THE MOOD OF AUGUST 



lie in the orchard grass. The later apple 

 trees, like the sunning rabbit and the 

 thought-worn crow, wait for the harvest 

 moon. Already the unresting twigs are 

 preparing their winter mail of cork and 

 gum, which will not be unfastened by the 

 fiercest assaults of the sleet. Short- 

 stemmed flowers have arisen to clothe the 

 sharp wheat stubble. Along the mountain 

 road grow vagabond peach trees, to whose 

 fruit cling eager blue wasps, whose aro- 

 matic gum traps many a climbing robber. 

 Other wanderers from the tended orchard 

 cruelly sour plums and rouge-cheeked 

 pears growing among the cornel bushes, 

 drop down for the field mouse and wood- 

 chuck their harvest of the wilderness. 

 Some of them, companioned by the faithful 

 phlox and sunflower, once grew in door- 

 yards now desolate. The surpassing rose 

 mallow like sunrise lights the marshes. 



It is not a month of growth. Fruit and 

 grain are only expanding weeks ago the 

 marvel of formation was complete. It is 

 the time of warm, untroubled slumber that 

 ends with the reveille of frost. 



[47] 



