e of an August day, like all life, comes too quickly to a
close. In the morning of a day, of a summer, or of a life, there seems
so much ahead; so many friends to help and cheer, so much beauty to
behold, so many pleasant roads to roam, so much to accomplish, and so
many treasures to gather by the way. But when the days are growing
shorter and the twilight falls, perhaps it is enough if we can feel
that we have at the best but faithful failures; perhaps enough if we
have forgotten the dust and the rocks and the mire, and have treasured
only the memories of the beauty and the music and the joy which was
ours by the way; surely enough if we can look forward happily and
peacefully to the west where

_The sky is aglow with colors untold,
With a triumph of crimson and opal and gold,
And wavering curtains woven of fire
Are hung o'er the portals of Day's desire.
The sun goes to rest in his western halls
And over the world, the twilight falls._

And then the glory fades to gray and beautiful Venus smiles at us just
over the tops of the trees. Little is heard save the occasional note
of the whip-poor-will and the constant reminder from the katydid that
it is not far to frost. But the river ripples softly around the rocks
and a cool air stirs in the trees above, exorcising all mournful
spirits. The harvest moon is rising and the white light lies sleeping,
dreaming, on trees and cliff and river. On such a night pleading Pan
wooed his coy nymph with the promise:

_And then I'll tell you tales that no one knows
Of what the trees talk in the summer nights;
When far above you hear them murmuring,
As they sway whispering to the lifting breeze._

IX.--THE PASSING OF SUMMER

When the wild plums ripen in the thicket by the creek and the grapes
are purpling in the kisses of the sun; when even the sunlight itself
grows mellow and the landscape wears a dreamy haze, colored like the
bloom on a plum, as if the year, too, had reached perfect ripeness;
then it is mid-September and Iowa begins a season of loveliness which
shall hardly be excelled anywhere on earth.

Young birds imitate the spring songs of their parents in a faint,
wistful, reminiscent way, some of those hatched early in the year
rising almost to full song, as in the case of the meadow larks whose
music rings through the meadows and makes the balmy afternoons seem
like those of early May. The wild strawberry blossoms aga