rown and spotted, and all manner of magnificent colors, but chiefly
red; and then you will be Red-coats, won't you? Wood-thrush came from
north, where the tailoring began; and he saw it, and told you. It is a
sign for him to be up and flying. He thought it would be his excuse for
declining your invitation, instead of which you all went thrusting your
heads into a bramble-bush. O my!"

"But say, Chipmonk, do you know this? Are you sure of it? It seems too
good news to be true."

"Well, all I can say is, I have lived here, man and boy, nigh on to
forty months; and I know it always _has_ happened about this time. I am
young for a Chipmonk; but I was in full career long before the oldest
crone among you was born; and if there is anything hereabouts that I
don't know, you may take your affidavit it isn't worth knowing." And he
sat back, and betook himself once more to his "confiscated" corn with
the most indifferent superiority.

Oh! but there was gladness then in Leafland, you may be sure. All their
sadness was turned to rejoicing; and even then the work of
transformation--called, in squirrelicular, "tailoring"--began. Old and
young, men and maids, felt a glory in their blood. All the essence of
the summer-long sunshine seemed to pour itself into their hearts. From
one end of Leafland to another was only singing and dancing and delight.
Mapleton crowned herself with a golden crown, and Oakwich wreathed her
brows with the sunset. All the beauty of the past was dull and sombre to
this new splendor, this royal magnificence, born of the ineffable light.

A poet and a publisher walked through the Essex woods one October
afternoon; and they remarked that the foliage was very brilliant this
year, which was quite true; but if I had not been born, you never would
have known all about it.

_Gail Hamilton._

[Illustration]

THE COLOR-BEARER

[Illustration]

Was a fortress to be stormed:
Boldly right in view they formed,
All as quiet as a regiment parading:
Then in front a line of flame!
Then at left and right the same!
Two platoons received a furious enfilading.
To their places still they filed,
And they smiled at the wild
Cannonading.

"'T will be over in an hour!
'T will not be much of a shower!
Never mind, my boys," said he, "a little drizzling!"
Then to cross that fatal plain,
Through the whirring, hurt