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had a long, beautiful fall that year. The warm, still sunny days followed each other week after week without a break, until it seemed as if there could never be wind again nor rain nor snow. In the mornings when Judith stepped out into the yard the grass was covered with flimsy gossamer webs encrusted with dewdrops, each one a rainbow in the sun. The beds of geraniums and the bank of scarlet sage along the stone wall seemed to grow each day a richer red. The morning glory vines over the back porch were full each morning with fresh bloom. In colors from faint blue to deep purple, from pale pink to rich rose, delicately veined and gleaming faërily with dew, they lifted up their frail cups to the sun that in a few hours would bring them death. Judith loved to look at the morning glories; yet they gave her a feeling of sadness. They were very silent, these mornings. No birds spilled music into the sunshine. Only a few crows cawed over distant fields. It had been a bountiful year and maturity and plenty were on every hand. The geese, the turkeys, and the chickens were full grown and the proud young males were fat and ready for the market. The hogs in the pen were getting all they could eat. Often they were too lazy to stand up to eat and munched their corn lolling luxuriously on their haunches. Much of their time they spent in sleeping. When they awoke they stretched, snorted, and rolled blissfully in the mud and straw, feeling the warmth of the sun on their bodies and the satisfying comfort of a full belly. By Thanksgiving they would be ready for the butcher's knife. There was a great abundance of tomatoes, cabbages, pumpkins, cornfield beans, everything that flourishes in the good clay soil of Scott County. Corn had been good and the cribs were full. Tobacco had been