THE MIDWEST MAIN STREET

In the middle of the American heartland, Interstate 70 spills out from Saint Louis over the barge-logged Mississippi River, bolts through Illinois in a nearly straight line like an imperfect arrow, then flies over the silty Wabash River into Indiana. Drivers—mostly of semis—snake through on a pilgrimage west to the Colorado Rockies, or drain east towards the industrial banks of the Potomac River and the BosWash Metropolis.

Much of the green country of South-Central Illinois goes unnoticed. Yet, it is here where the fertile earth grows out northeast from the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and jade cornfields and bucolic, red barns dot the gently rolling hills. During the growing season, which lasts for the better part of the year, the song of the Baltimore oriole echoes; this land is N. C. Wyeth’s dreamscape,