Gray skies, cold dirt, aching backs. It's enough to make a young potato picker dream of geometry, algebra, British literature.
The workers, who get 50 cents a barrel, moan each time the tractor makes a pass, unearthing another row of potatoes."We'd rather be in school than here. And we don't care for school that much," laments 13-year-old Denise Haley, who's fed up after eight hours of plucking potatoes from the dirt. "I hate this."
Most American youngsters are in comfortable classrooms this week, but students in northern Maine are taking part in a dying tradition - the harvest break.
Children play a key role in the frenzied potato harvest in Aroostook County, a rural area the size of Connecticut that boasts 80 percent of Maine's 80,000 acres of potatoes.
Because of the harsh climate, farmers have only three weeks from the time the potatoes mature and the moment the ground freezes.
"You've got to get out because the snow's coming," says Huey Gray, the 68-year-old field boss who oversees Denise and 21 other young pickers.
Each morning brings bleary-eyed teenagers to the potato fields at 6:30. For many, the day doesn't end until 6 p.m., and some farmers work their crews into the night in good weather.
Sitting atop his tractor, Gray points out the good pickers and the lazy ones. Sensing his work force is tiring, Gray backs off the pace to give the crew a break.
Steve White, a freshman in the school of potato picking, is appreciative. "It's my second day picking, and I'm about ready to die," the 12-year-old says.
Down the road, older teenagers are working on mechanized harvesters that snatch potatoes from the ground, separate them from rocks and deposit them in trucks driving alongside.
The swirling dust quickly coats the youths' ears and nostrils; at the end of the day, their ears ring with the sound of clattering machinery.
"It's cold. It's no fun. I'd rather be home sleeping," says 16-year-old Chris Bouchard, a student at Easton High School.
Aroostook County may be the last place in the nation that participates in a full-blown harvest break, says Steve Johnson, a crop specialist at the University of Maine cooperative extension.
Educators, meanwhile, challenge the interruption to instruction.
At Easton High School, Principal Tom Jandreau says students are just getting used to school and their teachers' expectations when they're headed out to the fields.
"There's no way you can rationalize this as conducive to the educational environment," complains Jandreau, sitting in an empty school. "But this is a farming community. They need the labor."
Locals get riled at the notion the kids may be better off in the classroom than the fields.
"So many people come in here and say this is torture. I don't think it hurts these kids one bit," says Rodney McCrum, a fourth-generation farmer and president of Northland Packers and Growers Inc. in Mars Hill.
"The good Lord didn't make us to be idle," McCrum says. "Troublemakers become the best workers if you make them tow the line."