was a coward before one of the simplest, most in-
evitable happenings of earthly life. He was a coward
before summer heat. All winter he dreaded summer.
Summer poisoned the spring for him. Only during
the autumn did he experience anything of peace.
Summer was then over, and between him and another
summer stretched the blessed perspective of winter.
Then Daniel Wise drew a long breath and looked
about him, and spelled out the beauty of the earth
in his simple primer of understanding. Daniel had
in his garden behind the house a prolific grape-vine.
He ate the grapes, full of the savor of the dead sum-
mer, with the gusto of a poet who can at last enjoy
triumph over his enemy.

Possibly it was the vein of poetry in Daniel which
made him a coward -- which made him so vulnerable.
During the autumn he reveled in the tints of the
landscape which his sitting-room windows com-
manded. There were many maples and oaks. Day
by day the roofs of the houses in the village be-
came more evident, as the maples shed their crimson
and gold and purple rags of summer. The oaks re-
mained, great shaggy masses of dark gold and burn-
ing russet; later they took on soft hues, making
clearer the blue firmament between the boughs.
Daniel watched the autumn trees with pure delight.
"He will go to-day," he said of a flaming maple
after a night of frost which had crisped the white
arches of the grass in his dooryard. All day he