12 WINTER SUNSHINE. 



through the fire of summer seems to have lost all its 

 dross and life all its impediments. 



But what does not the dweller in the National Cap- 

 ital endure in reaching these days? Think of the 

 agonies of the heated term, the ragings of the dog- 

 star, the purgatory of heat and dust, of baking, blis- 

 tering pavements, of cracked and powdered fields, of 

 dead stifling night air, from which every tonic and 

 antiseptic quality seems eliminated, leaving a residuum 

 of sultry malaria and all diffusing privy and sewer 

 gases, that lasts from the first of July to near the mid- 

 dle of September. But when October is reached, the 

 memory of these things is afar off, and the glory of 

 the days is a perpetual surprise. 



I sally out in the morning with the ostensible pur- 

 pose of gathering chestnuts, or autumn leaves, or per- 

 simmons, or exploring some run or branch. It is, say, 

 the last of October or the first of November. The 

 air is not balmy, but tart and pungent, like the flavor 

 of the red-cheeked apples by the road-side. In the 

 sky not a cloud, not a speck; a vast dome of blue 

 ether lightly suspended above the world. The woods 

 are heaped with color like a painter's easel — great 

 splashes of red and orange and gold. The ponds and 

 streams bear upon their bosoms leaves of all tints, 

 from the deep maroon of the oak to the pale yellow 

 of the chestnut. In the glens and nooks it is so still 

 that the chirp of a solitary cricket is noticeable. The 

 red berries of the dogwood and spice-bush and other 



