72 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
Slowly the autumn draws on, and slowly it passes, 
lingering as lingered the coming of spring, sometimes 
sustaining its flames well into December. Indeed, 
there are splashes of crimson remaining all winter, 
for which one has to thank the horse-brier, the most 
exasperating plant that grows, but to see it in mid- 
winter festooning the young trees and the bushes 
with its trailing wreaths of fire is to forgive it every- 
thing. If you go down to the brookside in Novem- 
ber, supposing the flowers are gone and the winter at 
hand, you wall meet with a pleasant surprise. Those 
deep blue spindles standing upright among the fallen 
leaves are closed gentians, more graceful and of a 
deeper, purer blue than the closed gentians of the 
North. 
When the leaves are taking on their autumn 
colors, the cornfields turn to gold, and men, women, 
and children go out to "pull fodder," an occupation 
that in the meadowless regions, and to an extent all 
through the mountains, takes the place of haying, 
and, consistently, is less arduous. The stripped-off 
leaves and the cut-off tassels are hung up to dry on 
the yet standing stalk in the crotch made by the ear 
of corn, or sometimes in the crotch of a convenient 
tree. And that is all there is to it. 
When the fodder-pullers have finished their work 
and the dried fodder has been "toted" home, the 
cornfield for a time presents the most extraordinary 
appearance in its history. It suggests a company of 
pygmies, each standing erect with his pack over his 
shoulder, for the heavy ears of corn turn down and 
