"The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up her jaws."
This paragraph shows the reader the world in which Myop lives. It is a world of hard work (as evidenced by the fact that she and her family must harvest many different crops), but it's also one of "golden excitement." In fact, Myop is so excited about what each day brings that she actually has the physical sensation of a tremor running up her jaw.
"The stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment"
Through the subtle detail of mentioning the child's dark brown hand, Alice Walker shows that the girl is African-American. Given the fact that her family is also described as sharecroppers and she comes across the body of a man who has been lynched in the woods, these details suggest the setting of early- or mid-twentieth century America in the south.
Additionally, Myop's choice to tap a silly tune with her stick suggests that she has a playful and whimsical nature, though this will be swiftly changed by her discovery of the corpse.
"It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled--barely there--but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Myop laid down her flowers."
Myop at first examines the dead man with curiosity and vague interest, but then she notices a noose lying around the place where a pink rose has sprouted up. She seems to realize that the man is a murder victim who he has died from lynching because she lays down her flowers, presumably to honor him.
"And the summer was over."
Here, the narrator is referring to the loss of innocence, which has ended just like summer. In the story, there is no indication that the seasons are changing, though Myop certainly has changed. Through discovering the body of a lynched man, Myop has left the world of childish play and realized firsthand the cruelty that exists in the world.
