SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS 69 
the large sweet muscadines that the country children 
bring in by the bushel. These come on the edge of 
autumn, but before the summer is over there is yet a 
unique and gorgeous display in the plant world that 
cannot be ignored. It is not flowers this time, though 
as the summer nears its end, the ground blossoms 
out in the most extraordinary manner. What are 
those large gold plates lying in the woods? Those 
exquisitely yellow, or orange, or pink or purple disks, 
those masses of coral, red, yellow, or ivory-white? 
Those pearly or snowy caps? Those enormous frills 
and those smoky little buttons? Ah, yes, they are 
the mushrooms! How many shapes and sizes and 
colors spring up in a night! Sometimes they are 
beautiful and sometimes they are not. But they are 
always amusing, as though trying to tell us to take 
all this fuss and fury of the fruits and flowers calmly, 
or even somewhat as a jest. "After all, what mat- 
ters it?" they seem to say; "they are gone and here 
are we, just as gay and twice as funny"; and they 
roll up or straighten out into all sorts of shapes. They 
break the spell of the flowers and fruits, as it were, 
and put one in mood for the next great event, the 
vivid and most tender splendor of the autumn. 
