104 WINTER SUNSHINE 



bushy fields and lanes under the woods loaded with 

 the perfume of the witch-hazel, — a sweetish, sick- 

 ening odor. With the blooming of this bush, Na- 

 ture says, "Positively the last." It is a kind of 

 birth in death, of spring in fall, that impresses one 

 as a little uncanny. All trees and shrubs form 

 their flower- buds in the fall, and keep the secret 

 till spring. How comes the witch-hazel to be the 

 one exception, and to celebrate its floral nuptials on 

 the funeral day of its foliage? No doubt it will 

 be found that the spirit of some lovelorn squaw has 

 passed into this bush, and that this is why it blooms 

 in the Indian summer rather than in the white 

 man's spring. 



But it makes the floral series of the woods com- 

 plete. Between it and the shad-blow of earliest 

 spring lies the mountain of bloom; the latter at the 

 base on one side, this at the base on the other, with 

 the chestnut blossoms at the top in midsummer. 



A peculiar feature of our fall may sometimes be 

 seen of a clear afternoon late in the season. Look- 

 ing athwart the fields under the sinking sun, the 

 ground appears covered with a shining veil of gos- 

 samer. A fairy net, invisible at midday and which 

 the position of the sun now reveals, rests upon the 

 stubble and upon the spears of grass, covering acres 

 in extent, — the work of innumerable little spi- 

 ders. The cattle walk through it, but do not seem 

 to break it. Perhaps a fly would make his mark 

 upon it. At the same time, stretching from the 

 tops of the trees, or from the top of a stake in the 



