[Illustration: "THE FRAGRANCE OF THE MILKWEED AT EVENING" (p. 54)]




VIII.--BY THE RIVERSIDE IN AUGUST


When morning broke, little wisps of mist, like curls of white smoke,
were drifting on the surface of the river as it journeyed through the
canyon of cliffs and trees, dark as the walls of night, toward the
valley where the widening sea of day was slowly changing from gray to
rosy gold. Caught in a cove where the water was still these little
wisps gathered together and crept in folds up the face of the cliff,
as if they fain would climb to the very top where the red cedars ran
like a row of battlements, twisting their stunted trunks over the
brink and hanging their dark foliage in a fringe eighty feet above the
water. But the cliff had for centuries defied all climbers, though it
gave footing here and there to a few friendly plants. At its base the
starry-rayed leaf-cup shed a heavy scent in the stillness of the moist
morning. Higher, at the entrance to a little cave, the aromatic
spikenard, with purple stems and big leaves, stood like a sentinel.
From crannies in the limestone wall the harebell hung, its last
flowers faded, but its foliage still delicately beautiful, like the
tresses of some wraith of the river, clinging to the grim old cliff,
and waiting, like Andromeda, for a Perseus. Tiny blue-green leaves of
the cliff-brake, strung on slender, shining stems, contrasted their
delicate grace with the ruggedness of the old cliff. Still higher,
where a little more moisture trickled down from the wooded ridge
above, the walking fern climbed step by step, patiently pausing to