Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/136

118 does not sound like bad news. I listen to it with a kind of pleasure, as to solemn music. If the doctor or the clergyman had brought me the same word, my spirit might have risen in rebellion; but the falling leaf may say what it likes. It has poet's leave.

How gracefully they come to the ground, here one and there another; slowly, slowly, with leisurely dips and turns, as if the breeze loved them and would buoy them up till the last inevitable moment. Children of air and sunshine, they must return to the dust. So all things move in circles,—life and death, death and life. Happy leaves! they depart without formalities, with no funereal trappings. The wind whispers to them, and they follow.

As I watch them falling, a gray squirrel startles me. I rejoice to see him. He, too, is a falling leaf. In truth, his living presence takes me by surprise. So many gunners have been in this wood of late, all so murderously equipped, that I had thought every squirrel must before this time have gone into the game-bag. Be careful, young fellow; you will need all your spryness and