VII 



AUTUMN 



OF all seasons in town, autumn is most 

 irksome mentally. Summer causes 

 more profanity and drink, but autumn is 

 the time when people want to be out of 

 doors. Man takes an incurable interest in 

 himself. Let him get up a fair to show 

 what he can do, and how he runs to see it ! 

 The greater fair of nature he has n't 

 always time for that. Except in autumn. 

 And there never was so rank a citizen 

 that he did not look at the fall color and 

 exult in it. Even the English visitor who 

 said that our October woods were "raw- 

 ther tawdry, ye know," did us the honor 

 to look at them. With the chilling of the 

 nights and the passing of the flowers, the 

 yard is left partly to take care of itself. 

 Some of the plants, being annuals, in seed, 



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