"Seeds" from Garrison Keillor's "Leaving Home."

"Bud took the snowplow off the truck Wednesday evening, being tired of driving around with it banging up and down. He said, 'It's sure to snow now, but it'll just have to melt. I'm through thinking about it.' My attitude exactly. I put away my parka in April and put on a jacket. If it turns cold, it's not my problem.

"Aunt Mary ... ventured downtown on Thursday. ... When it's icy, Ralph sends one of his boys up to her little house with her groceries, but she looks forward to when the sidewalks are clear and she comes down to shop, which she likes to do every day. She brings her five or six things to the counter and Ralph rings them up and says, 'Nine dollars and eighty-four cents, Mary.' She looks down at the little group of things and says, 'Nine eighty-four? Are you sure?' ... She can see all the numbers of the prices on the labels. But $9.84? For these few things? Two jars of Taster's Choice, a can of tuna, a can of pears, a can of corn, and a packet of marigold seeds. It's impossible for this to cost $9.84. She looks at Ralph. ... Ralph has acted in this play for years. He knows his part. He waits as she goes down the list again, adding it up slowly in her head. Then Ralph says, 'Ah! That should be $1.49. That's $9.74.' Well, that's more like it. 'I'm sorry, this is just one of those days.' She gets a quarter and a penny change. She puts the goods in her shopping bag. She walks home, feeling a little better.

"Down the block, at the Feed 'N Seed, Harold has set up the old wooden bins to put seed packets in that have arrived from the Milton Seed Co. ... The salesman, Ritchie, ... says to Harold, 'You got to build excitement, make a visual appeal to the passer-by, and your walk-ins, you got to make them think seeds the minute they come through the door.' ... But seeds are all the Feed 'N Seed sells -- that and feeds -- so if you weren't already thinking seeds you probably wouldn't come in... It's spring itself that builds excitement and makes a visual appeal to the passer-by, and if the prospects of spring don't excite you, probably crepe paper won't have a big effect. But Ritchie believes this is going to be it, the big year, the great garden boom, when Milton triples its tomato-seed sales -- big growth in the carrot-and-beet sector, cucumbers up this year, beans up, pole beans way up, gross national kohlrabi, eggplant .... He's on the road for Milton six days a week, crisscrossing the district in his '78 Rambler wagon. It's full of crepe paper, styrofoam cups, and burger cartons. The carpet is ripped and the floorboards are mulched with dirt from a hundred little towns. Old seed samples take root there ... and soon it'll go to a junkyard and sit. Corn and beans will grow up in it and muskmelon vines come out of the seats. ... And the most luxurious ones grow on the seat where he sat. It's all waiting for spring to happen."