LATE SUMMER NOTES 51 



or indirectly, we may say, he subsists upon 

 it. Nay, the Scripture itself declares as 

 much, in one of its most familiar texts. It 

 is good to see it so quick to recover from the 

 cruel work of the scythe, so responsive to the 

 midsummer rains, its color so deep, its leaves 

 so full of sap. It is this spirit of hopeful- 

 ness, this patience under injury, that makes 

 shaven lawns possible. 



As to the beauty of grass, no man appre- 

 ciates it, I suppose, unless he has lived where 

 grass does not grow. " When I go back to 

 New England," said an exile in Florida, " I 

 will ask for no garden. Let me have grass 

 about the house, and I can do without roses." 



The century ends with an apple year ; and 

 every tree is in the fashion. The old, the 

 decrepit, the solitary, not one of them all but 

 got the word in season ; as there is no woman 

 in Christendom but learns somehow, before 

 it is too late, whether sleeves are to be worn 

 loose or tight. Along the roadside, in the 

 swamp, in the orchard, everywhere the story 

 is the same. Apple trees are all freemasons. 

 This hollow shell of a trunk, with one last 

 battered limb keeping it alive, received its 

 cue with the rest. 



