Sammy Buckshaw once lived in a little two room house on the edge of town. Now Sammy wasn't well off. All he had in this world was his little two room house and the piece of land it sat on. The house was old and weathered, as was Sammy. Together they survived on the hillside on the outskirts of Hapville, a small country town. 

For food and his livelihood, Sammy raised a garden which was his pride and joy. The garden sat beside the house facing the road. A large oak tree covered the yard in front of his home, which made cool shade in the heat of the summertime. Sammy would sit in the cool shade sipping ice tea and look out at his garden and breath in the coolness of the greenery. The perfectly straight rows filled with sweet-corn, beans, tomatoes, and his favorite sweet potatoes. This sight always made his heart glad. 

Early one morning Sammy was in his favorite place on earth, working the rows between his sweet potatoes when the man came up into his driveway, which was between the house and the garden. He drove up in a large new work truck with writing on the side. The man introduced himself and said he was from some company which made roads. Sammy looked at the man while he talked and saw someone that was proud of his work but did not like delivering bad news. As the man's lips moved, Sammy saw the perspiration on the upper lip and thought of the dew on the sweet potatoes and how different the two were. 

The man told Sammy that they were building a new outer loop around Hapville and that it was planned to go straight through Sammy's garden. The man said that the town had decided since Sammy had such a marvelous garden, that they would not start construction on this section until he had harvested the garden, especially the sweet potatoes. The man scratched his head as he said all this. The man looked at Sammy but he couldn't see Sammy's heart. He couldn't see the life of Sammy and all his daily fulfillment which came from the garden and sweet potatoes. Sammy's heart was heavy with the news as the man got back in his shiny new truck with writing on the side, and left in a cloud of dust. 

The dust swirled around and settled on the sweet-corn like Sammy's hope for a new tomorrow. He sat down between his sweet potatoes and thought how this would all soon end. He wished to himself that the sweet potatoes would never be harvested and that the man had never came into his life. He sat and thought of his mother's garden and how she always had told him that life wasn't worth living if ya didn't have a garden to tend. Sammy looke out at the crops through his tear filled eyes. His tears fell gently on the large green sweet potato leaves as the sun grew higher in the sky. 

That night Sammy slept a fitfull sleep. He dreamed of the man and the truck. He dreamed of terrible machines that would kill his garden and take away his life. He tossed and turned until he drempt of the beautiful green sweet potatoes. He dreamed of their large orange round bounty that made his favorite dessert, sweet potato pie. Sammy dreamed of sweet-potato pie and slept like a baby the rest of the night. The next morning Sammy got up and fixed some coffee. As he looked out the kitchen window he noticed there had been a frost during the night. His heart quickened. This was well past and before frost season and a frost this time of year would certainly end the garden. He rushed out the door and over to the garden. He looked at the plants and reached down to touch the leaf of a sweet potato plant. When he touched the white frostiness on the leaf, it crumbled and fell off the plant. The crumbling didn't stop there, it spread out over all the garden in a wave of warmth. The frost fell away from the leaves reveiling the greenery he had known before, except on the sweet potatoes. Unlike all the other plants, they did not look the same anymore. Their leaves were now a dark blue-green.