4 THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



talkative vireo. Only the fiery notes of the scarlet 

 tanager come to me through the dry white heat of 

 the noon, and the resonant song of the indigo bunt- 

 ing — a hot, metallic, quivering song, as out of a 

 " hot and copper sky." 



There are nestlings still in the woods. This indigo 

 bunting has eggs or young in the bushes of the hill- 

 side ; the scarlet tanager by some accident has but 

 lately finished his nest in the tall oaks. I looked in 

 upon some half-fledged cuckoos along the fence. But 

 all of these are late. Most of the year's young are 

 upon the wing. 



A few of the spring's flowers are still opening. I 

 noticed the bees upon some tardy raspberry blossoms ; 

 here and there is a stray dandelion. But these are late. 

 The season's fruit has already set, is already ripening. 

 Spring is gone ; the sun is overhead ; the red wood- 

 lily is open. To-day is the noon of the year. 



High noon ! and the red wood-lily is aflame in the 

 old fields, and in the low tangles of sweet-fern and 

 blackberry that border the upland woods. 



The wood-lily is the flower of fire. How impossi- 

 ble it would be to kindle a wood-lily on the cold, 

 damp soil of April! It can be lighted only on this 

 kiln-dried soil of July. This old hilly pasture is 

 baking in the sun ; the low mouldy moss that creeps 

 over its thin breast crackles and crumbles under my 

 feet ; the patches of sweet-fern that blotch it here 

 and there crisp in the heat and fill the smothered air 



