es, or from the top of a stake in
the fence, and leading off toward the sky, may be seen the cables of
the flying spider,--a fairy bridge from the visible to the invisible.
Occasionally seen against a deep mass of shadow, and perhaps enlarged
by clinging particles of dust, they show quite plainly and sag down
like a stretched rope, or sway and undulate like a hawser in the tide.

They recall a verse of our rugged poet, Walt Whitman:--

"A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where, in a little promontory, it stood isolated:
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly spreading them.

"And you, O my soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--
Seeking the spheres to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need be formed--till the ductile anchor
hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my soul."

To return a little, September may be described as the month of tall
weeds. Where they have been suffered to stand, along fences, by
roadsides, and in forgotten corners,--redroot, pigweed, ragweed,
vervain, goldenrod, burdock, elecampane, thistles, teasels, nettles,
asters, etc.,--how they lift themselves up as if not afraid to be seen
now! They are all outlaws; every man's hand is against them; yet how
surely they hold their own! They love the roadside, because here they
are comparatively safe; and ragged and dusty, like the common tramps
that they are, they form one of the characteristic features of early
fall.

I have often noticed in what haste certain weeds are at times to
produce their seeds. Redroot will grow three or four feet high when it
has the whole season before it; but let it get a late start, let it
come up in August, and it scarcely gets above the ground before it
heads out, and apparently goes to work with all its might and main to
mature its seed. In the growth of most plants or weeds, April and May
represent their root, June and July their stalk, and August and
September their flower and seed. Hence, when the stalk months are
stricken out, as in the present case, there is only time for a shallow
root and a foreshortened head. I think most weeds that get a late
start show this curtailment of stalk, and this solicitude to reproduce
themselves. But I have not observ