44:10asked me how the stall fees worked
44:12instead of just where the cider was.
44:14And because of that girl of yours with
44:16the pies,
44:18Eunice.
44:19She's the one who'll actually run it.
44:21You know that as well as I do.
44:23You're a good worker, Jimmy, but you
44:25can't add.
44:27Eunice laughed out loud in the doorway.
44:29Then she had to stop and take her
44:31glasses off and wipe them on Jim's apron
44:33and put them on again.
44:35Give the cherry stall to Eunice, it went
44:37on.
44:38Nine, where she had it. And give that
44:41boy of yours the corner of it for his
44:43pumpkins. Mikey,
44:45he gave half of his can to the church
44:47jar this year without anybody telling
44:49him to. And I've been running markets
44:51since before you were born, and I've
44:53never seen a nine-year-old do that.
44:56Whatever else happens to your family,
44:57Jimmy, you hang on to that boy. He's the
45:00best of all of you.
45:02The rest was practical.
45:04How Walter had set the stall fees and
45:06why. Which families had never once paid
45:09late, and which ones you had to remind.
45:12That the Dunhams would try to set up
45:13their pumpkins in the alley instead of
45:15the stall, and you had to be firm.
45:18That Lottie's recipes were in the little
45:20box, and nobody was to sell the sugar
45:22cream pie for less than it was worth,
45:25because that was an insult to Lottie.
45:27That the board in stall seven was the
45:29only place he had ever trusted, and Jim
45:32should keep it that way and put the next
45:34letter there when it was his turn.
45:37And at the end, in larger letters, as if
45:39he had pressed harder with the pencil.
45:42Open the doors early. People like to see
45:44the light come down.
45:46God bless you both. Walter A.
45:49Eunice folded the three sheets back
45:51along their old creases and put them in
45:53the envelope, and the envelope in the
45:55pocket of Jim's apron against her chest.
45:59She looked down the lane.
46:00The silver car had stopped behind the
46:02station wagon.
46:04Brenda was out of it, standing in the
46:06gravel, looking at the barn.
46:08Behind her, more cars were turning off
46:10the county road.
46:12Eunice could see a pickup with hay bales
46:14in the back and a minivan and a man on a
46:16bicycle with a basket of tomatoes and
46:19Dale Pruitt's county truck, which had no
46:21business being out on a Saturday.
46:24She turned around and walked to the big
46:26sliding door. It was heavy, and she put
46:29her shoulder to it the way Walter used
46:31to, and leaned, and it rolled back on
46:33its old iron track with a long, groaning
46:37song.
46:38The morning light went into the barn all
46:40at once and lay down across the alley
46:43floor. And from above, through the
46:45louvers of the cupola, the first gold
46:47column came down onto the white stalls
46:50going around and around.
46:52People like to see the light come down.
46:55The Kesslers were already carrying jars.
46:58Travis was hauling pumpkins into stall
47:00five, not into the alley.
47:03Marlene was standing in front of her
47:04mother's quilts with her arms folded and
47:07her chin up.
47:09Brenda came to the door at about 8:00.
47:12By then, there were 30 cars along the
47:14lane, and people were walking in and
47:16turning slowly to the right, the way the
47:18crowd always had without anyone telling
47:21them. She stood at the edge of the light
47:23with her sunglasses pushed up on her
47:25head, and she looked at the stalls and
47:27the people and the pies lined up on
47:29Eunice's table in stall nine,
47:32and her mouth went thin.
47:34You did it, she said.
47:36I did, said Eunice. Would you like a
47:39piece of cherry? It goes by noon.
47:42Brenda looked at her for a long moment.
47:45This is one day, she said.
47:48One nice day.
47:50It doesn't change anything I said.
47:52No, said Eunice. I don't suppose it
47:55does.
47:56But it's a nice day.
47:58Brenda did not take the pie.
48:01She did not find Caleb, who was in the
48:03loft, throwing down hay bales for people
48:05to sit on and keeping very still.
48:08She walked once around the ring slowly,
48:11the way everyone did.
48:13And she stopped at stall nine on the way
48:15out and looked at the corner of the
48:16table where Eunice had set out a little
48:19pyramid of pumpkins, smallest on top,
48:22for no reason she could have explained
48:24to anyone. Then Brenda went back to the
48:26silver car and sat in it for a while
48:29with the engine running and did not
48:30drive away.
48:32Eunice saw her there every time she
48:34looked out the door until the cherry was
48:36gone, a little before noon.
48:39That night, Eunice sat at the table in
48:41the office with the stove going and the
48:43ledger open,
48:44and she wrote down the first market day,
48:46the way Walter would have.
48:4820 stalls, all full.
48:51The Kastlers sold out of apple butter by
48:53two.
48:54Travis sold every pumpkin and gave out
48:5611 business cards for roofing.
48:59The woman with the wooden bowls sold
49:01four and cried in the alley, happy.
49:04Marlene sold no quilts because they were
49:06not for sale, and three people offered
49:09her money anyway.
49:11gone by noon.
49:13Then, after a moment, she added a line
49:15by itself.
49:17Opened the letter.
49:19Brenda came.
49:21Then she closed the book and sat with
49:23her hand on it the way she had on the
49:24first morning, and she found she was too
49:27tired to cry and too happy to sleep.
49:30And she sat there until the stove burned
49:33down. The second Saturday, there were 60
49:35cars.
49:36The third Saturday, somebody from a
49:38television station in Fort Wayne drove
49:41up with a camera on his shoulder and
49:43asked Eunice to stand in the doorway and
49:45say something about what the market
49:47meant to her.
49:48She looked at the camera for a while and
49:50then said,
49:51It means the Kessler's apple butter is
49:53in stall two where it belongs, and
49:56walked back inside to her pies.
49:59The man put it on the news anyway.
50:01After that, it was more than anyone
50:04could manage.
50:05People came from Indianapolis, from
50:07Chicago, from Ohio.
50:09Dale's saw horse at the end of the lane
50:11was not enough, and Marlene opened her
50:14hayfield across the road for parking and
50:16charged nothing.
50:18And a deputy from the sheriff's office
50:19came out on his own time, Eunice was
50:21told, to stand at the corner of County
50:24Road 11 in an orange vest and wave the
50:26cars along.
50:28By the first Saturday in October, the
50:30cars were parked on both shoulders of
50:32County Road 11 for half a mile in each
50:35direction. People walked in carrying
50:37their children on their shoulders
50:39through the corn fields that had been
50:40cut down to stubble again, gold in the
50:43low sun, so that from the cupola it
50:46looked like a slow river of people
50:48coming in across the flat land toward
50:50the barn.
50:52Caleb went up to the cupola on the
50:54ladder that morning, past the second
50:56rung from the top, against every rule,
50:59and came down shaking with excitement.
51:01Grandma, you can't the end of them, he
51:04said. You can't see where they stop. You
51:07went past the second rung. I know. I'm
51:10sorry. Grandma, you can't see the end. I
51:13heard you're the first time, said
51:15Eunice. And she went to the door to
51:17look.
51:18And she couldn't.
51:20She kept her rhythm through all of it.
51:22Pills at 7:00, at noon, at 6:00 from the
51:25box on the windowsill.
51:27The bucket every 20 minutes set now
51:30inside stall nine behind the pie table
51:33where nobody could see it.
51:35The glasses on their cord.
51:37She did not try to be everywhere. She
51:39sat at stall nine and sold pie and let
51:42the market go around her the way the
51:44wind went around the barn.
51:47When a stall holder had a problem, they
51:49came to her and she listened and decided
51:52and they went away.
51:54When a stranger asked who was in charge,
51:56someone always pointed at the old woman
51:58in the red bandana and the long canvas
52:00apron.
52:01And the stranger always looked
52:03surprised.
52:05In the middle of the second Saturday in
52:06October, the red-faced man in the canvas
52:09coat came to her table.
52:11Eunice knew him before he got there.
52:14He had his wife with him and a little
52:16girl in a pink jacket. And he stood in
52:18front of stall nine looking at the pies
52:21with his face getting redder by the
52:22second.
52:24Ma'am, he said finally.
52:26I believe I said something in the county
52:28office back in March that I shouldn't
52:30have.
52:32You said I'd bought myself a round
52:33coffin, said Eunice.
52:36I remember it.
52:37His wife turned and looked at him.
52:39The little girl looked at the pies.
52:42Yes, ma'am, the man said. I'd like to
52:45say I'm sorry about that.
52:47Eunice cut a piece of sugar cream and
52:49put it on a paper plate and handed it
52:51across the table to the little girl.
52:54That's from Lottie Albrecht, she said to
52:56the child. Your daddy can have the next
52:58one when he's paid for it.
53:00The man paid for a whole pie and then
53:03for a second one and took them away
53:05carefully in both arms, like something
53:07that might go off.
53:09Brenda came back that same afternoon.
53:12Eunice saw the silver car turn into
53:14Marlene's field and park among the
53:16others, and she saw Brenda get out with
53:18a man in a sport coat and a leather
53:20folder under her arm.
53:22And she knew.
53:24She went on cutting pie.
53:26She took her bucket out from behind the
53:27table and sat down on it because her
53:30knee had been aching since noon.
53:32And she sold three more slices of
53:34cherry.
53:35And she waited. They came through the
53:37big door into the light. Brenda in front
53:40and the man a step behind.
53:42And they walked around the ring to the
53:44right because that was the only way the
53:46crowd would let anyone walk
53:48past the apple butter and the honey and
53:50the pumpkins and Marlene's quilts.
53:53People were everywhere.
53:55Children ran in the alley.
53:57Someone was playing a fiddle in stall
53:5915.
54:00Not well.
54:02Brenda stopped in front of stall nine.
54:05Up close, Eunice could see she had not
54:07been sleeping.
54:09There were shadows under her eyes that
54:10makeup did not cover.
54:12Eunice, she said. Brenda.
54:15This is Mr. Holloway. He's a lawyer.
54:18He's been helping me.
54:20The man in the sport coat nodded and did
54:22not offer his hand.
54:24I said I'd give you a while, Brenda
54:26said. I've given you two months. I've
54:28watched this get bigger and bigger, and
54:31I've watched you out here alone, 70
54:33years old, living in a horse stall with
54:36no electric, running a business with a
54:38thousand people a weekend, and no
54:40insurance, and nobody to help you if you
54:42fall.
54:43I've talked to Mr. Holloway about it.
54:45I'm asking you, nicely, one last time.
54:49She opened the leather folder on the pie
54:51table between the sugar cream and the
54:53apple.
54:54Inside were papers with tabs on them,
54:57little yellow flags where the signatures
54:59went.
55:00This is a power of attorney. It lets me
55:03handle your affairs, your money, your
55:05your
55:06the barn.
55:07It's for your protection.
55:09If you won't sign it, Mr. Holloway says
55:11the next step is to ask a judge to look
55:13at whether you're able to make your own
55:15decisions.
55:16I don't want to do that,
55:18but I will.
55:20She did not say it quietly.
55:22Perhaps she had meant to, but the barn
55:24was loud, and she had to raise her
55:26voice, and the people standing in line
55:28at stall nine heard every word. So did
55:31the people at stall eight and stall 10.
55:34And the noise in that part of the ring
55:36dropped away, the way it does in a
55:38church when somebody in the front pew
55:40stands up.
55:42The fiddle in stall 15 kept going,
55:45badly, for a while,
55:47and then that stopped too.
55:49Eunice looked at the papers.
55:51She did not touch them.
55:53She put on her glasses and read the top
55:55page from where she sat without picking
55:57it up all the way down to the yellow
55:59flag.
56:01Then she took her glasses off and let
56:03them hang on the cord.
56:05Brenda, she said,
56:07I'm going to say no.
56:09I want you to know I'm not saying it to
56:10be hard.
56:12I'm saying it because I've read it, and
56:14I can read, and I know what it says.
56:17Eunice, Mr. Holloway began, with
56:20respect, these situations
56:22>> I'm not a situation, said Eunice. I'm a
56:25woman selling pie.
56:28It was Dale Pruitt who spoke first. He
56:31had been standing at stall 12 with a
56:33cider donut in each hand, which he had
56:35been doing every Saturday since
56:37September.
56:38And he walked over now, slowly, wiping
56:41his fingers on his pants, and stood at
56:43the end of the pie table where everyone
56:45could see him.
56:47Ma'am, he said to Brenda,
56:49I'm Dale Pruitt from the county
56:51treasurer's office.
56:52I sold Mrs. Hartwell this barn, $2.
56:56I've sold a lot of county property in 26
56:58years, and I'll tell you, she's the only
57:01buyer I ever had who read every word of
57:03the form before she signed it, asked me
57:06what as is meant legally, and made me
57:09show her the line.
57:11Then she paid the taxes on this parcel
57:12in July, on time, the first time
57:15anybody's paid them since 1996.
57:18I've got the receipt in the office if
57:20your lawyer wants to come see it.
57:22Mr. Holloway did not say anything.
57:25Dale looked at him. And she pulled a
57:27county permit for this market in August.
57:30All the boxes filled in, which is more
57:32than I can say for the Lions Club.
57:35Marlene came from stall 11 with her arms
57:37folded.
57:38I've been across the road from this
57:40woman every day since March, she said.
57:43I've watched her carry water and paint
57:45walls and fix a roof and talk to a
57:47hundred families on my kitchen phone.
57:50If she's not in her right mind, I'd like
57:52to know what mine is.
57:54The Kessler man stood up behind his
57:56apple butter.
57:57My grandmother sold here, he said, to
58:00nobody in particular.
58:01Nobody ever asked Walter Albrecht if he
58:04was in his right mind. He was 80 when he
58:06ran the last one.
58:08Travis Dunham came from stall five with
58:11dirt on his hands.
58:12She paid me with a stall for the roof,
58:15he said. Best deal I ever made. I've got
58:1711 jobs off it.
58:20Brenda's face had gone very still.
58:23She looked around at the people standing
58:24in the light, at the faces.
58:27And she did not seem to find anything in
58:29any of them that she wanted. None of you
58:31are family, she said. None of you know
58:34what it's like when she's alone out here
58:36at night.
58:37I do, said Caleb.
58:39He had come down from the loft.
58:42Nobody had seen him come.
58:44He was standing at the end of the stall
58:45in his work gloves with hay in his hair.
58:48And he was taller than Eunice remembered
58:50him being in March.
58:51Brenda turned. Caleb, go wait in the
58:54car.
58:55No, mom.
58:56His voice cracked a little on the second
58:58word, and he cleared his throat and went
59:00on.
59:01I've been here every Saturday since the
59:03spring. I've been here some nights till
59:059:00. She's fine. She's better than
59:08fine. She takes her pills on time, and
59:11she doesn't go up the ladder past the
59:12third rung, and she writes down every
59:14nail. She makes me call you from
59:16Marlene's every time I'm here, so you
59:18know where I am. I called you today.
59:21Brenda looked at him.
59:23You didn't say you were here.
59:25I said I was with Grandma, Caleb said. I
59:28always say that. You just never asked
59:30where Grandma was.
59:32There was a silence then, under the
59:34cupola, [clears throat]
59:35with the light coming down.
59:37Eunice let it be for a moment.
59:39Then she reached under the pie table and
59:41brought out the green tin, which she
59:43kept there on market days, the way
59:45Walter had kept the cash.
59:48She opened it and took out the ledger
59:50and set it on the table beside Brenda's
59:52leather folder, so that the two of them
59:54lay there side by side, the new one with
59:57the yellow flags and the old one with
59:59the cracked brown cover.
1:00:02You said I spent my last dollars on a
1:00:04building that's falling down, Eunice
1:00:06said.
1:00:07I want you to see what I did with them.
1:00:09That's all.
1:00:10Then you can do whatever you think is
1:00:12right.
1:00:13She opened the ledger to the new page in
1:00:15her own hand,
1:00:16Albrecht Fall Market, 2026,
1:00:20and turned it around so Brenda could
1:00:22read it.
1:00:23Every family,
1:00:25every stall, every gallon of paint and
1:00:28where it came from, every bag of nails,
1:00:31every hour somebody had given, every
1:00:33pie, every receipt, every Saturday,
1:00:37the taxes paid with the date, the
1:00:40permit.
1:00:41And in the column she had ruled for
1:00:43things that were not nails or paint.
1:00:46August 6th, Brenda came,
1:00:48said no.
1:00:50Brenda read it. People were watching her
1:00:52read it.
1:00:53It took a long time, and she read all of
1:00:55it, her lips not moving, her finger
1:00:58going down the columns the way Eunice's
1:01:00did.
1:01:01When she got to August 6th, her finger
1:01:04stopped.
1:01:05Then she closed the folder with the
1:01:07power of attorney inside it and tucked
1:01:09it back under her arm.
1:01:11She did not look at Mr. Holloway.
1:01:14Let's go, she said to him very quietly.
1:01:17And he went, and she followed him. And
1:01:20the crowd at stall nine moved aside to
1:01:22let her through.
1:01:23Nobody said anything to her.
1:01:26Nobody laughed. They only stepped back,
1:01:28the whole ring of them, and watched her
1:01:30walk around to the right, past the
1:01:33quilts and the pumpkins and the apple
1:01:35butter, all the way around to the big
1:01:37door and out into the bright afternoon,
1:01:40alone in front of everyone.
1:01:43After a while, the fiddle in stall 15
1:01:46started up again.
1:01:48Eunice cut a piece of cherry and put it
1:01:50on a paper plate and handed it to Caleb,
1:01:53who was still standing at the end of the
1:01:54stall with his gloves on.
1:01:56Eat that, she said. You've earned it.
1:02:00He ate it standing up.
1:02:02His hands were shaking.
1:02:04So were hers, a little, under the table
1:02:07where nobody could see.
1:02:09Brenda came back after dark.
1:02:11The market was over, the cars gone, the
1:02:14stalls swept, Marlene gone home across
1:02:17the road, and Caleb gone with her to
1:02:19call his mother and get a ride. Eunice
1:02:22was sitting on her bucket in the big
1:02:23doorway with a cup of coffee and Jim's
1:02:26glasses in her lap, watching the last of
1:02:28the light go down behind the cut fields,
1:02:31when the silver car came up the lane
1:02:33alone and stopped by the silo.
1:02:36Brenda got out.
1:02:38She did not have the folder.
1:02:40She walked to the door and stood there
1:02:42in the blue dusk with her arms wrapped
1:02:44around herself because the wind had
1:02:47turned cold.
1:02:48And for a long time she did not say
1:02:50anything at all.
1:02:52There's coffee, Eunice said.
1:02:55It's from a saucepan, but it's hot.
1:02:58Brenda shook her head.
1:02:59Then she said,
1:03:01Did he really write down every nail?
1:03:04I did, said Eunice.
1:03:06Caleb just carried them.
1:03:08Brenda almost laughed.
1:03:10It came out wrong.
1:03:12She put her hand over her mouth.
1:03:15I sold the the in July, she said through
1:03:17her fingers. Did you know that? I sold
1:03:20it to a couple from Ohio. I paid off the
1:03:22credit cards. I paid off Michael's
1:03:24truck, the one he died in, that I'm
1:03:26still paying for.
1:03:28I thought when it's all paid, I'll feel
1:03:31like I can breathe.
1:03:32And I don't.
1:03:34I don't feel any different at all.
1:03:36She took her hand away.
1:03:38And then I saw that picture of you in
1:03:40the doorway.
1:03:41Eunice set her coffee down on the floor.
1:03:44She stood up slowly, one hand on the
1:03:46door frame, and went into the office and
1:03:49came back with the green tin.
1:03:51She sat back down on the bucket and
1:03:53opened the ledger to 1990 and found the
1:03:56line with her finger and turned the book
1:03:58around and held it up in the last of the
1:04:00light.
1:04:01Read that one, she said.
1:04:03Brenda bent down to see.
1:04:05Mikey Hartwell, age nine, pumpkins,
1:04:09stall nine with his mother. No charge,
1:04:12gave half to the church jar.
1:04:14She read it twice. Then Eunice took the
1:04:17long white envelope out of the apron
1:04:19pocket where it had stayed all day
1:04:21against her chest and unfolded the first
1:04:23sheet and pointed to the place.
1:04:26And Brenda read that too, standing in
1:04:28the doorway of the barn in the dark with
1:04:30her arms wrapped around herself.
1:04:33Whatever else happens to your family,
1:04:35Jimmy,
1:04:36you hang on to that boy.
1:04:38He's the best of all of you.
1:04:41Brenda sat down on the floor of the
1:04:43doorway. She just sat down in her good
1:04:46slacks on the old boards, the way a
1:04:49child sits down when its legs stop
1:04:51working.
1:04:52And she cried.
1:04:53Eunice let her.
1:04:55She did not put an arm around her and
1:04:57she did not tell her it was all right
1:04:59because it was not all right and both of
1:05:01them knew it.
1:05:02She sat on her bucket with the ledger
1:05:04open on her knees and waited, the way
1:05:07she had waited for the fire to catch on
1:05:09the first night, patient and close.
1:05:12When Brenda was done, she wiped her face
1:05:15with her sleeve and looked up.
1:05:17I'm not going to say I'm sorry, she
1:05:19said. I don't think it's enough.
1:05:22I don't know what is.
1:05:24Neither do I, said Eunice.
1:05:26We'll find out, I expect.
1:05:28She went into the office once more and
1:05:31came back with the last sugar cream pie,
1:05:34the one she had held back at the end of
1:05:35the day for no reason, in its tin with a
1:05:38dish towel over it.
1:05:40She held it out.
1:05:41That's Lottie's, she said. Nutmeg on
1:05:44top, real vanilla bean, not the bottle.
1:05:47Take it home.
1:05:48Eat it with Caleb.
1:05:50Brenda took it in both hands.
1:05:52She stood up.
1:05:54At the silver car she stopped and turned
1:05:56around, a dark shape against the darker
1:05:59field.
1:06:00Can he keep coming? she said.
1:06:03Caleb?
1:06:03On Saturdays.
1:06:05He was always going to keep coming, said
1:06:07Eunice.
1:06:08That was never up to either of us.
1:06:11Brenda nodded.
1:06:12She put the pie on the passenger seat
1:06:14carefully and drove away down the lane
1:06:17slowly with her headlights going out
1:06:19ahead of her across the stubble. The
1:06:21market ran every Saturday through the
1:06:23end of October, the way Walters always
1:06:26had, and closed on the last one with the
1:06:28cider gone and the pumpkins gone and the
1:06:31light coming down through the cupola
1:06:33onto empty white stalls.
1:06:36Travis came back the first week of
1:06:38November and checked the patched roof
1:06:40and pronounced it good for another 30
1:06:42years.
1:06:44Dale came out with the saw horse in the
1:06:45bed of his truck and said the county
1:06:47needed it back and then stayed for
1:06:49coffee and told Eunice about his mother
1:06:52and the cider donuts for most of an
1:06:54afternoon.
1:06:56Marlene offered her the spare room for
1:06:58the winter.
1:06:59Eunice said she would think about it and
1:07:01then, on the night of the first hard
1:07:03frost, she did walk across the road with
1:07:06her suitcase and Marlene did not say a
1:07:08word about it,
1:07:09only put another plate on the table.
1:07:12But on the first Sunday of November,
1:07:14before the snow, she went back to the
1:07:17barn alone in the afternoon to put it to
1:07:19bed.
1:07:20She swept the alley one last time. She
1:07:23hung Jim's canvas apron on the peg in
1:07:25the office and banked the little iron
1:07:28stove.
1:07:29Then she sat down at the table with the
1:07:31brown suitcase open on the floor beside
1:07:33her,
1:07:34the same suitcase that had stood on the
1:07:36porch in March with the grocery sack of
1:07:38pill bottles and the cake stand and its
1:07:40newspaper.
1:07:42There was not much in it now that was
1:07:44hers.
1:07:45She had unpacked her clothes at
1:07:46Marlene's.
1:07:48What she packed into it instead,
1:07:50carefully, was the ledger in its oil
1:07:52cloth and Lottie's recipe cards with a
1:07:55new rubber band around them
1:07:57and the long white envelope with
1:07:59Walter's three pages inside so that all
1:08:01of it would winter dry.
1:08:04The suitcase closed easily.
1:08:06It had been heavier in March.
1:08:08Before she closed the ledger, she wrote
1:08:10one more line on the new page under the
1:08:13last Saturday in October in her careful
1:08:16hand.
1:08:17Last market of the year, every stall
1:08:20full, every Saturday.
1:08:22Caleb Hartwell, age 15, ladders and hay,
1:08:26stall nine with his grandmother, no
1:08:29charge. Then she sat looking at it for a
1:08:31while and then she took a clean sheet
1:08:33from Marlene's notepad and wrote a
1:08:35letter of her own, not long, and folded
1:08:38it into an envelope. And on the front of
1:08:40the envelope in pencil she wrote,
1:08:43for Caleb Hartwell, open on market day.
1:08:47She did not say even to herself when
1:08:50that would be,
1:08:51some year when the ladder was his and
1:08:54the bucket behind stall nine was empty.
1:08:57She carried the envelope out into the
1:08:59inner ring and went around to the right,
1:09:01the way everyone did, past the white
1:09:03stalls with the late sun coming down
1:09:05through the cupola onto them, to the
1:09:07seventh with its faded horseshoe over
1:09:10the half door.
1:09:11She knelt, one knee on the folded feed
1:09:14sack that was still there, and she
1:09:16pressed the top of the third board from
1:09:18the corner just above the brick, and it
1:09:20swung out easily now because Travis had
1:09:23planed it for her.
1:09:24She put the envelope in empty space
1:09:26behind it, where the green tin used to
1:09:28sit, and pushed the board shut. On her
1:09:31way out, she stopped in the office.
1:09:34On the wall above the table, pinned with
1:09:36two thumbtacks, was a page of the County
1:09:38Weekly, smoothed flat, a little creased
1:09:41where it had been folded twice around a
1:09:43cake stand.
1:09:44Jim squinted out of it in his good blue
1:09:47shirt.
1:09:48Eunice took his reading glasses out of
1:09:50her coat pocket and looked at them.
1:09:52And then she folded them and set them on
1:09:54the windowsill beside her pillbox in the
1:09:56place where the light came in.
1:09:58Well, Jim, she said, here we are.
1:10:02Then she pulled the office door shut and
1:10:04rolled the big door closed on its iron
1:10:06track with its long, groaning song.
1:10:10She turned the old key in the padlock
1:10:12with both hands and walked down the lane
1:10:14in the cold toward the lights across the
1:10:17road without once looking back
1:10:19because she knew exactly what she had
1:10:21left inside.
1:10:23And she knew it would still be there in
1:10:25the spring. Right now on your screen,
1:10:27there are three links. On the left, our
1:10:30newest video. In the center, a link to
1:10:32our channel. And on the right, a whole
1:10:34playlist of stories just like this one.
1:10:37Give it a like, tell us in the comments
1:10:39what you think, and stay with us. Thank
1:10:41you for watching all the way to the end.

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