12 WINTER SUNSHINE. 



But what does not the dweller in the National 

 Capital endure in reaching these days ? Think of 

 the agonies of the heated term, the ragings of the 

 dog-star, the purgatory of heat and dust, of baking, 

 blistering pavements, of cracked and powdered fields, 

 of dead stifling night air, from which every tonic and 

 antiseptic quality seems eliminated, leaving a resid- 

 uum of sultry malaria and all diffusing privy and 

 sewer gases, that lasts from the first of July to near 

 the middle of September. But when October is 

 reached, the memory of these things is afar off, and 

 the glory of the days is a perpetual surprise. 



I sally out in the morning with the ostensible pur- 

 pose of gathering chestnuts, or autumn leaves, or 

 persimmons, or exploring some run or branch. It is, 

 say, the last of October or the first of November. 

 The air is not balmy, but tart and pungent, like the 

 flavor ojf the red-cheeked apples by the road-side. In 

 the sky not a cloud, not a speck ; a vast dome of 

 blue ether lightly suspended above the world. The 

 woods are heaped with color like a painter's palette 

 great splashes of red and orange and gold. The 

 ponds and streams bear upon their bosoms leaves of 

 all tints, from the deep maroon of the oak to the pale 

 yellow of the chestnut. In the glens and nooks it is 

 so still that the chirp of a solitary cricket is notice- 

 able. The red berries of the dogwood and spice-bush 

 and other shrubs shine in the sun like rubies and 

 coral. The crows fly high above the earth as they do 

 only on such days, forms of ebony floating across the 



