IN THE CANADIAN WOODS. 143 



and sobs among the leafless boughs, or shivers with 

 rustling sound the leaves still clinging to the young 

 beeches and oak saplings in the forest. 



There is a change in the climate since the time when 

 we used to look for the Indian summer. The destruc- 

 tion of the forest trees has told upon it in many ways. 

 We feel it in the sweep of the wind in autumn and 

 spring especially, in the drifting snow of winter, and 

 in the growing scarcity of the fish in our lakes. 



Those soft calm days of November or late October are 

 now seldom experienced — the frosty nights, misty 

 mornings, and warm days when the sun, veiled by the 

 smoky atmosphere, looked red and strange, yet not 

 inspiring fear — day after day of changeless calm which 

 the natives call Indian summer, claiming it as if it of 

 right belonged to them. " Our summer," they say ; " the 

 month of our harvest of rice, the hunter's month, the 

 fisher's month " — thus they call the last three months of 

 the year. But with the forests the Indians and their 

 summer are both passing away. 



My sister's lines on the Indian Summer may well be 

 quoted here : 



" By the purple haze that lies 



On the distant rooky height, 

 By the deep blue of the skies, 



By the smoky amber light 

 Through the forest arches streaming, 

 Where Nature on her throne sits dreaming, 

 And the sun is scarcely gleaming 



Through the cloudlets, snowy white, — 



