The many leaves were spiraled in a fall, the ground absorbing any life still left of branches growing bare and more bereft. The skies were readying a rainy pall, while men pulled on their ready coats, and all the world appeard as bracing for a storm, though none could know the fury or the form, only that it had hushed the cricket’s call, and night was on the wind -far more than one- forboded in new darkness of the sun, and skies swept clear of stars as by a hand- all hinted something mad might break the land. It wasn’t much, but caused the race of men to wonder when the dawn would come again.