Another fellow and I were standing in the barn at the bottom of the hill behind the Gallia County Farmhouse. As I looked down through the long barn – which stretched about 40 meters – I noticed some tall weeds had grown inside. The weeds (all dead) were perhaps three meters tall and their dark stalks about a centimeter thick. The unsightly plants needed to be chopped down, and since I had a hatchet with me, I began cutting some plants at their base.

All the while the other fellow walked along beside me and we chatted, mainly about the plants. He seemed to be a hired hand who, along with his younger brother, had been working there on the Farm for my father. He was probably in his late 20s, and although I didn't know him well, he seemed amiable enough.

There were so many plants, I was obviously not going to be able to chop them all down. Some even seemed to be in rows, as if they had been planted. I wished I had an axe instead of this little hatchet, which wasn't even sharp. Toward the end of the barn, a different sort of plant was growing. It was as tall as the ones I had been cutting, but the stalks were skinnier. Several of the skinny-stalked plants would be growing in a cluster, and I would cut down four or five at once; but I had to strike them several times.

By the time I had finally cleared off a space in one corner, my father had entered the barn and had sat down to watch. I pointed out to him that at least now we had room in this little space to move about without being bothered by the plants – but much work still needed to be done. Besides the plants, other clutter lay around the barn. I picked up a fishing rod from the ground and stood it in a corner with some other rods. I also pulled down a wooden couch from overhead. The couch was designed to be connected to the ceiling so it could be pulled down – via some kind of mechanical device – and raised back up so it would be out of the way. Once I had lowered it to the ground, I noted that we now had a comfortable little spot in the barn to sit and talk.

My father, meanwhile, had begun talking to the other fellow. I was surprised when my father told the other fellow that someone had told my father that the other fellow and his brother were both psychotic; but now that I thought about it, the fellow had seemed a bit peculiar to me. He now responded to my father that he had been "de-criminalized." That was a strange word. Did he mean that he had been in prison and had served out his sentence? I definitely needed to keep a sharper eye on him in the future.

My father began talking to the fellow about something good that was going to happen to the fellow, something about receiving or inheriting some property. I knew what my father was talking about because I had already heard about it. The fellow, however, didn't want anyone to know about this boon which he was expecting, and he specifically requested that my father not tell his (the fellow's) girlfriend.

I felt a sinking feeling, because I recalled that the previous night, I had been talking to the fellow's girlfriend, and I had told her about the expected enrichment of the fellow. Should I now say something? I hesitated, then spoke up. I admitted to the fellow that I had already told his girlfriend the good news. My father looked approvingly at my admission, as if he were glad I hadn't tried to hide my mistake. I was glad I had told the fellow, but I was worried by how the fellow would now react.

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