Everyone liked Yellott, the modest, mannerly farmer who'd married the shapely college-taught wife. And because Yellott was forthright and unaffected, people trusted him. "He plows a straight furrow," they liked to say. They knew others who didn't. Maybe his son Tommy. Tommy grew into Tom and swaggered out into the world. Neighbors, uneasy with the crooked furrow he trailed, watched him as they would watch a circus tightrope walker—expectant...