MINSTREL WEATHER 



There is in all the world a small, choice 

 coterie of people who like November and 

 March best of the months, and it must be 

 admitted that these are often a bit arro- 

 gant about their refined perceptions. They 

 manage to look down upon the many of 

 us who prefer the daisy fields to the time 

 "when hills take on the noble lines of 

 death." But whims of the worshiper 

 steal no splendor from the god. June has 

 nothing to place beside a moonlit Novem- 

 ber night, whose shadow dance of multi- 

 form boughs is never seen through leaves, 

 while shadows on the snow are hard of 

 outline, unlike the illusive phantoms run- 

 ning over autumn's brown grass. June 

 has no flowers so quaint, pathetic, and 

 austere as the trembling weeds of No- 

 vember. What does the goldenrod, white 

 with age, care for frost? All winter it will 

 shake out seeds unthriftily upon the snow, 

 standing with a calm brotherhood who 

 have gone beyond dependence on the day. 

 June's forests do not take a thousand 

 colors under a low sun. June's gray dews 

 have no magnificence of frost. June's 

 incorrigible sparrows are not the brave, 

 flitting "snowbirds" whose sins we for- 



[62] 



