Page 20 - Publishing Inspiration Christmas Card 2022

Helping a Neighbor, or Not
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Seth was busy working on his four-wheeler for a trip into the
mountains the next day with a group of mid-teen boys. That was
when his neighbor showed up.
“Good morning, Seth,” the neighbor said.
Seth, holding a couple of bolts in his mouth, nodded a
greeting.
“Seth,” the neighbor continued, “could you do me a favor and
drop my cows a bale of hay in their feeder tomorrow morning? It
won’t be hard. You just need to fire up the old farmhand tractor, and
I have already loaded a bale of hay on it. Just drive it into the pasture
and dump the bale in the feeder.”
Seth was leery of accepting the task. The neighbor didn’t
have the best equipment, and when Seth had worked for him before,
something had always gone wrong. Maybe the tractor wouldn’t start
or something. He didn’t want to miss meeting up with his friends
and get left behind for the four-wheeling trip.
The neighbor must have sensed Seth’s concern. He told of
his desire to get away for a family gathering and ended by saying,
“The old tractor runs like a top.”
Seth slowly nodded. He knew how hard it was to get away
when there were animals to feed. Besides, what could go wrong with
just dumping a single bale into a feeder? The neighbor thanked him
and headed on his way.
The next morning, Seth went to do the feeding early to have
plenty of time before meeting the other guys. At the neighbor’s
house, everything was just as described. The tractor was sitting by
the gate with the one-ton bale loaded on the forks.
Seth opened the gate, fired up the tractor, and drove it toward
the feeder. The feeder was a fair distance across the pasture. It sat
about thirty yards from where the pasture dropped toward the river.
Seth gunned the tractor to full speed to hurry and get the job done.
Seth hit the clutch and gently pushed on the brakes as he
approached the feeder. The clutch disengaged the engine from
pushing the tractor forward, but the brakes didn’t seem to slow the
tractor at all. He pushed the brake pedal farther and farther until it

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