Weathercut Manse, Iowa, November, the fifty-second year of the Kurian Order: A Hawkeye from the first quarter of the twenty-first century would hardly recognize his state in the snow-dusted fall of that year. The corn and soybeans, yes, the birches and willows claiming soggy land rimming the streams and lakes, and the majestic oaks, elms, and cotton-woods, the slopes and crests of the low rolling hills around the river basins, certainly.
The beef cattle in the fields give some hint that times have changed. They are undersized compared with the big steers of better times. A few cough; others have the strained look
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