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see the top of a chestnut tree, misty and tender, with 

 foamy white bloom. These are the last of the season. 

 The July flowering of the chestnut always seems de- 

 layed and accidental. The season's fruit has set, is 

 already ripening. Spring is gone ; the sun is over- 

 head ; the red wood-lily is open. To-day is summer, 

 — noon of the year. 



High noon ! and the hour strikes in the red wood- 

 lily aflame in the old fields and in the low thick 

 tangles of sweet-fern and blackberry that border the 

 upland woods. 



This is a flower of fire, the worshiper of the sun, 

 the very heart of the summer. How impossible it 

 would be to kindle a wood-lily on the cold, damp soil 

 of April ! It can be lighted only on this kiln-dried 

 soil of July. This old hilly pasture is baking in the 

 sun ; the mouldy moss that creeps over its thin 

 breast crackles and crumbles under my feet ; the 

 patches of sweet-fern that blotch it here and there 

 crisp in the heat and fill the smothered air with a 

 spicy breath ; but the wood-lily opens wide and full, 

 lifting its spotted lips to the Sun, for it loves his 

 scorching kiss. See it glow ! Should the withered 

 thicket burst suddenly into a blaze it would be no 



152 



