The tractor was on the move before my brothers and I could decide to do the same. With no other choice, we hopped in the trailer and waited to find out whatever fate lay ahead.

Peg elbowed me and pointed to a pile of broken tobacco plants. “Where’d those come from?”

I shrugged, still thinking this was just a nightmare. When the tractor pulled to a stop in the front tobacco field and I noticed a few rows had been plucked clean of the plants we’d set earlier, the nightmare grew in intensity.

“Seriously, Pa, what’s wrong?” I asked as soon as we’d all unloaded and were following him to a row that still held their plants.

He leaned over and began pulling them in a rapid speed. “The plants are diseased. Gotta get it out of my fields.”

I grabbed a plant that had slipped out of his grasp and saw no sign of disease, just a tender plant bruised and ruined. “There’s nothing on these plants, Pa. They look perfectly healthy.”

“I don’t see nothing either,” Peg agreed, examining a plant he’d pulled from a hill.

Pa whipped around, his fists full of broken plants. “You kids think you know better than me? Ya disrespecting my authority?”

Our heads shook immediately. “No, sir. It’s just . . . ,” I started, not knowing how to maneuver us out of this mess in a way not to set Pa off even more. His dark-blue eyes held that frenzied gleam that scared me every time it showed up.

“Just nothing!” Pa gestured toward the rows lit by the full moon. “They all gotta go. Get to it.”

Boss was silently pulling plants, going at two rows at once. Right reach, pluck. Left reach, pluck. And I was close to tears, witnessing all of our hard work being ruined.

Peg let out a resigned sigh. “Can’t we just plow ’em up?”

Halfway down a row, Pa shook his head. “No! Every plant has to be tossed in the trailer. Can’t have disease. It’s like yeast. If any is left behind, it’ll spread and infect all the healthy new plants.”

Peg grumbled and groaned. “We’ll have to replant! This is messed up!”

The first hour out there in the middle of that dark field passed with Peg and I taking turns trying to talk Pa out of pulling all the set plants, but he was in some sort of trance and wouldn’t budge. Our protests eventually tapered off as we went into our own trance, maybe our way of protecting our fragile state, and worked robotically through the night. The only sounds besides the rustling trees on the far side of the field and the frogs croaking amongst them were our grunts that grew right along with our weariness. At least the breeze kept the sweat and mosquitoes at a more tolerable level.