CHAPTER III. 

 WATSON'S CROSSING. 



A FORETASTE of October, in the early morning of liot 

 August days, is not infrequently the experience of him 

 who is astir at dawn. Recklessly plunging through a 

 fog-enveloped wilderness of weeds, I chanced upon the 

 bank of a winsome little brook, as it hurried to the hid- 

 den meadows beyond. The world was yet at rest. Be- 

 yond the rippling of the water, not a sound was heard 

 save the muffled crowing of a distant cock, and at longer 

 intervals the drowsy barking of a dog. 



I watched the steady flow of the brimming stream for 

 many minutes, and at last the chatter of the squirrel, 

 the cry of the flicker, and querulous plaint of the nut- 

 hatch floated from the hidden trees, and with them 

 swept by a chilly breeze, bringing a crimson leaf to 

 where I sat. Every sound suggested autumn, and the 

 leaf forecasted the painted forest. 



As the fog rose, the shapely gum-tree, from which had 

 come the pretty leaf, came into view, and half its foli- 

 age was as ruddy as the waif that I held in my hand. 

 There are gum-trees on the hill-side that drop scores 

 of these "autumn" leaves in August, as surely as the 

 month rolls round, yet my neighbors never fail, as they 

 pick them up, to wave them before you as an infallible 

 sign of an " early fall." Dropping, as they do, in Au- 



