WIDE MEADOWS; WINTER PREPARATIONS: DAYS GROW SHORT ON THE FARM

Editor's note: This is the first chapter in the book "Wide Meadows," by Jean Bell Mosley. The book, first published in 1960, is being reprinted in serial form each Tuesday.

In October the purple grapes hung high and the hazelnut bushes turned yellow, announcing their gifts were ready. It would be uncomplimentary to Nature not to partake of her lavish provender, so, armed with sacks, buckets and baskets we made our way to the edge of the river pastures for the grapes, up the old woods road for hazelnuts, hickory nuts and walnuts, and down Plum Thicket Lane to the possum-haunted persimmon patch.

We took only our share, leaving plenty for old Ringtail, the coon, Whitey Possum, the minks, squirrels, jays and other animals and birds that would stay in the valley with us over the winter.

Redtail, the fox squirrel, would watch our maneuvers with bright-eyed suspicion, running up and down the top rail of the fence, cocking his head this way and that, jerking his tail nervously, and chirring noisily at us for entering his domain.

"Now, Redtail," Grandpa would say, placatingly, "you take some of our corn. We take some of your nuts. Therefore, we all have a variety." Whereupon Redtail would scamper to the topmost branch of the old scaly-bark and send down a shower of hulls and cracked shells, silently testifying to the fact that he did not consider it a fair exchange at all. Didn't he have to go all the way down the mountain after the corn and, in the wintertime, even brace the hazards of the barnyard to get to the crib!

The biggest scaly-barks grew up on top of Simms Mountain and for this trip we hitched old Maude and Nell to the big wagon, took a well-filled picnic basket, and stayed all day.

High on the hilltop in autumn, looking down on the results of the summers' work -- thick shocks of corn with their consorts of yellow pumpkins; the big straw-stack, indicative of the bountiful wheat harvest; fat cattle and peaceful, grazing sheep -- we felt compensated for the long, hot summer days recently spent in the fields.

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From this height the whole valley was visible -- the humble homesteads scattered up and down the river; the railroad track coming out of nowhere around Stono Mountain, making a big two-mile S and disappearing into the nowhere around Gillman's Hill; and the fields, looking like patchwork quilts faggoted together with the stake-and-rider fences. Across the river and up on the first gentle rolling ridge was our home place. There was the barn, the chicken house, the machine shed, and the old, well-loved, gray-weathered, rambling house that sheltered the three generations of us -- Grandpa and Grandma, Mama and Dad, and us three girls, Lillian, Lou, and me.

By noon we would have several bushels of hulled nuts and the sun, penetrating the fragrant blue-smoke haze, would have warmed our backs, glistened the sleek rumps of the horses, and made inviting the big flat rock where we spread our dinner.

See! Already Grandma has a pot of coffee on the improvised fireplace. A big brown crock of baked beans centers the red-check tablecloth, and this is flanked with fried chicken, potato salad, little yellow pear tomatoes, picked before the first frost, and two loaves of freshly baked, yeasty-smelling bread.

Grandpa lifts off the wagon seat for Mama and Grandma to sit in while they eat. He and Dad lean up against the wagon wheels, and we girls sit on piles of leaves or on the filled baskets of nuts.

In the valley below we see Neighbor Stacey leave the cornfield with his wagonload of corn. Next Saturday we will all work in our own cornfield to make up for this week's outing. On down the river we hear Ritter's dinner bell calling the menfolk from work. The whir of a sawing machine stops and a wagon creaks homeward across the river bridge.

A sudden wind stirs up the ashes of Grandma's fire and brings down a shower of golden leaves. We laugh as we fish them out of our buttermilk and coffee. Autumn is an old friend we can almost take by the hand as she waltzes leisurely through the hills, flitting her red, yellow, and golden skirts and sprinkling harvest perfume in every nook and cranny.

In the afternoon we fill the remaining baskets and have time left over. We have garnered enough for various uncles and aunts, and especially some for Aunt Hannah and Uncle Joe who will come down from St. Louis before long, bearing gifts from the city red wool knitting yarn, some plaid flannelette, and maybe a length or two of alpaca for some new dresses.

Grandma ties on a big white apron, brings out her shoebox of quilt scraps she has brought along and works on her Passage-of-Time quilt. She is trying to get it done for a Christmas present. Lou and I roam the mountaintop. There are dry oak balls to squash, a late, green-tailed lizard to watch sunning himself on a ledge, and a great hollow log to explore with a long stick.

"No one home, eh?" Lou says, bending down to look more closely into the log. "Be a good place to run some snipe through," she adds. We have a short game of hull-gull with red berries from the buckbrush and kick up a flurry of leaves, finding three empty, weathered, shotgun shells.

"Play like there has been a murder," Lou says, ominously, "and these are our only clues." She inspects the shells thoroughly, wraps them in her handkerchief, and pockets them professionally, looking around for footprints or other tell-tale signs. A murder mystery has been running serially in our monthly magazine.

The sun slides quickly down the smoky western sky and becomes a big red wagon wheel. Far below in the valley we see the cows head for the barnyard and we load up and start down the mountain.

Blue spirals of smoke rising from neighbors' chimneys bespeak of supper fires and good things to eat, and all is well. There is a chill in the wind now and we are glad to be going home.

This will be our last big outing until spring, for the days have grown too short for the work that must be done. Thinning maples point accusingly toward the sky. The sassafras is sporting is jewels and the garnet woodbine looks like red wool socks the old trees have pulled halfway up their trunks to protect them from winter's chilly blast. We, too, must think of winter.

The coming of cold weather concerns us much. Enough to eat, comfort and warmth for ourselves and our animals, and a helping hand to less fortunate neighbors is the goal. All summer Mama and Grandma have been filling the cellar shelves. The barn loft bulges with hay. The wheat bin is brimming and now, on crisp October day, we fill the slatted corncrib.

Dad takes a calculating look at the woodpile and decides another load of wood won't hurt anything, so, on a sunny day, up the old woods road we go to bring in extra supplies of pine and hickory slabs. These are unloaded in the woodyard back of the smokehouse and later split into suitable chunks for the various stoves.

With much cramming, maneuvering, and wedging, the machinery is rolled into the lean-to shed. Wheels interlock. Iron teeth bite at steel blades. Wooden tongues overlap. The big binder, its reel touching the rafters, faces east, the wheat drill faces west. The cultivators, rake, and corn planter are heading off in all directions. The whole intermingled mass looks like one Gargantuan machine designed for Paul Bunyan's blue ox, babe, and calculated to dredge the River Styx, or seed, some night after supper, the whole Plains of Abraham.

Lou and I sit in the cold, perforated, iron seats and whoop at our winged team; we plow, plant and harvest in one soul-satisfying operation, all the Elysian fields of our youth.

Next: Gathering the corn.