82 



THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among 

 ' the tall, naked trees ; the dull cloud hangs low above 

 'the ridge ; and through the cold gray of the maple 

 amp below you, peers the face of Winter. 

 You start up the ridge with your rake and draw 

 E^down another pile, thinking, as you work, of the 

 ^ jr pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm glow all 

 |f over your body strikes into your heart. You rake 

 j ^Vaway as if it were your own bed you were gathering 

 J > as really it is. He that rakes for his pig, rakes also 

 S^ * for himself. A merciful man is merciful to his beast ; 

 y and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a 

 ^blanket of down over his own winter bed. 

 ^ Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull 

 * on my boots at ten o'clock and go my round at the 

 barn? Yet it warms my feet through and through 

 l^to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her 

 } cud, and the horse cleaning up his supper hay, stand- 

 ^ing to his fetlocks in his golden bed of new rye- 

 straw ; and then, going to the pig's pen, to hear him 

 snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in 

 e depths of his leaf -bed, far out of sight. It warms 

 y heart, too ! 



So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to 

 a pig to work for ! What zest and purpose it 

 SCfelends to one's raking and piling and storing ! If I 

 fep could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should 

 Jr surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in 

 I V) the woods, I should be obliged, occasionally, to carry 



