The first hard frost in Charles Town usually shows up overnight in early November, laying a white film across the lawns and setting the street maples going all at once. That turn of the calendar is the busy hour for Maple Lawn Services: the final cuts taken a little lower, leaves pulled off the turf before they mat and smother it, cores punched through compacted ground and fresh seed dropped into the openings while the soil still holds warmth. Everything done in those few weeks is a deposit on April. Through the rest of the year the mowing and trimming run on a dependable schedule. Grass that comes up thick in spring almost always got its best care the autumn before.