Fall and Winter Summary

Fall: Florida's fall is not a palpable season as it is in other areas. The temperature holds in the eighties for weeks, the sky blue and cloudless. Everything is dying back and drying up, waiting for rain and cool, and the Negroes become depressed. Martha speaks of spells and voodoo dust. Rawlings humors Martha in her superstitious beliefs and does see some events that verify them, such as a crowing hen, and attaching good wood to bad resulting in bad luck and illness. There is a gin bottle hanging in the grove to repel hawks and a dead snake in the tree to induce rain. She admits there may be more to it but seems to have respect for these old customs.

One evil fall day is ominous with a captured praying mantis, a deadly snake sighting, a blue-tailed...