In the fields, the last of the potatoes are being picked by men and women who wear gloves and their heaviest serapes, for now the wind has turned firmly, blowing east to west, blowing hard, and always there’s the smell of salt in the chilly air—a smell like tears. Los campesinos harvest the final rows cheerfully enough, talking of the things they’ll do and the capers they’ll cut at Reaping Fair, but they feel all of autumn’s old sadness in the wind; the going of the year. It runs away from them like water in a stream, and although none speak of it, all know it very well.

In the orchards, the last and highest of the apples are picked by laughing young men (in these not-quite-gales, the final days of picking belong only to them) who bob up and down like crow’s nest lookouts. Above them, in skies which hold a brilliant, cloudless blue, squadrons of geese fly south, calling their rusty adieux.

The small fishing boats are pulled from the water; their hulls are scraped and painted by singing owners who mostly work stripped to the waist in spite of the chill in the air. They sing the old songs as they work—

I am a man of the bright blue sea,

All I see, all I see,

I am a man of the Barony,

All I see is mine-o!

I am a man of the bright blue bay,

All I say, all I say,

Until my nets are full I stay

All I say is fine-o!

—and sometimes a little cask of graf is tossed from dock to dock. On the bay itself only the large boats now remain, pacing about the big circles which mark their dropped nets as a working dog may pace around a flock of sheep. At noon the bay is a rippling sheet of autumn fire and the men on the boats sit cross-legged, eating their lunches, and know that all they see is theirs-o... at least until the gray gales of autumn come swarming over the horizon, coughing out their gusts of sleet and snow.

Closing, closing the year.

Along the streets of Hambry, the Reap-lights now burn at night, and the hands of the stuffy-guys are painted red. Reap-charms hang everywhere, and although women often kiss and are kissed in the streets and in both marketplaces—often by men they do not know—sexual intercourse has come to an almost complete halt. It will resume (with a bang, you might say) on Reap-Night. There will be the usual crop of Full Earth babies the following year as a result.