gods smiled upon him then if ever. The time of the chase, the season of
the buck and the doe, and of the ripening of all forest fruits; the
time when all men are incipient hunters, when the first frosts have
given pungency to the air, when to be abroad on the hills or in the
woods is a delight that both old and young feel,--if the red aborigine
ever had his summer of fullness and contentment, it must have been at
this season, and it fitly bears his name.

In how many respects fall imitates or parodies the spring! It is
indeed, in some of its features, a sort of second youth of the year.
Things emerge and become conspicuous again. The trees attract all eyes
as in May. The birds come forth from their summer privacy and parody
their spring reunions and rivalries; some of them sing a little after a
silence of months. The robins, bluebirds, meadowlarks, sparrows, crows,
all sport, and call, and behave in a manner suggestive of spring. The
cock grouse drums in the woods as he did in April and May. The pigeons
reappear, and the wild geese and ducks. The witch-hazel blooms. The
trout spawns. The streams are again full. The air is humid, and the
moisture rises in the ground. Nature is breaking camp, as in spring she
was going into camp. The spring yearning and restlessness is
represented in one by the increased desire to travel.

Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration. Both seasons have
their equinoxes, both their filmy, hazy air, their ruddy forest tints,
their cold rains, their drenching fogs, their mystic moons; both have
the same solar light and warmth, the same rays of the sun; yet, after
all, how different the feelings which they inspire! One is the morning,
the other the evening; one is youth, the other is age.

The difference is not merely in us; there is a subtle difference in the