THE LOOM OF AUTUMN 1 95 



wild roses, and strawberry flowers, 

 when on a gentian quest. Thoreau, 

 in 185 1, records this flower in bloom 

 November yth, and by a similar chance, 

 Bryant found it even later, among the 

 Cummington hills, though late Septem- 

 ber, with a week or two for leeway, is 

 its Connecticut season. Its colour 

 pales or deepens according to the 

 quality of soil in which it grows, and 

 with the shade or sunlight of the loca- 

 tion. Away from its green surround- 

 ings, its perfect blue takes a more 

 purplish tint; but in coming through 

 the twilight of a dense wood-path, into 

 the sudden gold-hazed sunlight of a 

 gentian field, one dreams that the sky, 

 once moulting, dropped its soft-edged 

 feathers on the grass, and earth turned 

 them into flowers. 



***** 

 A jay screams by the river, and at 



