AUGUST 

 29 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1809. 



Frogs appear slow to make up their minds, but 

 then they act precipitately. As long as they are 

 here, they are here, and express no intention of re- 

 moving. But the idea of removing fills them in- 

 stantaneously, as Nature, abhorring, fills a vacuum. 

 Now they are fixed and imperturbable like the 

 sphinx, and now they go off with short, squatty 

 leaps over the spatterdock on the irruption of the 

 least idea. 



THOKEAU: Summer. 



30 



If you want to know how good salt is, see a cow 

 eat it. She gives the true saline smack. How 

 she dwells upon it, and gnaws the sward and licks 

 the stones where it has been deposited ! The cow 

 is the most delightful feeder among animals. It 

 makes one's mouth water to see her eat pumpkins, 

 and to see her at a pile of apples is distracting. 

 How she sweeps off the delectable grass ! The 

 sound of her grazing is appetizing ; the grass be- 

 trays all its sweetness and succulency in parting 



under her sickle. 



BURROUGHS: Signs and Seasons. 



