November

There is an elusive quality about November sunlight. The Connecticut hills are beautiful with a special beauty. At night, little faraway houses, never seen in summer, suddenly pierce the dark with their lamps. Fields of winter wheat appear, visible now the leaves are down. All the browns, a thousand browns, come out. Rust-brown, sand-brown, topaz-brown, and the faded gold of harvest fields. The contour of the land is evident, folds and hills and valleys. The sky over all is soft and hazy, and there is a feeling in the air that winter is coming. The shadows look different, sloping across the pale grass. This is a peaceful, serene land, and never quite so peaceful as now, with the crops in, wood piled high, houses snugged down, brooks running slow with leaves. The days grow shorter. Dusk comes before we are finished with the day.

                                            . . . . . . . . . . . Gladys Taber, The Book of Stillmeadow

If you love the country, or dream about living in the country, there is no better person to read than Gladys Taber and it's worth your while to hunt up her Stillmeadow nonfiction, even those books not in print and obtained from independent dealers. Her writing is lyrical. (And, no mistake, this is not rose-colored country living: there are broken pipes, insect infestations, uneven floors, misbehaving furnaces and crises aplenty, but beauty shines through at unexpected bends.)