AUTUMN IN INDIANA

Framed by bright foliage, a fisherman stands at the edge of a fall stream in rural Wayne County, Indiana—alone in a sun-warmed and windless silence so complete that the faint splash of his bass lure seems to linger almost as long as the widening circles it left on the water. But in solitude he symbolizes millions.

The North American fall is still—as it was in the days of the Indian—a time when human beings can scarcely avoid a lifted heart, a sort of thanksgiving of the senses, as Americans harvest cool and golden days

The sky is serene blue, grass still green, leaves in gold glory. Now comes the time when youngsters, stirred by winy afternoons, find the town park a magic place—its slide a glacier of terror and joy, its shadowed turf a roaring football stadium, its jungle bars a zoo for agile human chimps

At a dreamy compulsion rather than a task: she kneels, stirs her smoldering leaves and thus perfumes the still and frost-cleaned air

What world can be more fascinating than the one which awaits outside the doors of any school just after the dismissal bell?

Dusk? Supper? Studies? They lie far ahead. The huge, bright, waning afternoon must be explored; to youth's cavalry, familiar Midwestern houses and trees loom against the clear sky bravely as ever in ancient Camelot

SEVEN PHOTOS

RICHARD MEEK