A QUIET AFTERNOON 41 



and the comfort of a perfect temperature. 

 Great is weather. No man is to blame for 

 talking about it, unless his talk is twaddle. 

 Out-of-door people know that few things 

 are more important. A quail's whistle, a 

 thought too strenuous, perhaps, for such an 

 hour, a breezy quoit, breaks my dis- 

 quisition none too soon ; else I might have 

 been brought in guilty under my own rul- 

 ing. 



As I get over the fence, on my start 

 homeward, I notice a thrifty clump of choke- 

 cherry shrubs on the other side of the way, 

 hung with ripening clusters, every cherry a 

 jewel as the sun strikes it. They may hang 

 " for all me," as schoolboys say. My coun- 

 try-bred taste is pretty catholic in matters of 

 this kind, but it extends not to chokecherries. 

 They should be eaten by campaign orators 

 as a check upon fluency. 



