The care of vegetables for winter is quite a study in itself, and I hear many suggestions about the best way to keep cabbages. A favourite plan in this part of the country is to dig a trench and place the heads in it, face downwards, and then cover them with earth. It is also a question whether the parsnips and salsify should be left in the ground as they are and dug as wanted. The celery must be buried in sand, so they say. Beets, carrots, and turnips for household use seem to do better and keep a finer flavour if pitted—provided the mice do not get after them. These are all things that must be settled within the next few days in intervals of corn-husking.
After all—to be guilty of a bull—the best part of the day was the night. After the sun went down in hazy mildness the full moon swung up in the east to take his place, and almost immediately a fog began to rise from the heated earth. By the time the moon was well clear of the trees all the low places looked like pools of silver water. Towards the east the illusion of a broad river, with the distant woods as the farther bank, was perfect. Although the temperature ceased to be oppressively hot, the thermometer registered over sixty at 9 o'clock. There are weather-wise folk who say that this unusual heat and the screaming of the bluejays in the afternoon mean a sudden change in the weather, so perhaps we may have to wear mits when handling corn after all. But to-day has been sufficient unto itself. And now to sleep—perchance to dream.
The hawk of the summer wind is proud,
She circles high at the throne of the sun;
When the storm is fierce her scream is loud,
And the scorching glance of her eye we shun;
And oftentimes, when the sun is bright,
A silence falls on the choirs of song,
And the partridge shrinks in wild affright,
Where a searching shadow swings along.
The hound of the autumn wind is slow,
He loves to bask in the heat and sleep
When the sun through the drowsy haze bends low,
And frosts from the hills through the starlight creep;
But oftentimes he starts in his dreams,
When the howl of the winter wolf draws nigh,
Then lazily rolls in the gold-warm beams,
While the flocking birds to the south drift by.
Oct. 24.—At this time of the year we get evenings and nights "that were not meant for slumber." They invite us to lowly self-communion, mental expansion, and serene thoughts. After a busy day the night comes upon us unexpectedly, before the chores are done, and there is an irresistible temptation to sit in the darkness and be at peace. The warm air is heavy with the odour of ripe apples, and the shrill concert of the crickets and other innumerable insects is so steadily maintained that it seems a new phase of silence. One thin note is poured out so insistently that you almost mistake it for a ringing in your ears. Over this beats a ceaseless rhythm that rises and falls in waves of sound as if in obedience to the baton of some invisible leader. Through all rises the irregular shrilling of the crickets. This autumn concert is so constant that the ear becomes unconscious of it, except in moments of attention. Yet it seems to have a stimulating effect on the mind. Sitting idly in the darkness, we find our thoughts becoming active with all manner of themes—the progress of science—the mystery of our political and business organisations—the place and fate of the individual in the scheme of things.
While meditating idly on these things in the darkness under the stars I could not help realising how little we really understand about even the most familiar scientific, business, commercial, or political facts. They seem to be of importance to the race rather than to the individual. The individual is compelled to do his part in carrying out all sorts of ideas of which even the mightiest have no control and perhaps but little understanding. Thinking along this line I looked up at the stars and quite naturally thought of the astronomical facts that are now the commonplaces of our public schools. Where I sat I was facing the "Circle of Constant Apparition" and overhead was the constellation Lyra, towards which the sun and its attendant planets are said to be rushing like a flaming disc sent spinning through space from the hand of some mighty discobolus. My thoughts turned to the motions of the heavenly bodies as they are taught to us in the schools. For years I thought I had a clear conception of the motions of the earth on its axis and around the sun, and with little effort could visualise it as
"A great round marvel, rolling in space."