Nature's Serial Story

by Edward Payson Roe

Burt had entered on his scheme with the deepest interest and with confident expectations. As time passed, however, he found that he could not pique Amy in the slightest degree; that she rather regarded his interest in Miss Hargrove as the most natural thing in the world, because she was so interesting. Therefore he at last just let himself drift, and was content with the fact that the summer was passing delightfully. That Miss Hargrove's dark eyes sometimes quickened his pulse strangely did not trouble him; it had often been quickened before. When they were alone, and she sang to him in her rich contralto, and he, at her request, added his musical tenor, it seemed perfectly natural that he should bend over her toward the notes in a way that was not the result of near-sightedness. Burt was amenable to other attractions than that of gravitation.

Webb was the only one not blind to the drift of events. While he forbore by word or sign to interfere, he felt that new elements were entering into the problem of the future. He drove the farm and garden work along with a tireless energy against which even Leonard remonstrated. But Webb knew that his most wholesome antidote for suspense and trouble was work, and good for all would come of his remedy. He toiled long hours in the oat harvest. He sowed seed which promised a thousand bushels of turnips. Land foul with weeds, or only half subdued, he sowed with that best of scavenger crops, buckwheat, which was to be plowed under as soon as in blossom. The vegetable and fruit gardens gave him much occupation, also, and the table fairly groaned under the over-abundant supply, while Abram was almost daily despatched to the landing or to neighboring markets with loads of various produce. The rose garden, however, seemed to afford Webb his chief recreation and a place of rest, and the roses in Amy's belt were the wonder and envy of all who saw them. His mother sometimes looked at him curiously, as he still brought to her the finest specimens, and one day she said: "Webb, I never knew even you to be so tireless before. You are growing very thin, and you are certainly going beyond your strength, and—forgive me—you seem restlessly active. Have you any trouble in which mother can help you?"

"You always help me, mother," he said, gently; "but I have no trouble that requires your or any one's attention. I like to be busy, and there is much to do. I am getting the work well along, so that I can take a trip in August, and not leave too much for Leonard to look after."

August came, and with it the promise of drought, but he and his elder brother had provided against it. The young trees had been well mulched while the ground was moist, and deep, thorough cultivation rendered the crops safe unless the rainless period should be of long duration.

Already in the rustling foliage there were whisperings of autumn. The nights grew longer, and were filled with the sounds of insect life. The robins disappeared from about the house, and were haunting distant groves, becoming as wild as they had formerly been domestic. The season of bird song was over for the year. The orioles whistled in a languid and desultory way occasionally, and the smaller warblers sometimes gave utterance to defective strains, but the leaders of the feathered chorus, the thrushes, were silent. The flower-beds flamed with geraniums and salvias, and were gay with gladioli, while Amy and Mrs. Clifford exulted in the extent and variety of their finely quilled and rose-like asters and dahlias. The foliage of the trees had gained its darkest hues, and the days passed, one so like another that nature seemed to be taking a summer siesta.

CHAPTER XLI

A FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS

A day in August can be as depressing as a typical one in May is inspiring, or in June entrancing. As the season advanced Nature appeared to be growing languid and faint. There was neither cloud by day nor dew at night. The sun burned rather than vivified the earth, and the grass and herbage withered and shrivelled before its unobstructed rays. The foliage along the roadsides grew dun-colored from the dust, and those who rode or drove on thoroughfares were stifled by the irritating clouds that rose on the slightest provocation. Pleasure could be found only on the unfrequented lanes that led to the mountains or ran along their bases. Even there trees that drew their sustenance from soil spread thinly on the rocks were seen to be dying, their leaves not flushing with autumnal tints, but hanging limp and bleached as if they had exhaled their vital juices. The moss beneath them, that had been softer to the tread than a Persian rug, crumbled into powder under the foot. Alf went to gather huckleberries, but, except in moist and swampy places, found them shrivelled on the bushes. Even the corn leaves began to roll on the uplands, and Leonard shook his head despondingly. Webb's anxieties, however, were of a far deeper character, and he was philosophical enough to average the year's income. If the cows did come home hungry from their pasture, there was abundance of hay and green-corn fodder to carry them through until the skies should become more propitious. Besides, there was an unfailing spring upon the place, and from this a large cask on wheels was often filled, and was then drawn by one of the quiet farm-horses to the best of the flower beds, the young trees, and to such products of the garden as would repay for the expenditure of time and labor. The ground was never sprinkled so that the morning sun of the following day would drink up the moisture, but so deluged that the watering would answer for several days. It was well known that partial watering does only harm. Nature can be greatly assisted at such times, but it must be in accordance with her laws. The grapevine is a plant that can endure an unusual degree of drought, and the fruit will be all the earlier and sweeter for it. An excellent fertilizer for the grape is suds from the laundry, and by filling a wide, shallow basin, hollowed out from the earth around the stems, with this alkaline infusion, the vines were kept in the best condition. The clusters of the earlier varieties were already beginning to color, and the season insured the perfect ripening of those fine old kinds, the Isabella and Catawba, that too often are frost-bitten before they become fit for the table.

Thus it would appear that Nature has compensations for her worst moods—greater compensations than are thought of by many. Drought causes the roots of plants and trees to strike deep, and so extends the range of their feeding-ground, and anchors vegetation of all kinds more firmly in the soil.

Nevertheless, a long dry period is always depressing. The bright green fades out of the landscape, the lawns and grass-plots become brown and sear, the air loses its sweet, refreshing vitality, and is often so charged with smoke from forest-fires, and impalpable dust, that respiration is not agreeable. Apart from considerations of profit and loss, the sympathy of the Clifford household was too deep with Nature to permit the indifference of those whose garden is the market stall and the florist's greenhouse, and to whom vistas in hotel parlors and piazzas are the most attractive.