DANVIS FARM LIFE 83 



ing downward with a sound like the twanging of 

 the bass strings of some great instrument, and 

 the August piper begins his shrill, monotonous 

 concert, and the long shadows crawl eastward 

 across the meadows where the rusty-breasted 

 robins are hopping in quest of supper, the toilworn 

 farmer looks forth upon his shaven sward with its 

 shapely stacks all ridered and penned, and upon 

 the yellow stubble of his shorn grain-fields, and is 

 glad that the fret and labor of haying and harvest- 

 ing are over. 



Soon the nights have a threat of frost in their 

 increasing chilliness; birds have done singing and 

 there is the mournfulness of speedy departure in 

 their short, business-like notes. The foam of the 

 buckwheat-fields, upborne on stems of crimson and 

 gold, is flecked with pale green and brown kernels, 

 inviting the cradler. The blond tresses of the corn 

 are grown dark; the yellow kernels begin to show 

 through the parted husks and the cutting of this 

 most beautiful of grains begins. The small forest 

 of maize becomes an Indian village whose wig- 

 wams are corn-shocks, in whose streets lie yellow 

 pumpkins with their dark vines trailing among 

 the pigeon-grass and weeds. The pumpkin, New 

 England's well-beloved and the golden crown of 

 her Thanksgiving feast, might be her symbolic 

 plant, as Old England's rose and Scotland's 

 thistle are theirs. How the adventurous vine, 



