010514 #stranger Late October's leftover leaves, past the death-defying blaze of tourist brilliance, dull sienna, burnt brick, hovering on the leeward side of a few trees between here and the dirt clods and the stubble of the first few feet of the cornfields. The houses--not particularly interesting. There must be a street in this town where the houses are old, grand, creaking, picturesque, but this street is not that one. Here they are squat, utilitarian, decorated yes here and there by a half-collapsed pumpkin or a clump of some kind of corn that doesn't grow around here.