AUTUMN. 



"5 



unseen "Bob White" whistling for us among the brush near by, when 

 the startling whirr of the ruffed grouse from almost under our feet sent 

 an electric thrill up our backs and along our arms, even touching off the 

 powder in our barrels unawares. There were box-traps in the woods, 

 and snares among the copses, and lots of other mischief of which we 

 would not care to tell. 



There was another little three-cornered nut that fell among the beech- 

 trees where we held our October picnics, and the autumn beech forest I 

 remember as a lovely woodland parlor. We sit upon a painted rock, in 



A CORNER OF THE FARM. 



the shadow of a drooping hemlock, perhaps. Beyond, we look across 

 among the smooth gray tree-trunks, where sidelong shadows softly stripe 

 the matted leaves, with here and there a shining shaft of sunbeam light- 

 ing up the carpet, or a glinting spray of sun-tipped leaves that flicker 

 above their shadows. The woods are filled with a luminous glow such 

 as no summer forest ever knew — an all -pervading light which seems 

 almost independent of the sunshine, as though living in the leaf itself. 

 It floods the mottled bark, and transforms its ashy tints to softened au- 

 tumn grays. It searches out the shadows of the evergreens, and throws 



