In others, where the harvesting had begun, there were reaping machines.

But despite the noise, there was a strange and unearthly silence.

Fred had driven at night through lonely country before, and he could remember the way dogs at almost every house had burst into furious barking as the car approached.

Now there were no dogs! It was a trifling thing to think of now, but just then it seemed to Fred that the absence of the dogs meant even more than the dark, silent houses themselves.
The houses did look as if their owners might be asleep within, but the dogs would have barked their alarm.

And so that came to be the symbol of the flight of the people to him.
They had many miles to go.