THE WOODS. 



123 



woodbine all form bowers of shade above some bend- 

 ing saplings, or impede our path by their intrepid 

 growth. And the blackberries, big ebony fellows, look- 

 ing sweet and delicious there beneath some vines; while 

 mulberries hang from the trees, and the ground is 

 dotted with them as they have fallen and silted among 

 the leaves and grasses. 



Toward the autumn? Color, and the Instinct for 

 the chase. The old wood roads and fence corners are 

 fringed with a maze of yellow golden-rod and purple 

 iron weed. Then, too, closing the summer, come the 

 long racemes of wild black cherries; and, later, or 

 along with them, the pendent clusters of wild grapes; 

 and the papaws yellow with the year, and fall and 

 tumble and roll to their secret hiding places among the 

 weeds, there to await the culminating touch of a hard 

 black frost before their final rich flavor can be appre- 

 ciated. The many kinds of nuts, maturing and enlarg- 

 ing in their green hulls during the long hot months of 

 summer, now, in these cool days, in the fall of the leaf, 

 are filling the old woods with a rare, exquisite fra- 

 grance, while squirrels frisk among them in the branches 

 and send their shucks pattering to the earth as they 

 gnaw and munch the sweet kernels. What wonderful 

 little pieces of architecture the acorns are — miniature 

 mosques in themselves ! They strew the ground every- 

 where beneath the oaks, and bits of nibbled shells, too, 

 almost a snowstorm of them, where the squirrels have 

 been eating. What a delight to work beneath the 

 many-colored trees in their autumn glory! The great 

 leafy tents and the stray branches beneath them are a 

 wonderful harmony of color — golden, golden ! — one of 



