190 THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE 



ing the weeds as he passed by with his 

 golden but barren touch. 



The Virginia creeper, or five-fingered 

 woodbine, fringed the old grist mill 

 and fell trailing on the ground. 

 Straightway autumn caught at it for 

 her first strand, and everywhere that it 

 grew, around tree trunks in snake-like 

 coils, binding rail fences, clinging to 

 rough briers, it turned crimson, scarlet, 

 yellow, then paled until the leaflets, 

 mesmerized, let go their hold and 

 dropped shrivelling. The maples on 

 the low pond-islands followed the 

 woodbine, but being of much sturdier 

 growth were longer in dying, and for a 

 week or two glowed and flushed, the 

 top leaves fading first, then down, 

 down, down, in the track of the reced- 

 ing life-blood, leaving only the skele- 

 ton. The osiers that grow embedded 

 in the water, margining the pond, mix- 



