ALL IN A MIST 



wake into a ghostly world, 

 where thick, white dampness 

 clings and abides. It is the 

 dead Summer's winding-sheet, 

 pitifully spread by Nature, our 

 mother, to soften the scathe and ruin of 

 black frost. Day and night her bond-slave, 

 the South Wind, has sucked, roaring, from 

 the far gulf these billowing vapors that kiss 

 and cling, and weep soft tears for the flow- 

 ers they cannot bring back to life. 



Dawn-light is shrouded to dullish gray- 

 dark. Cocks crow through it, faint and 

 spectral. Cattle low dully, as though send- 

 ing their voices astray in some vast void. 



Presently a fine, clear note sifts through 

 the blurred noises penetrant, vibrant as 

 the call of fairy bugles. Bob White is drift- 

 ing afield. An early riser he. That is his 

 feeding cry, never lieard save just after 

 autumn dawns. They are constant small 

 creatures he and his sort. No matter how 



