Short Summer Days. 139 



the hazels, and always on the day that I have 

 chosen. I see him, I hear him ; we talk and 

 shout as merrily as ever, yet my companion 

 left me forever, oh, how long, long ago ! Had 

 frost and storm driven all freshness and fulness 

 from the face of Nature, it would still be sum- 

 mer when I gather the few hazel-nuts about 

 which lingers the ineffaceable halo of thoughts 

 too deep for tears. Or I wander to the lone 

 hickories that stand like patient sentinels on the 

 broad pastures and gather the few shellbarks 

 that have dropped in advance of the bidding 

 of frost. They smack of autumn, surely ; but 

 no, there is too much freshness still remaining. 

 The grass is too green upon which they fall, and 

 I do not think of the end that is so near. Man- 

 kind in general seems averse to winter, unless 

 his lot is cast in some large city, and so honestly 

 regrets that summer so soon, as it seems to him, 

 draws to a close. It is so, too, with those whose 

 happier lot is cast in the country, and who, like 

 myself, love, as my neighbors call it, to loaf. 

 We loafers, then, disliking any marked change 

 when the world is so suited to us, as it is, fight 

 against the sobering thought of summer's end- 



