MISQUAH — The stand on County 12 sold its last dozen at 2:20 Saturday afternoon and Dale Paulson took the sign down, which is how the season has ended there since 1966 and how it ended this year, five weeks after his father was buried.

The stand ran forty-one days. It opened at six every one of them. Dale, who has a job in Sandstone and took vacation in August for the first time in nine years to do this, said the arithmetic did not work out and that he had not expected it to. “You don’t do it for the arithmetic,” he said, and then, after a while, “though I did the arithmetic.”

Volume was down about a fifth from a normal year, which he attributes to opening nine days late in July and not to anything else. The honor box came up short twice over the season, both times by less than four dollars, and was not mentioned to anyone until this newspaper asked directly. Asked what he did about it, he said he emptied it into the Folgers can like always.

His brother Kenneth came out four Saturdays. Janet came out twice and did not sell corn, having decided her job was to sit in the chair, which is what their father did on the afternoons he was not picking.

Asked whether he would run it next year, Dale said he had not decided, and then said that he had, and that he had not told his brother yet. He has ordered seed.

The key is still on the nail on the post. The padlock has not been closed. Freezer corn is available by arrangement through the weekend, and after that it is over until July.