In this delightful memoir, O'Meara recounts a ten-year-old boy's year in the northern Minnesota sawmill town of Cloquet at the turn of the twentieth century. A talented historian/novelist, he vividly evokes the sights and sounds, joys and sorrows of family life set against the background of the lumbering industry when white pine was still king.

Season by season, O'Meara evokes the sights and sounds of family life and work in an era when the crisp days of autumn meant "digging in," and when it was up to the boy in the family to stack firewood for the kitchen range and dig enough...