The Rescue of an Old Place 



moon's yellow light; in the round, soft 

 clouds, and the wild scurry of the dun 

 rack that scuds across the heavens when 

 the breeze rises. Full soon will that 

 searching wind scatter the jewel -like 

 leaves, and tear the last petal from the 

 shrinking flowers, while the grass grows 

 brown and sear, and the soft earth stiffens, 

 like a body from which life has departed. 

 Too soon will the valiant head of the last 

 Daisy be buried in a mantle of snow, and 

 the leaden sky bend low above a frozen 

 earth. Let us be glad then while we may, 

 for the days shorten, and with them our 

 summer joys, and the lives of the autumn 

 flowers. 



A lesson But as the summer wanes, and we turn 



once more from nature to our own minds 

 for refreshment and solace, we begin to 

 consider what the year's efforts have 

 brought to us, and to reflect what is the 

 serious lesson taught by all our labor, and 

 to sum up our inward experiences, before 

 we take that account of our material stock 

 with which this simple record is to close. 

 No experiment is really valuable which 

 does not conduce to the mind's growth, 

 268 



