Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/143

Rh chute-like reluctances which we noticed the rounder and lighter birch leaves practicing half an hour ago. The willow leaves, narrow and pointed, fall more like arrows. I am put in mind, I cannot tell why, of an early morning hour, years ago, when I happened to cross a city garden after the first killing frost, and stopped near a Kentucky coffee tree. Its foliage had been struck with death. Not a breath was stirring, but the leaves, already blackened and curled, dropped in one continuous rain. The tree was out of its latitude, and had been caught with its year's work half done. The frost was a tragedy. This breeze among the willow branches is nothing so bad as that. Its errand is all in the order of nature. It calls those who are ready.

My meditations are still running with the season, still playing with mortality, when a blue jay quits a branch near by (I had not seen him) and flies off in silence. The jay is a knowing bird. No need to tell him that there is a time for everything under the sun. He has proverbial philosophy to spare. Hark! he has found his voice; like a saucy school-boy, who waits till he is at a safe distance and