26 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



windings to the haunted bridge over Country 

 Brook. The way itself is haunted by woodland 

 fragrance and chant of birds innumerable, and in 

 the freshness of the morning after the shower it 

 seemed as if built new. The world is apt to be 

 this way after rain. Yet if the vivid morning 

 sun and exhilarating north wind had driven all 

 ghosts away there had been necromancy at work. 

 All the day before the blossoms on the staghorn 

 sumac had been of that velvety pink that rivals the 

 wild rose. Over night they had turned a warm, 

 rich red. Autumn brings this richer, more stable 

 color to the sumac blooms as they ripen toward 

 seed time, but it does not do it in July, over night. 

 The pukwudgies had been at work, painting 

 with the rain, filling the sumac heads with it till 

 they hung heavy. The water had massed the tiny 

 pubescence of the blooms till pink had deepened 

 into red and autumn had seemed to come for the 

 sumacs in a night. It took the sun and the wind 

 all day to dry them out and bring back the witch- 

 ery of pink that the necromancy of the rain had 

 banished. But the spell was not altogether 

 broken, nor will it be till autumn has worked its 



