By late August the cicadas above Metropolis get loud enough to hear over an engine, and the Ohio moves slow and brown past the bluff at Fort Massac. Mike's Mowing works straight through that stretch — cutting, trimming along fences and foundations, running the edge where grass wants to creep over concrete. Grass at the southern tip of Illinois never really stops; it only changes speed, so somebody has to keep after it. A yard mowed on a hundred-degree afternoon is a small act of stubbornness, and that is reason enough. It is straightforward work for a river town that likes its lawns kept.