ENJOYING THE INFLUENZA 289 



it almost seemed, by the rising shadows, even as the 

 advancing years drive from our high, ardent, youth- 

 ful hearts the ache to peer beyond the western 

 world rim. When it was gone the shadow crept in 

 through my window and I was suddenly cold. . . . 



Then the doctor came. He was worn out, but 

 cheerful. Indeed, he seemed refreshed at finding 

 somebody who wasn't sick, and prescribed that I 

 get up. I got. I dressed rapidly and sped out of 

 doors, into the woods and up through hemlock, 

 birch, and laurel to the first rocky vantage-point 

 on my mountain-side. I was just in time. The 

 vast shadow of the bulk behind me had already 

 swallowed up the eastward plain, the farms and 

 fields, the village spire, and was just beginning to 

 rise on the long, billowing wall of hills nearly ten 

 miles away. I looked through golden tree-tops, 

 over a great plain of dim, dusky color seen through 

 half-opaque shadow, to the far hills, which were — 

 oh, miracle of autumn! — a frozen wave of ame- 

 thyst, crystallized against the pearly east. 



Before the shadows swallowed them, too, I hast- 

 ened down, crossed the road, and went eastward 

 over the fields, the frosty touch of twilight in the 

 air, and finally turned to see my whole mountain, 

 cut out of purple, velvet-covered cardboard, a 

 gigantic dome in two dimensions against a salmon 

 sky. 



Then night came, and before I went to bed I 

 stood in the open road a moment to sense that huge 

 shadow-bulk towering above me, cutting the stars, 

 upon which later Orion might set a foot to rest, on 

 his endless hunting. How vast the mountains are 



