Newton grew up around the Santa Fe rail yards, and the older neighborhoods that spread out from those tracks are shaded by tall cottonwoods and elms that have had a very long time to grow — trees that, come an ice storm, drop limbs across driveways as fast as the sky drops snow. FERG'S TREE SERVICE & REMOVAL runs its plows down those same shaded streets in winter, clearing driveways and short stretches of curb before the ice fully sets and turns everything the trucks touch to glass. Sand Creek cuts through the edge of town, low ground that holds cold air longer than the rest of Newton, and it's usually the last stretch to come clear on a hard morning. There's a certain quiet on those blocks before the plow gets there — bare branches, a streetlight still on, snow undisturbed under a canopy of trees older than most of the houses. By midmorning the tracks are running, the driveways are open, and Harvey County goes back to its ordinary rail-town rhythm.