Later in the fall the rocky pasture would glow with golden-rod and brilliant sumach, and ripe milk-weed pods would burst and fill the golden autumn sunshine with fleecy clouds. But now the nodding buttercups and smiling daisies held sway, with here and there a tall mullein standing sentinel.
It was a lovely place: off in the distance one could see the shimmering lake, to whose loving embrace the brook was forever hastening, framed by beautiful wooded hills, with a hazy purple mountain back of all.
But the day was not lovely. The clouds came down to the earth as near as they dared, scowling ominously. It was clear they had been drinking deeply. A sticky, misty rain filled the air, and the earth looked sad, very sad.
The violets had put on their gossamers and drawn the hoods up over their heads, the ferns looked sadly drabbled, and the buttercups and daisies on the opposite bank, didn’t even lean across to speak to their neighbors, but drew their yellow caps and white bonnets further over their faces, drooped their heads and wished for the rain to be over. The wild roses that grew on a bush near the bank hid under their leaves. The ferns went to sleep; even the trees leaned disconsolately over the brook and wished for the long, rainy afternoon to be over, while little tired wet birds in their branches never stirred, nor even spoke to each other, but stood hour after hour on one foot, with their shoulders hunched up, and one eye shut.
At last a little white violet broke the damp stillness.
“O dear!” she sighed, “this is so tiresome, I wish we could do something nice. Won’t some one please talk a little?”
No one spoke, and some of the older ferns even scowled at her, but little violet was not to be put down. She turned her hooded face on a tall pink bachelor button growing by her side.