The Tractor

The Book of Ron · 16 of 48 · 3 minute read

That year I had finally managed to buy a tractor. I had gone to the bank and borrowed the money for it, and by the end of the summer I had almost paid it off. I only owed a couple hundred dollars. I had spent the whole season mowing fields and working the debt down.

One Saturday morning I had promised a farmer I would mow his field. He was waiting on me. I was getting ready to take the tractor down the road to the job when my father came out and said he wanted to use the tractor on his ten acres.

I didn’t want him to.

Dad had a way of tearing things up. He would cut down trees and leave stumps everywhere. Tires would get flat. Sicklebars would get broken. But more important than that, I had given my word to a man who was waiting for me to show up and do the job.

I climbed up on the tractor and told Dad I had to go.

He pulled me off the tractor and knocked me down.

I climbed back on.

He pulled me off again.

After the third time, something inside of me broke. Tears were running down my face. I yelled at him, “You keep the damn tractor. I’m leaving.”

And I walked down the road.

When I reached the farmer’s place, I explained that I couldn’t mow his field because my dad had my tractor. He looked at me for a moment. Then we sat down and talked.

After a while he said something I never expected. He told me he could teach me to be a herdsman on a dairy farm. And if I wanted to, I could use his tractor that day to mow the field.

Heaven forbid.

His tractor was new. Beautiful. It was the kind of machine a young man could only dream about. I had never imagined being allowed to sit on something like that.

But I agreed.

We mowed the field that day.

From that point forward, all I had to do was give my dad my paycheck and he allowed me to stay away from home and work on the dairy farm. I finished paying for the tractor.

But I never rode it again.

What I gained was not a tractor.

It was a way out.

At the time, all I could see was loss. I thought something had been taken from me. But looking back now, I understand something I could not see then.

Sometimes life pushes you out of one place so you can finally begin walking toward another.

There is a companion workbook for this story. Open the workbook (PDF).