IOO 



PASTORAL DAYS. 



And when these grays are contrasted with tender 

 yellow greens and browns of fading ferns, such as 

 fringe the borders of the one before me, with a back- 

 ground of scarlet whortleberry bushes and deep-green 

 sprays of blackberry clustering about the loos- 

 i ening bark of a crumbling stump, with 

 its shelving growth of fungus hiding 

 among its brown debris, one may 

 well pause and wonder which 



to choose, or where a single 

 touch is wanting in the perfect 

 unity and harmony of cither. 

 i- ; Another jutting corner, and we confront 



*S\ a swaying mass of gold and purple — that 

 magnificent regal combination of graceful 

 golden-rod and asters that glorifies our autumn from 

 September to the falling leaf. There are a number 

 of species of golden-rod, varying as much in their 

 intensity of color as in their time of bloom. The 

 earliest appear in the heart of summer, in wood and 

 meadow ; while others, larger and more stately, lift 

 up in their midst their plumy, undeveloped tips, 

 and wait until their predecessors are old and gray 

 ere they roll out their wreaths of gold. For weeks 

 the roads and by-ways have been lit up with their 

 brilliant glow, that parting sunset gleam that lin- 

 yftyi^ gers with the closing year. This splendid clus- 

 ter is full six feet in height, and towers above the 

 highest rail, or rather where the rail ought to be, 

 for it is lost from sight beneath a dense fret-work of prickly smilax — 



