The Power of Faith

By Timothy Law

Grandpa sowed the winter wheat in between family visiting for Easter, even though it had been a dry and hot summer.

“You’re wasting your time and your money, dad,” my father had argued.

I overheard them talking in the kitchen when I got up in the night.

Grandma had complained over dinner that they now had to buy water from a box at the supermarket. All the tanks were dry except for one that had brown sludge, a mix of rust and mud coming out the tap.

“Have faith,” was all that grandpa said.

Dad and grandma were both good at sighing; they both had the same sort of style. It was a short breath in and then an impossibly long breath out. Their brows both crinkled the same way too; it wasn’t hard to see that they came from the same family tree. Me, well I was like grandpa. I didn’t know much about what I believed in, but I knew that I believed in grandpa. We’d pray together, he’d announce that he was going out to check on the fields, and I was the first and only one to offer to join him. Grandpa would plonk me in his lap and we’d go for a tractor ride. It was dry, and it was hot; the cloud of dust that we left in our wake almost made me cry. But, grandpa had faith, so I did too. Something was going to happen, something real soon.

Easter Sunday that year was a scorcher. We didn’t have enough fans to keep the air cool, especially when grandma insisted that it was a traditional roasted lamb we were having for lunch.

“Mum,” said my dad, exasperated. “Dad and I can cook it on the spit.”

“No, no, no,” insisted grandma. “I’m doing a traditional roast, and where would you put the vegetables?”

“On the barbeque?” suggested my dad; already he knew grandma would not take too kindly to that.

It was bad enough that the heat of summer and the cost of water had killed off her prized garden. To have barbequed veg with a lamb cooked over the spit would have been enough to send grandma to her grave.

“I’ll do it my way with these foreign veggies and a lamb from off our own land,” said grandma with conviction.

To grandma anything that came from interstate was deemed foreign, like it had come from somewhere other than Australia. We tried to tell her, but she just wouldn’t listen.

“Fresh is best,” she always said. “And you can’t trust the supermarkets.”

We suffered the morning with homemade lemonade, glasses full of crushed ice. As it melted it diluted the sugary syrup that made us pull faces with each sip, it was the only thing that was cool enough to give us some relief. The smells coming from the kitchen were incredible, but the heat that churned out of that oven was unbearable. We were wondering if lunch was truly going to be worth the wait.

“Come on boys,” said grandpa to my dad and me. “Let’s all go for one lap around the farm while we wait for my Nel’s feast.”

I could tell that dad was reluctant, but it was a chance to spend some time in the air conditioned cab of the great, green beast. So he gave my mum a quick kiss, and we left the women to natter as they do.

“I still think that you should just sell up the farm and retire dad,” my dad said, almost shouting over the rumble of the tractor’s engine. “You’d get a good price for the lambs if you took them to market now.”

Grandpa shook his head.

“I’m far too old to do anything else now,” he said. “Farming is mixed up in my blood and my brain that I can’t fit in words like leisure and retirement.”

“Nonsense,” said my dad, but too quietly for grandpa to hear it.

“Have a little faith, dad,” I urged.

“My faith dried up when I was your age,” my dad told me, sadly. “I don’t think that I was ever supposed to be a farmer’s son, certainly not a farmer anyway.”

I nodded at that, I could see that dad was right. He had found his own path, my dad, and he was good at what he did. Farming was certainly in his past, but it was not in his future.

“Lots of your mates have sold up,” dad then said to grandpa and I could see he had struck a nerve.

“Bloody developers,” cursed grandpa, but then he apologized quickly when he remembered that I was there. “They are snatching up the best land for growing and turning our town into a city.

“It’s called progress, dad,” my dad said. “It’s the way of the future.”

“Well then maybe I’m stuck in the past,” grumbled grandpa in reply. “At least I’ve realized that you can’t eat rocks and trees… Dust won’t keep the lambs plump…”

“And what will, dad?” my dad bit back with. “Your so called faith?”

And that was when it happened. Three generations all in the same cab. We saw the black clouds roll on in, filling the clear blue sky and covering up the sun. There was a single flash followed by a thunderous boom and then the rains fell. Grandpa stopped the tractor right where it was and jumped out the cab to dance. I joined him and laughed as we hopped, skipped, and jumped amongst the big fat droplets.

“This is what faith can do,” my grandpa said, and I believed him.

The house was cooler when we got back, and happier. The Easter eggs were hidden indoors, and lunch tasted extra special. The rains helped the wheat to grow, and in the Spring there was an abundance of little lambs nibbling at fine clover. The hay was sweet and the lambs grew fat. After that, grandpa had a few good seasons in a row. So good in fact that when I told my mum and dad that I wanted to keep the family farm going they encouraged it. They could see that I had the faith, like grandpa. So, when he passed away he passed the reins on to me, and I’ve continued farming with one foot in the past and the other looking forward. I keep a picture of grandpa in my tractor cab. He always reminds me to just keep the faith.

Timothy Law is a writer of fantasy, horror, detective and general fiction from a little town in
Southern Australia called Murray Bridge. Currently working at the Murray Bridge Library he
has dreamed since high school of becoming a fulltime author. His stories can be found at
http://somecallmetimmy.blogspot.com.au/ and other platforms.