Part 1 Summary

The first paragraph begins "One day in April," and in the same breath, the protagonist, Jack Hawthorn, is introduced and the main event of the story is disclosed. Jack was directly involved in the accident that killed his brother David. Jack describes the accident as preventable; if his reaction had been to slam on the brakes of the tractor, his brother might have been saved, but all he could do was sit frozen as he watched his younger brother be crushed by the cultipacker. Jack, 12 at the time, was driving the tractor while his sister, then 5, was riding on the back fender. His brother David, 7, had been riding on the cultipacker, an enormously heavy piece of machinery used to level out newly ploughed ground.

Dale Hawthorn, Jack's father, was nearly destroyed by David's death. Dale is described as being a "sensitive, intelligent man...