hung
humming above the flowers. Honey-bees, Carpenter-bees,
Digger-wasps, the blue Mud-dauber, the brown Paper-wasp, Hornets
and Yellow-jackets were busy at their various occupations. One
dusted pollen into its "basket;" another dumped aromatic pellets
of sawdust from a cedar rail; another scooped up mandible
hodfulls of mortar at the edge of the brook; others plucked
chiplets of old wood from a weathered fence post; all seemed
happy, and devoted to peaceful industry.

The great green Grasshopper was in hearing, if not in sight, the
veritable "hopper" whose long threadlike antennae and wedge shaped
head you have taught us to recognize as marking the true from the
so called grasshopper or locust. He sat upon the tall grass on
the bank of the Run close by the spring house, and shrilled his
piping love call to his mate. The annual Cicada, too ("Pruinosa"
you called it), was sounding his amorous drum from the trees with
a volume and sharpness of sound that far exceed those of his
cousin german the Seventeen Year Cicada. His silent ladylove
might occasionally be seen flitting from bough to bough. An
Orbweaving spider's web was spun upon an adjacent bush, and three
courtiers were established at different parts of the margin of
the snare awaiting the complaisance of Madam Aranea the
housekeeper. Near my feet a bevy of Fuscous Ants[B] were tugging
with great to-do at a crumb of sweet cake, while their fellow
formicarians were equally concerned in covering and screening the
gate of their nest that lay to the right under the verge of the
Elm's shadow. Birds of several species were near by; Robins
whistled in the meadow, a Vireo sang in the tree tops, Sparrows
twittered around the birdcote; Hens cackled in the barnyard, and
wakened the hearty, answering "Tuk-aw, tuk-aw!" of the big red
Rooster. Out in the lane Sarah's conch shell was sending a
melodious call to Hugh whom the Mistress had bidden her to summon
from the wood pasture. The whole aspect of Nature, indeed, was so
charming that I was soothed into a delicious repose of body and
mind.

I am conscious, dear Sir, that I shall lay a heavy tax upon your
credulity by what I am now to relate. Or, perhaps, you will smile
and say that your friend Abby has fallen to dreams and visions,
and like some of her young pupils has imagination so little
disciplined as to b