Morning in Beardstown starts on the river. Fog lifts off the Illinois in slow sheets, the levee holds its line above the bottomland, and grass on the town's flat lots comes up thick in soil the water left behind. Herter Sales & Service works those lots right through the growing season — mowing, string trimming, edging along walks and drives, and hauling off clippings and the debris each turn of the year drops. Cass County summers run humid and fast; a yard can go from tidy to shaggy in five days of heat and rain, so the schedule matters as much as the cut. A straight line mowed across a river-town yard is a small, ordinary pride, and it holds until the next pass comes through.