When I reached the top of the driveway after getting off the school bus one April afternoon, I couldn't help but wonder why Dad was standing on the stepladder next to the tractor.

I had never seen my father use a stepladder to fix a tractor. He didn't have to climb on anything to reach the engine. I also knew he wasn't filling the tractor with gasoline. The 460 Farmall was too far away from the gas barrel underneath the silver maple tree by the garage, so the hose wouldn't reach that far.

"What's Dad doing Needles?" I asked.

Our dog, Needles, had come to meet me, his tail going in circles. Needles was a Cocker-Spaniel mix we had gotten when he was a tiny cream-colored puppy with wavy hair on his ears. Within the first week, he had nipped my sister's ankles while she was hanging clothes outside to dry. She had exclaimed, "Get those needles out of here!" And the name had stuck. As Needles grew older, his color had darkened to light caramel.

At the sound of the word, 'Dad,' Needles' ears perked up, and his round, dark-brown eyes stared at me with sharpened intensity. Needles was Dad's 'hired man.' That's what Dad said, anyway. When my father worked in the field, the dog would either trot behind the tractor or, on warmer days, would find some shade at the end of the field where he could keep an eye on things. When we milked cows, he stayed in the barn, sometimes nudging aside the cats so he could drink some milk from their dish. And when Dad went on an errand with the pickup truck, Needles often rode with him.

"What's Dad doing?" I repeated. "Go find Dad, Needles."

The dog, his feathery tail still wagging, spun around and took off toward the machine shed.

I stood for a minute, listening to the redwing blackbirds singing in the marsh below our driveway