Epilogue
On Thanksgiving Day of 1943, a weak cold front stalled over Lake Michigan, north of Cook County and Chicago. The weather east of the front, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, was stable and very mild. In the Mid-Atlantic States, it was the most pleasant Thanksgiving Day that anyone could remember in many years.
Though the temperature was unseasonably warm in the hills and ridges above Carlisle, the fall transformation had passed its peak. Most of the brilliant, multi-hued tapestry that had covered the Gap now lay in soggy, rotting piles, carpeting the forest floor all the way from the lakes in upstate New York to the hills in Tennessee.
As with the changing leaves, the hawks, eagles, and falcons had flown south, down the Atlantic flyway in their yearly exodus. Cold weather thre
