That point, which was to bring irreversible change to Hook Road, came on a clear autumn morning. The sun had risen singular in a cloudless sky to beam down hotly, glistening the melted frost on the browning weeds and grass on the banks of the headland. There was no wind. The caw of a crow rang clear and trumpet-like from the maple woods shadowing the south edge of our potato field. I was working east on the last dug potato row, feeling lank, thinking about dinner, when I heard The Old Man mutter, “Must be thinking about another election.” I paused in my hunch, rested my hands on the basket handle and looked up. The Old Man stood looking across the potato field, barren except for the odd scraggly top sprigging here and there and two full rows with their tops lying like matted hair at the field’s south fringe. His empty, woven basket sat squat and awry by the half-filled bran bag he had dumped it into. His canvas gloves, clay-caked at the palms, lay draped over the basket’s carved wooden handle.
