'Ungainly mounds'

“In September and October one never walks or drives through this Connecticut Valley without smiling at these ungainly mounds of squashes and pumpkins heaped in uneven, bulging pyramids on green grass, or against barnyard fences, or under bright trees, or before the doors of farmhouses.’’

— Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973), in A Journey to Boston (novel, 1965). She was a prolific novelist and essayist who taught for many years at Smith College, in Northampton, Mass., in the Connecticut River Valley.