SEPTEMBER 41 



gracklos in congregation were making spirited con- 

 versation across the street and one heard the rat- 

 tling ahirni, not the vigorous 'Vjuirk/' of the red- 

 headed woodpecker. Swifts and nighthawks — 

 sailing in numbers above the city toward evening 

 — were among the few birds we noticed with voice 

 or manner suggestive of summer at its height. 



''A Well," says Carlyle,^ "is in all i)laces a 

 beautiful affecting object, gushing out like life 

 from the hard earth. ' ' Today certainly, one found 

 the cold spring water in the Park, with its strong 

 taste of the tonic iron, a welcome refreshment. 

 How picturesque the children were, scrambling 

 down the steps to the spring, or waiting in line, 

 cups in hand, for their turn at the impartial foun- 

 tain. One does not probably often think of the 

 prairie country as a region of springs, but it has 

 its fair share. Personal memory recalls a Minne- 

 sota farm, where the milk was always deliciously 

 cool, freshly brought from its shelter by the "Big 

 Spring'^; the trickling stream from the bank of a 

 railway cut, in a walk from college town to woods, 

 at which many a scholar of note as well as many 

 a section-hand has halted for a drink; the flowing 

 waters in Washington Park, Chicago, where on a 

 blistering day a group of Hawkeyes gathered for 

 picnic reunion found a temperate solace and stim- 

 ulus. In Burlington, the visitor to Crapo Park as 



fi In Heroes ami Rero-Worship: The Hero as Prophet. 



