THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR HAND UP
The hall
By Sam Marwood
Part 3 of 12
The plan fitted on two pages, with the numbers done.
On the Sunday, the farmer a few roads over read it twice at his kitchen table.
The farm stayed a dairy. Locals who wanted to keep it local would back it together, and the couple would share farm it. He'd stay on in the house.
He put the pages down. "Who's going to back it?"
"We'll ask them," she said. "At the hall."
They booked the hall for a Thursday and left copies of the plan at the hardware store, the stock agent and the vet.
On the night, the chairs filled faster than they could set them out. Half the room knew them already, from a knock on the door, the flier or the footy.
The hardware store owner sat near the front. The doctor came straight from the clinic. A retired farmer took the end of a row with his hat on his knee. The stock agent stood at the back, grinning.
Her hands shook when she stood up. He held the pages for her.
"We want to farm here," she said. "And we want to keep this place in local hands."
They told the room about the farm: the lanes, the herd and the work they'd take on. The farmer a few roads over stood beside them. When someone asked how it would work for him, she answered. "We take the milkings, and he keeps the morning walk."
The questions ran late, and someone put the urn on. When the hall emptied, the hardware store owner helped them stack the chairs, and the farmer a few roads over turned off the lights.
Over the weeks that followed, the doctor, the retired farmer and the hardware store owner backed the farm together, each putting their own money in. The couple put their own money in as well.
By spring, they were milking on the first farm.
This is an illustration. The district and its people are made up.
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