148 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



XXVII. 



NINETY-TWO in the shade. It was at 

 seventy -eight when I saw it last at night ; 

 this morning it was at seventy -three. The 

 cocks were crowing and the hens cackling 

 as usual, the robins, sparrows, and other 

 birds were singing their accustomed matin 

 song ; far away in the woods the air was 

 filled with a murmur which did not fully 

 reveal itself, but may have been the warn 

 ing note of the coming swarm of &quot; seven 

 teen-year locusts,&quot; upon the eastern border 

 of which we should find ourselves. As 

 the day waxed older, the mercury climbed 

 higher, and the parched air brought to us 

 no note of comfort. The church-going, or 

 pleasure-going teams (there must be some 

 thing wrong where the church-going teams 

 are not also in some true sense pleasure- 

 going teams, wrong in the goers or in the 

 churches) filled the air with a dnst so fine 

 from the dry roadways, that much of it 

 floated high into the slightly moving air. 



Some of the little ones must have turn- 



