HARBINGERS OF FROST. 213 



this valley. Presager of frost, harbinger of the 

 melancholy days of autumn this call of katy- 

 did of days when my soul is o'ercast with 

 gloom, when optimism has been banished and 

 pessimism reigns supreme. I love their call, and 

 yet I hate it; love it for its persistency, for its 

 sonorousness, for its love-making powers ; hate it 

 for its premonition of the hoar frost and the 

 death that is to be, the death which comes to 

 many things in autumn. 



Friday, July 14. Though the sky this morn 

 was liquid blue, the air at 4 :30 was so cool that 

 I had to wear an overcoat. Soon enough did 

 this change and the sun send down his beams 

 too fierce for comfort. By 6:30 I had cooked 

 and eaten breakfast, cleaned up the camp, 

 caught crawfish and baited three set-poles for 

 bass. 



To-day a boy have I been again, a boy with 

 a work to do, a boy berry picker. For five long 

 hours I bent over the bushes and nine gallons, 

 or more than a bushel, fell before my fingers. 

 A hundred gallons might I have gathered and 

 still left berries in the field. It is more berries 

 than I have seen or picked in thirty years, yes, 

 thirty-five, for I stopped picking at seventeen 

 and went to other things, not higher ones, for 

 picking wild berries is a noble calling. 



They are the fruit of the earth, an offering 



