The chickadees are here, and scarlet tanagers gleam like living bits of fire among the tantalizing leaves. Pert little vireos hop inquisitively about you, and the bell note of the wood-thrush echoes from the hidden tree-top overhead. Perhaps, too, you may chance upon a downy brood of quail cuddling among the dry leaves; but, even though you should, you might pass them by unnoticed, except as a mildewed spot of fungus at the edge of a fallen log or tree-stump, perhaps. The loamy ground is shaded knee-deep with rank growth of wood plants. The mossy, speckled rock is set in a fringe of ferns. Palmate sprays of ginseng spread in mid-air a luxurious carpet of intermingled leaves, interspersed with yellow spikes of loosestrife and pale lilac blooms of crane’s-bill; and the poison-ivy, creeping like a snake around that marbled beech, has screened its hairy trunk beneath its three-cleft shiny leaves. The mountain-laurel, with its deep green foliage and showy clusters, peers above that rocky crag; and in the bog near by a thicket of wild azalea is crowned with a profusion of pink blossoms.
Out in the swamp meadow the tall clumps of boneset show their dull white crests, and the blue flowers of the flag, the mint, and pickerel weed deck the borders of the lily pond. The waddling geese let off their shrieking calliopes as they sail out into the stream, or browse with nodding twitch along the grassy bank. Swarms of yellow butterflies disgrace their kind as they huddle around the greenish mud-holes, and we hear on every side the “z-zip, z-zip,” amidst the din of a thousand crickets and singing locusts among the reeds and rushes. The meadows roll and swell in billowy waves, bearing like a white-speckled foam upon their crests a sea of daisies, with here and there a floating patch of crimson clover, or a golden haze of butter-cups. Rising suddenly from the tall grass near by, the gushing brimful bobolink crowds a half-hour’s song into a brief pell-mell rapture, beating time in mid-air with his trembling wings, and alighting on the tall fence-rail to regain his breath. A coy meadow-lark shows his yellow-breast and crescent above the windrow yonder, and we hear the ringing beats of whetted scythes, and see the mowers cut their circling swath.
Mowing! Why, how is this? This surely is not Spring. But even thus the Springtime leads us into Summer. No eye can mark the soft transition, and ere we are aware the sweet fragrance of the new-mown hay breathes its perfumed whisper, “Behold, the Spring has fled!”
SUMMER.
