INDIAN SUMMER 



showers, amateurish, with mimetic flashes and imi 

 tative peals, that remind you of the children play 

 ing at Shaksperian declamation. 



It is interesting to observe how these calendar 

 sirens beguile animate and inanimate things, here 

 and there. Always there will be a robin or two that 

 make their appearance, and try to get up a nidify 

 ing twitter. They are the unconventional fellows 

 that probably laughed to scorn the absurd migratory 

 instincts of the common flock, and rejected all the 

 worn-out traditions of winter and the illusions of 

 another and warmer clime. Fine, rationalistic 

 birds these, that are not moved by vague intui 

 tions, but wait for the evidence of the senses, and 

 a great deal of exultant, self-satisfied peeping and 

 &quot; chortling &quot; they do when this mirage of the 

 Indian summer hangs in the air. 



There are similarly disposed peach and apple 

 trees scattered about, that show independence of 

 tradition in their own way. They break out in 

 blossom in November, and do their best to load 

 the air with a spring perfume. They probably 

 think (there is no other word but &quot; think &quot; for me 

 to use when speaking of a tree s volitions) that 

 the curious observers are admiring their indepen 

 dence, and never for a moment suspect that those 

 observers are regarding; them as &quot;freaks.&quot; Charlie 



o o 



says he saw a woodchuck sitting on his haunches 

 under an apple tree, with a winter apple in his 

 paws, eating it, kangaroo fashion, in this sympa 

 thetic sunshine, instead of attending to his ordained 

 hibernating business ; and as I sat at my table, the 



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