And that reminds me," the driver said, “you better get out soon. I’m going through the door-yard after dinner.”
“You filled in the well this morning.”
“I know. I had to keep the line straight. But I’m going through the dooryard after dinner. Got to keep the line straight. And — well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so I’ll tell you this. I got orders whenever there’s a family not moved out — if I have an accident — you know, get too close and cave the house a little — well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet.”
“I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with bailing wire. It’s mine. I built it. You bump it down — I’ll be in the window with a rifle. You even come to close and I’ll pot you like a rabbit.”
“It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it. And look — suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but long before your hung there will be another guy on the tractor, and he’ll bump the house down. You’re not killing the right guy.”
“That’s so,” the tenant said. “Who gave you orders? I’ll go after him. He’s the one to kill.”
"You’re wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told them: “Clear those people out or it’s your job.”
“Well, there’s a president of the bank. There’s a Board of Directors. I’ll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank.”
The driver said: "Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The orders were: “Make the land show profit or we’ll close you up.”
“But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn’t man at all. Maybe, like you said, the property’s doing it. Anyway I told you my orders.”
“I got to figure,” the tenant said. “We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.” The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engines and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was 10 feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the house corner, crumbled the wall and wrenched the little house from its foundations so that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand. His wife beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor