52 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



In the orchard, where the trees are younger 

 and more pliable, a man would hardly know 

 them for the same he saw there in May and 

 June; so altered are they in shape, so 

 smoothly rounded at the top, so like Babylo- 

 nian willows in the droop of the branches. 

 Baldwins are turning red greenish red 

 and russets are already rusty. " Yes," says 

 the owner of the orchard, " and much good 

 will it do me." Apples are an " aggravating 

 crop," he declares. " First there are none ; 

 and then there are so many that you cannot 

 sell them." Human nature is never satis- 

 fied ; and, for one, I think it seldom has rea- 

 son to be. 



A bobolink, which seems to be somewhere 

 overhead, drops a few notes in passing. " I 

 am off," he says. " Sorry to go, but I know 

 where there is a rice-field." From the or- 

 chard come the voices of bluebirds and king- 

 birds. Not a bird is in song ; and what is 

 more melancholy, the road and the fields are 

 thick with English sparrows. 



Now I stop at the smell of growing corn, 

 which is only another kind of grass, though 

 the farmer may not suspect the fact, and 



