AUTUMN 55 



drawn, heat-laden, midsummer cry. I will 

 tell the entomologist about it, I promise my- 

 self. The circumstance must be very unu- 

 sual, and cannot fail to interest her. (But 

 she takes it as a matter of course. It is 

 hard to bring news to a specialist.) 



So I go on, up Hardscrabble and Little 

 Hardscrabble, stopping like a short-winded 

 horse at every water-bar, and thankful for 

 every bird-note that calls me to a halt be- 

 tween times. An ornithological preoccupa- 

 tion is a capital resource when the road is 

 getting the better of you. The brook like- 

 wise must be minded, and some of the more 

 memorable of the wayside trees. A moun- 

 tain road has one decided and inalienable ad- 

 vantage, I remark inwardly : the most per- 

 versely opinionated highway surveyor in the 

 world cannot straighten it. How fast the 

 leaves are falling, though the air scarcely 

 stirs among them ! In some places I walk 

 through a real shower of gold. Theirs is an 

 easy death. And how many times I have 

 been up and down this road ! Summer and 

 autumn I have traveled it. And in what 

 pleasant company ! Now I am alone ; but 



