Hard Row

After such a harrowing day, I was glad to see Dwight

get caught up in the hockey game. We ordered ham-

burgers and beers that were delivered to our seats and

found we had only missed the first few scoreless min-

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MARGARET MARON

utes. Soon we were roaring and shouting with the rest

of the fans as the lead seesawed back and forth. Each

time one of our players was sent to the penalty box, the

clock ticked off the seconds with a maddening slowness

that was just the opposite of the way time whizzed by

if it was our chance for a power play. Near the end, the

Canes pulled ahead 3 to 2 and when Brind’Amour iced

the cake with a slap shot that zoomed past their goalie,

Dwight swept me up and spun me around in an exuber-

ant bear hug.

Canes 4 to 2.

Yes!

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C H A P T E R

20

Those farmers who are generally dissatisfied with their con-

dition and imagine that they may be greatly benefitted by a

change of place, will find, in the majority of cases, that the

fault is more in themselves than in their surroundings.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Dwight Bryant

Tuesday Morning, March 7

% The clouds that had intermittently obscured the

moon on the drive home last night had thickened

in the early morning hours and now a heavy rain beat

against the cab of the truck as Dwight and Deborah

waited with Cal at the end of their long driveway for his

schoolbus to arrive.

Normally, thought Dwight, the three of them would

be laughing and chattering about last night’s game, but

his attempt to get Cal to speak of it earlier went no-

where. “The Canes won, you know.”

“I didn’t watch it,” Cal had said, concentrating on

his cereal.

Yes, they had watched the beginning of the game, he

said, but then it was his bedtime. Yes, it was good the

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MARGARET MARON

Canes had won. Yes, he’d had a good time with Jessie

and Emma. When pushed for details, he allowed as how

they had taken him over to Jessie’s house for a couple

of hours to ride horses across the farm. These boots

that he was wearing today? “Jess said I could have them