* * * * *

Comforting and soothing as the touch of a loved hand on a fevered brow
come the first cooling breezes of September after the fierce white
heat of August. Sweeter than music is the sound of the wind, as it
passes through the woods, welcomed by millions of waving branches and
dancing leaves. It brings the call of the quail, the scream of the
jay, the bark of the squirrel, the crack of the hunter's gun, the
first notes of the returning bluebirds, the clean, keen scent of the
earth after rain, the courage and joy of life, motion, action. Seen
from the top of a cliff the acres of foliage spread out in the creek
valley beneath has a motion suggesting the waves of the sea, now
flowing in green billows before the wind, now whipped into spray at
the shore of the creek where the willows show the white sides of their
leaves.

In the fields the far-flung banners of the corn take on ripening tints
and begin to rustle drily in the breeze. Golden ears, wrapped in
tobacco-brown silk, are pushing from tanned and purplish husks.
Newly-plowed fields were made possible by the rains which started the
grass growing in the stubble, changing the color from amber to emerald
and wrought a miracle of verdure in the pastures which August had
baked brown. Here and there the aftermath of red clover has developed
a field of new blossoms,--a little lake of pink where sunshine plays
with shadow and sturdy humble bees spend the days in ecstasy.

* * * * *

Summer puts on her last bright robes for the final floral review
before she is borne by the birds down the valley to set up her court