“Gosh! Look at that id’jut!” exclaimed Sipes, as he picked up the jug. “They was two gallons in ’ere w’en we started out, an’ they was about two quarts last night. This soak’s spilt it all into ’im ’cept about a pint, an’ we gotta save it fer snake-bites.”
“Say, Boss, lemme off!” pleaded the culprit, weakly. In his confused brain there was a sense of trouble that he could not quite comprehend.
We got our own breakfast. Narcissus watched us helplessly from under his tree. He appeared quite sick.
“That cookie’s blue ’round the gills,” remarked Sipes. “He’d jest as lief ’ave a pestilence come now as to see whiskey. His stummick’s gone punk. His eyes looks like holes burnt in a blanket, an’ ’is head don’t fit ’im. He needs a few kind words, an’ I’m goin’ to take ’im over a little piece o’ the dog that bit ’im.”
He filled the cup to the brim and offered it to the sufferer.
“Here, Cookie, cheer up! Here’s some nice little meddy. You swallow it an’ you’ll feel fine!”
Pathos and misery were written on Narcissus’s doleful face, as he mutely protested against the cup being held where he could smell its contents. Sipes, with refined cruelty, sprinkled some of the liquid on the penitent’s coat, so that the odor would remain with him, and chuckled, as he returned the unused portion to the jug, which he locked in the boat’s cabin.
One night there was a light frost. When morning dawned there was a crispness in the air. A spirit of foreboding was in the forest, and a sadness in the tones of the wind that rustled the weakly clinging leaves. The wood odors had changed. Dashes of color brilliance were scattered along the edges of the timber on the river banks. The deep green of tamaracks, and flaming scarlet of vines and dogwoods, relieved by backgrounds of subtle and delicate minor hues, swept along the borders of the great marsh, and stole away into veils of purple haze beyond. Fruition and fulfilment had passed over the hills and through the low places, and it was time for sleep.
THE REQUIEM OF THE LEAVES (From the Author’s Etching)