North of the Illinois River the ground lifts once and then lies flat for miles, and Granville sits out on it with its water tower showing long before the first mailbox. Jake's Lawn & Tree Service keeps the yards along those streets and the ones out where town gives way to corn. Mowing here is a summer-long conversation with heat, wind and a great deal of open sky. The satisfaction is in the finish — stripes laid straight, the edge along the sidewalk cut clean enough to run a finger down, clippings swept off the drive. When October turns the maples, the same lawns come back as leaves to gather, and the year closes where it opened.