SEPTEMBER DAYS 



conclave on the barn ridge. Then, look- 

 ing and listening for them, we suddenly 

 become aware they are gone ; the adobe 

 city of the eave-dwellers is silent and 

 deserted ; the whilom choristers of the 

 sunny summer meadows are departed to 

 a less hospitable welcome in more genial 

 climes. How unobtrusive was their ex- 

 odus. We awake and miss them, or we 

 think of them and see them not, and 

 then we realize that with them summer 

 too has gone. 



This also the wafted thistledown and 

 the blooming asters tell us, and, though 

 the woods are dark with their latest 

 greenness, in the lowlands the gaudy 

 standard of autumn is already, displayed. 

 In its shadow the muskrat is thatching 

 his winter home, and on his new-shorn 

 watery lawn the full-fledged wild duck 

 broods disport in fullness of feather and 

 strength of pinion. Evil days are these 

 of September that now befall them. 

 Alack, for the callow days of peaceful 

 summer, when no honest gunner was 

 abroad, and the law held the murderous 

 gun in abeyance, and only the keel of 

 the unarmed angler rippled the still 

 144 



