The Alapaha runs dark and unhurried east of Pearson, and the country around it is pine, field and a great deal of sky. Mathews Tree Services works Atkinson County from the town lots out to the dirt roads — removals where a tree has gotten too close to the house, trimming to take weight off a limb before the wind finds it, pruning that keeps a young oak growing the way you want it to. Every removal starts as a plan and ends as a stack of wood and a fresh patch of light on the grass. Storm work is its own kind of day: the call comes early, the way in is blocked, and the job is not finished until a car can get out of it. The last thing they do is clear the ground behind them, and that says more than anything anybody could put into words.