A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



the coming fall. If you rub the tassels in your 

 palms, they will hint to you of Bourbon and leave 

 a delicate flavour of sea-coal fires with jolly fel 

 lows taking off their furs to make a night of it. 

 The showers will die off in slanting rains. How 

 different from the thunderous gallopades of July, 

 with July s quick-firing guns and riotous trans 

 formations of golden sunshine and dissolute sun 

 sets of roses and wine. The drop of the summer 

 apples has already a melancholy thud, like the 

 fall of a curtain, and the south winds are queru 

 lous at the slightest provocation, and wheeze if 

 there is a cranny or a rusty weathercock. If you 

 look closely, you will see some premonitory yellow 

 leaves already on the maples. The sumach is 

 beginning to bleed, and the sides of the tomatoes 

 toward the sun gleam through the rank vines 

 with the late fires of the garden already kindled. 



I was lying in the grass, attending strictly to 

 my regimen of rest and listening to the little 

 hurdygurdy of the cricket, when I heard on the 

 still air the far-away throb of a brass band. I 

 put my ear down close. There was no mistaking 

 it I felt the rhythmical beat of the drum and 

 caught the attenuated blare of the cornet. They 

 were playing &quot; Listen to the Mocking-bird.&quot; 

 I wondered that that old stuffed melody could 

 hop out of its glass case and travel down the still 

 air so many miles in that lively style. There 

 was a wandering circus at Spelldown, and the 

 band was playing the people into a matinee. 



I was like a Prohibitionist who is eating mince 

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