Lay-By Time - Elmo Howell Since it's not on the calendar or in the dictionary, I shall define it. Lay-by time began on the Fourth and lasted till cotton picking -- The off-time of year, to pasture and watch crops grow; To fish (whether you wanted to or not) and hang out at the store; to help women put up gardenstuff and dry fruit in the back yard. (You spread it on top of the chickenhouse.) Time for the graveyard working and Big Meeting, which began on the first Sunday in August. But that's a country definition. Lay-by time (which doesn't happen today), was a pause in the blood -- a stillness struck by the sun. Time held up: The moment when the ball stands still in the sky before starting back to earth again. Some old people found it a good time to die. My Great-Grandmother Friday did -- One August afternoon, in her rocker on the front porch.