American Farmers: Facing a Cutoff at the Start

Chapter 97 Welding Machine (Happy New Year's Eve!)

Goodbye, Uncle Roy.

Fett, shameless as ever, shouted and closed the car door.

A lukewarm hum came from inside the car, and it roared off.

Fett turned and walked toward his farm, tearing open the wrapper of the lime-flavored Halls mints in his hand as he went. With a flick of his thumb, a pale green candy slid into his palm.

Pop it into your mouth, and the cool, sweet and sour taste melts on your tongue again.

This tastes so sweet.

Since that's the case, then let's work hard.

"Lyra's gone?"

"Let's go, Dad."

Do you need any help?

Old Frank waved his hand, pushing the cart with one hand, and said, "No need, you go ahead with your work!"

Fei nodded and went straight back to his room.

I opened the slightly overheated Dell laptop and skillfully accessed the Craigslist website.

Power hammers are large items, so it's best to find a seller on Craigslist and trade offline. If you ship them, the shipping costs alone will be quite high.

He typed "powerful hammer" into the search bar and pressed enter.

These past few days, whenever he had time, he would log onto the website to take a look, but large items like power hammers are hard to come by.

I couldn't find anything suitable.

The page refreshed, and rows of listings for sale appeared.

The first picture shows an antique from the 1920s. The seller described the pile of scrap metal in glowing terms, but asked for a whopping $6500. And it's located in faraway Pennsylvania.

Not only is it not worth selling, but the shipping costs alone would be enough to make him suffer.

Scroll down, and you'll find a cheap one: a homemade tire hammer, right next door in Mississippi.

But this thing looks dangerous. The fuselage is welded from scrap steel, and the welds are so rough they look like earthworms crawling. The old spare tire that serves as the drive wheel is worn down.

Fett didn't want to break his leg when he was halfway through a shot, only to have it smashed by a flying tire.

I flipped through a few more pages, but they were all familiar faces.

Undeterred, Fett continued browsing.

I finally found a "Say-Mak" air hammer in good condition, and the price was reasonable, only $3000.

Fett quickly checked the release date: three days ago.

He tried dialing the number on the page. A gruff-voiced man answered, and before Fett could finish speaking, he impatiently yelled, "Sold it a long time ago! Don't call again!"

The dial tone came through, and Fett hung up the phone in frustration.

The mouse wheel scrolled incessantly, the light on the screen reflecting Fett's gradually furrowed brow.

It's either too expensive, too far away, or too bad.

I flipped through a few more pages, reached the bottom, but found nothing.

He entered the welding machine and searched again.

There are more options this time.

A used Lincoln Electric MIG welding machine looks good; the red body has some paint chipping, but the wire feeding mechanism looks quite new.

The seller is asking for $400 and is also including two unopened rolls of welding wire and some protective gear.

The location is in Little Rock.

Fett considered it for a moment.

If this machine were new, it would cost at least six or seven hundred dollars, not to mention it came with two rolls of welding wire, so the price is reasonable.

He grabbed the phone from the table and dialed the number on the screen.

"Feed?" A tired-sounding female voice came from the other end of the phone, with the sounds of a child crying and cartoons playing in the background.

"Hi, I saw the guy on Craigslist about that Lincoln welding machine," Fett said slowly. "Is it still there?"

"Oh, yes." The woman seemed to have covered the microphone, only a faint voice coming through: "Jimmy, turn the TV down!"

Then her voice rose again, "That was left by my ex-husband. It was taking up space, so I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible."

"I want to buy it, but I can't get away these next few days and can't pick it up in Little Rock," Fett asked tentatively. "Could you please send it by courier? I'll pay extra for shipping."

The woman hesitated for a moment: "Send it by courier?"

"That thing is incredibly heavy; I can't move it. Besides, packing it up would be too much trouble."

Her tone betrayed a hint of distrust. "If I'm going to ship it by courier, why don't I sell it on eBay?"

"And as far as I know, nine times out of ten, anyone on Craigslist who asks for mailing is a scammer."

"Okay, that's all for now. I'm hanging up. Goodbye."

"No, no, no!" Fett quickly raised his voice, "Listen to me! First of all, I'm absolutely not a fraud."

His mind raced as he considered how to gain her trust: "My name is Fett Carter. Do you remember the young man who fought a wild boar that KATV news reported on a while ago?"

"I think I've seen him on TV before?" The woman's voice held a hint of surprise and hesitation. "Are you him?"

"Absolutely true." Fett said sincerely, "The address I want you to mail it to is my family's farm. You can search for my name on Facebook; my page has the farm's detailed address and photos. You can check it out."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, as if they were searching with another device.

After a moment, the woman's tone softened: "Okay, if you let me mail it to this address, I'll believe you're telling the truth."

"But I still can't move it to the post office, that thing is too heavy."

"You don't need to go to the post office," Fett immediately offered a solution. "I can pay an extra service fee to have UPS pick it up from your door."

"You just need to find a sturdy cardboard box to put it in, even if you just wrap it in a few layers of cardboard."

"The courier will bring a printed waybill to your door. You don't need to fill out any forms or carry anything."

"I see—" The woman thought for a moment, "Alright. As long as it's not too complicated."

"However, you'll have to pay for the shipping yourself."

"Of course, I'll choose cash on delivery." Fett breathed a sigh of relief. "To show my sincerity, I can transfer a $100 deposit to you via PayPal first."

"I'll transfer the remaining $300 to you as soon as the goods arrive."

"You trust me, and I trust you."

"Okay, it's settled then." The woman's voice was noticeably lighter. "Later, you can check my Facebook..."

After you check and confirm everything is correct, I'll send it to you at the address above. I'll go to the garage to find a box now.

After hanging up the phone, Fett did some calculations.

The welding machine, plus about fifty or sixty dollars for UPS ground transportation, is a bit more expensive than picking it up yourself. But if you drive to Little Rock yourself, it will take at least half a day round trip, and the cost of gas and time alone will be more than that.

After several days of waiting, I finally made some progress; I found a welding machine.

As for the power hammer—I can only slowly wait for nearby sellers to sell it.

Fett pulled out several customer knife order forms from the drawer, put them in his pocket, and went out the door.

He stopped as soon as he stepped into the yard.

Several black cars were parked in front of Old Johnny's house, and a few men in suits, some holding folders and others holding rangefinders, were standing in Old Johnny's yard pointing at the house that was sealed off.

A tall figure caught Fett's attention.