By late Friday the light has gone soft over Mount Rachel and half the west side of Dalton smells like cut grass. Vic's Lawn Care spends the week making it smell that way — mowing, string trimming along walls and mailboxes, edging the walks, blowing the drives clean before the truck rolls to the next street. Winter slows things to cleanups and hauled-off leaves; March wakes it all back up with the first cut of the year, the fescue still damp at nine in the morning. A yard is a small thing in the scheme of a town, but it's the first thing anyone sees of a house. Dalton, Tunnel Hill, Rocky Face, Cohutta, and out toward Chatsworth.