Well sure, Harold said. I reckon we could try. Because the market . . . But maybe you’d like to sit down again first. At the table here.
Raymond rose at once and pulled out her chair. She seated herself slowly and he pushed the chair in for her and she thanked him and he went back to the other side of the table and took his place. For a moment the girl sat rubbing her stomach where it felt tight, then she noticed they were watching her with close interest, and she put her hands forth on the table. She looked across at them. I’m listening, she said. Do you want to go ahead?
Why sure, of course, Harold said. As I was saying. He began in a loud voice. Now the market is what soybeans and corn and live cattle and June wheat and feeder pigs and bean meal is all bringing in today for a price. He reads it out every day at noon, the man on the radio. Six-dollar soybeans. Corn two-forty. Fifty-eight-cent hogs. Cash value, sold today.
The girl sat watching him talk, following his lecture.
People listen to it, he said, and know what the prices are. They manage to keep current that a-way. Know what’s going on.
Not to mention pork bellies, Raymond said.
Harold opened his mouth to say something more, but now he stopped. He and the girl turned to look at Raymond.
How’s that? Harold said. Say again.
Pork bellies, Raymond said. That’s another one of em. You never mentioned it. You never told her about them.
Well yeah, of course, Harold said. Them too. I was just getting started.
You can buy them too, Raymond said to the girl. If you had a mind to. He was looking at her solemnly from across the table. Or sell em too, if you had some.
What are they? the girl said.
Well that’s your bacon, Raymond said.
Oh, she said.
Your fat meat under the ribs there, he said.
That’s right, Harold said. They’re touted on the market too. So anyway, he said, looking at the girl. Now do you see?
She looked from one old man to the other. They were waiting, watching for some reaction, as if they’d been laying out the intricacies of some last will and testament or perhaps the necessary precautions to take against the onset of fatal disease and the contagion of plague. I don’t think so, she said. I don’t understand how he knows what the prices are.
The man on the radio? Harold said.
Yes.
They call them up out of the big salebarns. He gets the market reports from Chicago or Kansas City. Or Denver maybe.
Then how do you sell something? she said.
All right, Raymond said, taking his turn. He leaned forward toward her to explain these matters. Take for instance you want to sell you some wheat, he said. Take, you already got it there in the elevator in Holt next to the railroad tracks where you carried it back in July at harvest time. Now you want to sell some of it off. So you call up the elevator and tell him to sell off five thousand bushel, say. So he sells it at today’s prices and then the big grain trucks, those tractors and trailers you see out on the highway, they haul it away.
Who does he sell it to? the girl said.
Any number of places. Most likely to the milling company. Mostly it goes for your baking flour.
Then when do you get your money?
He writes you out a check today.
Who does that?
The elevator manager.
Except if there’s a storage charge, Harold said, taking his turn again. He takes that out. Plus your drying charge, if there is one. Only, since it’s wheat we’re talking about, there’s never much drying charge with wheat. Mostly that’s with your corn.
They stopped again and studied the girl once more. They had begun to feel better, a little satisfied with themselves. They knew they were not out of the woods yet, but they had begun to allow themselves to believe that what they saw ahead was at least a faint track leading to a kind of promising clearing. They watched the girl and waited.
She shook her head and smiled. They noticed again how beautiful her teeth were and how smooth her face. She said, I still don’t think I understand it. You said something about cattle. What about them?