SEPTEMBER 



II 



With our heads so low in the grass, we heard 

 the river whirling and sucking, and lapsing down- 

 ward, kissing the shore as it went, sometimes rip- 

 pling louder than usual, and again its mighty 

 current making only a slight limpid, trickling 

 sound, as if our water-pail had sprung a leak, and 

 the water were flowing into the grass by our side. 

 The wind, rustling the oaks and hazels, impressed 

 us like a wakeful and inconsiderate person up at 

 midnight, moving about, and putting things to 

 rights, occasionally stirring up whole drawers full 

 of leaves at a puff. 



THOREAU : A Week on the Concord and Merrimack 

 Rivers. 



12 



Beside a ditch in a field beyond, we find the 

 great blue lobelia, and near it, amid the weeds and 

 wild grasses and purple asters, the most beautiful 

 of our fall flowers, the fringed gentian. What 

 a rare and delicate, almost aristocratic look the 

 gentian has amid its coarse, unkempt surround- 

 ings! It does not lure the bee, but it lures and 

 holds every passing human eye. 



BURROUGHS: Pepacton. 



