Cotton and Corn Fields in "The Old People"|Go Down, Moses in "The Old People" (Location)

Before they reach the big woods, the hunters travel past the "skeletoned cotton- and corn-fields . . . hard, gaunt, and motionless beneath the gray rain" and houses and barns (206). The fields are "skeletoned" at this time of year because they've been harvested. The houses and barns mark the the last point "where the hand of man had clawed for an instant, holding, the wall of the wilderness" that lies just beyond them (206).