AUTUMN PREPARATIONS 
I T WAS still summer on Patou; the willow 
clumps were in full foliage, and the pond 
lilies spread the ivory and gold of their 
great blossoms as thickly as ever. Giant dragon 
flies darted hither and yon, their gauzy wings 
shimmering in the sunlight, as they took their 
way over the dark water. Sapsuckers and wood¬ 
peckers drilled merrily away in the woods, 
the rat-a-tat-tat of their hammering echoing 
through the reaches of the forest. 
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