THE BROWN FRONTIER 



on the mosses nor winning to skyward 

 branches of the trees, has not shared the 

 earth's most ardent life the pensive songs 

 a bird sings merely for himself; his im- 

 pulsive, goalless flights; and rarer still the 

 industry and traffic at the roots of growth: 

 the epic of the ground. 



Cricket follows pickering frog and 

 cicada cricket. That earliest invisible 

 singer asks only a little warmth in the 

 waters of the pond to melt the springs of 

 frozen song. He comes with lady's- 

 tresses, pussy willows, and unfurling lily 

 pads. The cricket, sleepy-voiced in the 

 August afternoon, grows gay at twilight, 

 and does his best when the firefly and bat 

 are abroad, darting out from the creeper- 

 veiled bark and setting sail upon the 

 placid air. Locusts play persistently a 

 G string out of tune until, when the first 

 goldenrod peers above the yarrow, the 

 overwhelming night chorus of the katy- 

 dids is heard, lifted bravely again and 

 again within the domains of autumn, not 

 quenched before the bittersweet berry and 

 the chestnut fling open portals and sur- 

 render to the cold. 



Little they know of trees who have not 



[91] 



