fill-horse: i.e. thill-horse; a horse that goes between the thills or shafts and supports them.

frumenty a dish made of hulled wheat boiled in milk

and seasoned.

neat: cattle.

46. AUTUMN

By Donald G. Mitchell

UNDER the pen name of "Ik Marvel" Donald G. Mitchell is well known among American writers. He was born at Norwich, Conn., April 12, 1822, and after a college course at Yale he engaged in farming, and then for a while studied law, until he found his true bent in literary work. He has been several times abroad and, for a short time, was United States Consul to Venice. Mr. Mitchell now resides on a country place near New Haven, which he has described in "My Farm at Edgewood." His farm life and the taste for agriculture acquired in early years give a peculiar charm to his

DONALD G. MITCHELL

writing; his descriptions of scenery and the changing seasons of the year are admirable. In early life he was a friend and follower of Washington Irving, and dedicated to him "Dream Life," from which our selection is taken.

HERE are those who shudder at the approach

THERE

of Autumn, and who feel a light grief stealing over their spirits, like an October haze, as the

evening shadows slant sooner and longer over the face of an ending August day.

But is not Autumn the Manhood of the year? Is it not the ripest of the seasons? Do not proud flowers blossom, - the golden-rod, the purple orchis, the dahlia, and the bloody cardinal of the swamplands? The fruits, too, are golden, hanging heavy from the tasked trees. The fields of maize show weeping spindles, and broad rustling leaves, and ears half glowing with the crowded corn; the September wind whistles over their thick-set ranks with whispers of plenty. The staggering stalks of the buckwheat grow red with ripeness, and tip their tops with clustering tri-cornered kernels.

The cattle, loosed from the summer's yoke, grow strong upon the meadows new-starting from the scythe. The lambs of April, rounded into fullness of limb, and gaining day by day their woolly cloak, bite at the nodding clover-heads; or, with their noses to the ground, they stand in solemn, circular conclave under the pasture oaks, while the noon sun beats with the lingering passion of July.

The Bob-o'-Lincolns have come back from their Southern rambles among the rice, all speckled with gray; and singing no longer as they did in spring, they quietly feed upon the ripened reeds that straggle along the borders of the walls. The larks, with their black and yellow breastplates and lifted heads,

stand tall upon the close-mown meadow, and at your first motion of approach, spring up and soar away, and light again, and with their lifted heads renew the watch. The quails, in half-grown coveys saunter hidden through the underbrush that skirts the wood, and only when you are close upon them, whir away, and drop scattered under the coverts of the forest.

The robins, long ago deserting the garden neighborhood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody berries of the sumach; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sunrise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watchful of the crickets her slow steps start to danger. The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high over the carcass of some slaughtered sheep lying ragged upon the hills.

The ash trees grow crimson in color, and lose their summer life in great gouts of blood. The birches touch their frail spray with yellow; the chestnuts drop down their leaves in brown, twirling showers. The beeches, crimped with the frost, guard their foliage until each leaf whistles white in November gales. The bitter-sweet hangs its bare and leafless tendrils from rock to tree, and sways with the weight of its brazen berries. The sturdy oaks, unyielding to the winds, and to the

frosts, struggle long against the approaches of winter, and in their struggles wear faces of orange, of scarlet, of crimson, and of brown; and finally yielding to swift winds, as youth's pride yields to manly duty, strew the ground with the scattered glories of their summer strength, and warm and feed the earth with the débris of their leafy honors.

The maple in the lowlands turns suddenly its silvery greenness into orange scarlet, and in the coming chilliness of the autumn eventide seems to catch the glories of the sunset, and to wear them -as a sign of God's old promise in Egypt - like a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night.

And when all these are done, and in the paved and noisy aisles of the city, the ailantus, with all its greenness gone, lifts up its skeleton fingers to the God of Autumn and of storms, the dogwood still guards its crown; and the branches, which stretched their white canvas in April, now bear up a spire of bloody tongues, that lie against the leafless woods like a tree on fire. Autumn brings to the home the cheerful glow of "first fires." It withdraws the thoughts from the wide and joyous landscapes of Summer, and fixes them upon those objects which bloom and rejoice within the household. The old hearth, that has rioted the Summer through with boughs and blossoms, gives up its withered tenantry. The fire-dogs gleam kindly

upon the evening hours; and the blaze wakens those sweet hopes and prayers which cluster around the fireside of home.

orchis a beautiful, fragrant flower often growing in imitation of animal forms.

spindles: long, thin stalks.

Bob-o'-Lincolns: bobolinks.

gouts splashes.

débris fragments; that which is left.

47. THE HUSKERS

By John Greenleaf Whittier

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (Dec. 17, 1807 - Sept. 7, 1892) was a kind, gentle man who wrote simple and beautiful poems which people delight to read. He came of a Quaker farmer family, and his parents could not afford to give him a finished education, but this very fact led him to write as no other poet could upon New England farm life. He wrote on other subjects also; he was interested in the cause of the oppressed everywhere, and used his pen in behalf of the poor and friendless. As a prose writer he published "Legends of New England" and studies and sketches of scenery of the

Merrimac Valley. One thing particularly impresses us in reading Whittier's poems, and that is that he wrote directly from the heart, and put his gentle nature into every verse.