AUGUST MOODS AND CONTRASTS 



itself no further concern as to the future of the 

 offspring. By means of the strange poison in the 

 sand-hornet's sting, animation is indefinitely sus- 

 pended in the cicada, and whenever the wasp 

 larva hatches, it finds itself in the midst of a sup- 

 ply of living food. 



With what eagerness memory seizes upon even 

 the slightest available happening of the present to 

 forge new links in the chain of the past. A crow 

 flies over the hemlock, at whose base you note a 

 little scattering of pebbles, and straightway an 

 August memory of a dozen or more years ago 

 presents itself before me in its most minute de- 

 tails. It is no story, hardly an incident; not 

 much more than a picture, indeed. 



I go back in remembrance to a time when we 

 were summering in a beautiful, remote quarter 

 among northern mountains; a region where Au- 

 gust seldom makes even an attempt at dog-days, 

 and where, on the occasion of which I would 

 tell you, though the month was no older than the 

 one upon which we have entered, each breath 

 brought with it such a sense of exhilaration as is 

 known to us here only on bracing autumn days. 



With a little country-loving lad from the town 

 and our faithful four-footed follower, a midget 



[19] 



