CHAPTER XIII 



A NIGHT CALL 



[LL day long the June sun had beaten 

 down with fierce July heat upon the 

 sleepy town, upon the smooth green 

 lawns, the white, pink, and yellow 

 roses at the corners of houses, upon the bright 

 green blades of growing corn in the gardens, the 

 feathery foliage of the carrots, the waxy richness 

 of the beets, the bright and smiling faces of the 

 pansies, the smooth expanse of the nasturtium, 

 with its crimson and yellow flashes from between 

 the green leaves, and the fragile pinkness of the 

 fragrant sweet peas. 



Under the revolving sprinklers of the lawns, 

 dapper robins had fluttered with wings upturned 

 to catch the splashing drops, or stood upright with 

 close-furled plumage. In the short white clover, 

 which always follows a sprinkle of wood ashes, 

 hundreds of bees had worked, unmindful of the 

 fierce sun. 



As darkness slowly steals over the landscape, 

 the robins, silent during the furnace-heat of the 

 day, begin the clear warble of their evening song. 



