140 PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



moon has set over the fields now ready for the plough, 

 where the sower will soon be abroad scattering the seed 

 for another year. 



God's silent workers have not been idle. They have 

 gathered in the harvest on plain and wayside wastes, on 

 lonely lake shore and by the banks of the gliding river. 

 The dormouse and the ground squirrel (our little 

 striped chipmunk), and the red and black squirrel have 

 already begun to lay by stores of kernels, seeds and 

 grain. The musquash, the otter and the beaver may 

 delay yet a little till the frosty nights warn them that 

 " time and tide wait for no man,'' nor yet for the wild 

 creatures that build by forest, lake and stream. 



The brown acorns, glossy and shining, now fall with 

 every wind that shakes the branches. The rugged 

 husks of the beech have opened wide to let the bright 

 three-sided mast fall to the earth to be gathered up by 

 " the wild flock that never need a fold." 



Truly, it is wonderfully strange, yet true, that each 

 one knows exactly how much it will require to keep its 

 family during the winter months. Here is a calculation 

 that defies many a thrifty human housekeeper. He that 

 gathers ' much hath nothing over, and he that gathers 

 little hath no lack. 



The pines are strewing the ground with a soft carpet of 

 spiny needle -like leaves, the product of former seasons, 

 and already, early in September, a few brilliant scarlet 

 leaves have appeared among the green of the maples, 



