The second time it was for thirteen weeks, and I stepped down of my own accord. People who don’t know me well wonder that I’d give up my badge for an apron, thinking that flipping burgers is a big step down. If they asked me, which they don’t, I would tell them that when a man stumbles onto happiness, he’d be a fool to pass it by. It’s as simple as that. Sam’s Place makes me happy.

North of the Quonset hut is the Bearpaw Brewery. South there’s nothing for a quarter mile except a copse of poplars that hides the ruins of an old ironworks. The road to Sam’s Place is a couple hundred yards of gravel that starts just outside town, crosses a big vacant field, then humps over the Burlington Northern tracks. It isn’t particularly easy to get to, but people seem to find it without any problem.

In season, from early May, when tourists begin to flock north, until the end of October, when the fall color is gone, I arrive for work at ten A.M. I spend an hour getting ready for business. Turn on the griddle, heat the fry oil, get the ice-milk machine churning, restock the rack of chips, double-check the serving supplies, put cash in the register drawer. A few minutes before eleven, help arrives. In the summer months, it’s one of my daughters, either Jenny or Anne.

That morning after I fished with Schanno, as I was getting ready to slide open the serving windows, I saw Anne jogging up the road to Sam’s Place. She was sixteen, very Irish with her wild red hair. She was an athlete hoping for a scholarship to Notre Dame.

“Where’s Jenny?” I asked when she came in. “She’s on the schedule this morning.”

“She had kind of a hard night.” She reached into the closet for a serving apron. “She wasn’t feeling well. We traded shifts. She’s coming in this afternoon.”