Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift themselves out
of the wilderness of shrubs. They look dwarfed and gloomy,
as if Nature had been an untender mother, and denied
them proper nourishment.

The road is a little-traveled one, and furrows of feathery grasses
grow between the long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts.

The first goldenrod gleams among the loose stones at the foot
of the alder bushes. Whole families of pale butterflies,
just out of their long sleep, perch on the brilliant stalks
and tilter up and down in the sunshine.

Straggling processions of wooly brown caterpillars wend their way
in the short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple
bull-thistle are coming into bloom.

The song of birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains
are given over to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies,
the humming of bees, and the chirping of crickets that stir
the drowsy air when the summer begins to wane.

It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard
in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro,
the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds.
All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's,
or a man's? Neither yet all three.


"I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding,