It was so quiet for a moment the dogs next door began to bark, furiously, as if something was the matter.

Alma also was surprised not to hear the familiar growl of jackhammers this morning, the whine of electric saws, and the shouts of workmen. Something indeed must be the matter, she thought, as she eased into her bath water. Ever since she discovered that the old Dakota Building was going to be demolished, she had worried that something unforeseen might happen. Despite the assurances of her husband and neighbors, despite all the precautions taken by the people in charge, she remained on edge as the blast day approached, still expecting something to go wrong.

"You just can't blow up a building in the middle of a residential neighborhood," she told her husband, "and not expect some damage to occur."

From time to time, I’d driven past those men walking down County 519. They’d been carrying clear plastic bags filled with things, not completely filled, maybe one-third, and not big like a garbage bag, but smaller. Always alone, they’d been heading toward town, wide cornfields on both sides of the road, farmhouses and silos along the way. They seemed small against the land, like one of those paintings of a wheat field or the ocean where the artist wants to make nature look even bigger than it is. Actually, they kind of reminded me of kids walking home from school, that run-down, sagging look they have when it’s really hot out. It was only after my third or fourth sighting I put it all together that these folks were coming from the county lock-up and that the bags held their personal effects.