Where Town and Country Meet 



tober afternoon this time with gun in hand 

 when a fox came trotting unsuspiciously 

 down to the tip of a little point of land 

 around which the brook bent like a silver 

 triangle. He looked up and saw me as I 

 was creeping down towards the base of the 

 triangle, though still not quite within gun- 

 range. The fox might easily have escaped 

 me and saved his life by plunging through 

 the shallow brook and up the opposite bank 

 into a hemlock thicket. But rather than wet 

 his feet he turned and came scurrying back 

 along the water's edge, as far from me as he 

 could get. It was a fatal bit of squeamish- 

 ness on his part, for it brought the hand- 

 some fellow within range of my gun. I 

 have a rug of his skin under my desk now. 

 I would like to say a word about the flow- 

 ers one may find, even in October, along the 

 wood-path and scattered over the upland 

 pastures; but already my chapter grows 

 overlong. I may simply name a few of the 

 blossoms I picked, last fall, between the ist 

 of October and the 5th of November 

 fringed gentian, purple aster, golden-rod, 

 blue toad-flax, fall dandelion, Canada violet, 

 spurge, common yarrow, white alder, trum- 

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