the pastures, flirts his tail from the fence-stake 

 and shouts, Can you see-e me ? These are some 

 of the dominant notes that still ring through 

 the woods and over the fields. Nor has every 

 fleck of color gone from the face of the out-of- 

 doors. She is not yet a cold, white body 

 wrapped in her winding-sheet. The flush of 

 life still lingers in the stag-horn sumac, where 

 it will burn brighter and warmer as the short- 

 ening days darken and deaden ; and there is 

 more than a spark it is a steady glow on the 

 hillsides,, where the cedar, pine, and holly 

 stand, that will live and cheer us throughout 

 the winter. What the soil has lost of life and 

 vigor the winds have gained ; and if the birds 

 are fewer now, there is a stirring of other ani- 

 mal life in the open woods and wilder places that 

 was quite lost in the bustle of summer. 



And yet ! it is a bare world, in spite of the 

 snap and crispness and the signs of harvest every- 

 where j a wider, silenter, sadder world, though I 

 cannot own a less beautiful world, than in sum- 

 mer. The corn is cut, the great yellow shocks 

 standing over the level fields like weather- 

 beaten tepees in deserted Indian villages j frosts 



[4] 



