Herrick & Sons, Incorporated

About Herrick & Sons, Incorporated

At two in the morning the road north toward Oakham is one long white tunnel and the only light in it belongs to a plow. Herrick & Sons, Incorporated works those hours — plowing driveways and lots, shoveling walks and steps, spreading salt and sand on the grades that ice first. Storms reach North Brookfield with the hills' own arithmetic: a little more snow than the valley below, a little slower to let it go. The measure of a night like that is simple — the drive open and the steps bare before anyone has to leave for work. Then back out to the next one, with the sky going gray behind the trees.