In Oquawka the Mississippi does the deciding — how long the fog holds over the backwater sloughs, how soft the ground stays after a spring rise. Yards here run down toward the water and the river light comes back off it all afternoon, so a lawn cut even and bordered clean has nowhere to hide. Limoges Lawn care works the village blocks and the places out along the Henderson County roads, mowing on a weekly line, trimming tight to fences and beds, and hauling the leaves once the cottonwoods let go. The old elephant's memorial stands in the town park with grass around it that somebody has to keep, and that is really the whole idea of this trade: the green a town holds in common and the green in front of its houses. By August the streets smell like cut grass and warm dust, which is report enough.