or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train. The
fields, like great, flat emeralds set in new metal, were bordered with
golden-rod, and at sight of this the heart leaped; for the golden-rod is a
symbol of stored granaries, of ripe sheaves, of the kindness of the season
generously given and abundantly received; more, it is the token of a land
of promise and of bounteous fulfilment; and the plant stains its blossom
with yellow so that when it falls it pays tribute to the ground which has
nourished it.

From the plain they passed again into a thick wood, where ruddy arrows of
the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly
maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and pale brown,
gallants of the forest preparing early for the October masquerade, when
they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them of their
finery for pious gray.

And when the coughing engine drew them to the borders of this wood, they
rolled out into another rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and far
to the south John Harkless marked a winding procession of sycamores,
which, he knew, followed the course of a slender stream; and the waters of
the stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might have grown, and where,
beyond an orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the
shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard's Creek. Here
the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a gentler
benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; there was the
flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint of coming frost;
the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; and the
whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the eye--for this was
Carlow County.