LATE SUMMER NOTES 53 



perhaps would not believe you if you told him 

 of it ; more than he would believe you if you 

 told him that clover is not grass. He and 

 his cow know better. A queer set these 

 botanists, who get their notions from books ! 

 Corn or grass, here grow some acres of it, 

 well tasseled ("all tosselled out"), with 

 the wind stirring the leaves to make them 

 shine. Does the odor, with which the breeze 

 is loaded, come from the blossoms, or from 

 the substance of the plant itself ? A new 

 question for me. I climb the fence and put 

 my nose to one of the tassels. No, it is not 

 in them, I think. It must be in the stalk 

 and leaves ; and I adopt this opinion the 

 more readily because the odor itself the 

 memory of which is part of every country 

 boy's inheritance is like that of a vegetable 

 rather than of a flower, a smell rather than 

 a perfume. I seem to recall that the stalk 

 smelled just so when we cut it into lengths 

 for cornstalk fiddles ; and the nose, as every- 

 one must have remarked, has a good memory, 

 for the reason, probably, that it is so near 

 the brain. 



I turn the corner, and go from the garden 



