10 15 We must except the maple trees. Some of them are changed to a straw color. Yonder is one very green except one branch, which stretches up from the bottom nearly to the top, and that is of vivid scarlet. It looks 5 like a tree with a great bouquet of flowers in its bosom. But along the fences are crimson leaves; the autumn yellows predominate. The corn is cut up, and stands out on the hills around here in shocks to dry. The emerald grass was never more tender in its green. The orchard is waiting to be relieved of its burden. All summer long it has eased itself by throwing down a part of its fruits, worm-picked or storm-gathered; and now those apples that remain, full-grown, plump, ripe, look wistfully at you, as if asking your care for winter. And the birds, how they do behave! how they do behave! What is the matter with them? No one of them frolics. They have lost all their gamesome ways. They collect in mown fields for seeds, they hover about orchards, exchanging remarks among themselves in low tones, like well-bred 20 people, but none of them boisterous, frisky, or songful. Bluebirds, robins, and such sorts, abound; sometimes scores flock about, then trios and fours. It is plain that they are done with summer. They have no nests now. Their children are all grown up. 25 the old folks' party. The birds all belong to Abridged. sub'tile delicate. Distinguish between this and subtle. -elix'ir: an invigorating drink. cope anything extended over the head, as a roof or the sky. DYING IN HARNESS JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY was born in Ireland in 1844. His life was full of incident and interest. In 1869 he came to America and became known as a writer and editor. He died in Massachusetts in 1890. Only a fallen horse, stretched out there on the road, Stretched in the broken shafts and crushed by the heavy 5 load; Only a fallen horse, and a circle of wondering eyes Watching the 'frighted teamster goading the beast to rise. Hold! for his toil is over-no more labor or him; dim; See on the friendly stones now peacefully rests the head-10 Watchers, he died in harness-died in the shafts and Fell, and the burden killed him: one of the day's mishaps One of the passing wonders marking the city road— A toiler dying in harness, heedless of call or goad. 15 Passers, crowding the pathway, staying your steps awhile, What is the symbol? Only death? why should we cease to smile At death for a beast of burden? On, through the busy street That is ever and ever echoing the tread of the hurrying feet. 5 What was the sign? A symbol to touch the tireless will? Does He who taught in parables speak in parables still? The seed on the rock is wasted-on heedless hearts of men, That gather and sow and grasp and lose - labor and sleep-and then Then for the prize! - A crowd in the street of ever-echoing tread 10 The toiler, crushed by the heavy load, is there in his harness-dead. THOUGHTS ON GARDENING CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER NOTE. — These selections are taken from "My Summer in a Garden.” I I was hoeing my corn this morning for the first time,it is not well usually to hoe corn until about the 18th of May, - when Polly came out to look at the Lima beans. She seemed to think the poles had come up beautifully. 5 I thought they did look well; they are a fine set of poles, large and well grown, and stand straight. Polly noticed that the beans had not themselves come up in any proper sense, but that the dirt had got off from them, leaving them uncovered. She thought it would be 10 well to sprinkle a slight layer of dirt over them; and I indulgently consented. It occurred to me, when she had gone, that beans always come up that way,- wrong end first; and that what they wanted was light, and not dirt. II "Eternal gardening is the price of liberty" is a motto 15 that I should put over the gateway of my garden, if I had a gate. And yet it is not wholly true; for there is no liberty in gardening. The man who undertakes a garden has planted a seed that will keep him awake nights, drive rest from his bones, and sleep from his pillow. Hardly is the garden planted when he must begin to hoe it. The weeds have sprung up all over it in a night. They shine and wave in redundant life. And the weeds are not all. 5 I awake in the morning (and a thriving garden will wake a person up two hours before he ought to be out of bed). and think of the tomato plants, the leaves like fine lace work, owing to black bugs that skip around and can't be caught. Somebody ought to get up before the dew is off 10 and sprinkle soot on the leaves. I wonder if it is I. Soot is so much blacker than the bugs that they are disgusted and go away. You can't get up too early if you have a garden. I think that, on the whole, it would be best to sit up all night and sleep daytimes. Things appear to go 15 on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less trouble to stay up than it is to get up so early. III I had begun to nurse a good deal of pride in presiding over a table whereon was the fruit of my honest industry. I thought I had something to do with those vegetables. 20 But when I saw Polly seated at her side of the table, presiding over the new and susceptible vegetables, flanked by the squash and the beans, and smiling upon the green corn and the new potatoes, as cool as the cucumbers which lay sliced in ice before her, and when she began to dis25 pense the fresh dishes, I saw at once that the day of my |