October Vagabonds

air, and a soft rainy sense of solemn impending change, at once brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, as of withe

. But the rain still held off, contenting itself with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, moulding and massing like visible thunder in our wake. It seemed leisurely certain, however, of catching us before nightfall; and, s

deities and days of judgment seemed concentrated in that frown of gigantic darkness. Beneath it the landscape seemed to grow livid as a corpse, and terror to fill with trembling the very trees and grasses. Oedipus and Orestes and

hich for some time had been one long descent, suddenly confronted us with a rough, perpendicular lane, overgrown with bushes, that seemed more like a cart-track to the stars

e, and a roaring fire and a hissing roast." But, alas! our eyes scanned the streaming copses in vain-nothing in sight but trees, rain and a solitary saw-mill, where an old man on a ladder assured

igh-and we stumbled out on to some upland wilderness, unlit by star or window. Then we found ourselves descending again, and at last dim shapes of clustered houses began to appear, and the white phantom of a church. We could rather feel than see the houses, for the night was so dark, and,

all be in bed by sev

m much to stay up

r married couple, and the grandchildren, and a big dog vociferously taking care of them. A lighted glimpse, a few hearty words of direction, and we were out in the night again; for though, indeed, this was Dutch Hollow, its simple microcosm did not include an hotel. For that we must walk on another half-mile or so. O those country half-miles! So on we went again, and soon a lighted stoop flashed on o

per, well! supper was "over"-supper-time was six-thirty; it was now seven-thirty. The young man seemed no little surprised, even indignant, that any one should be ignorant of the fact that supper-time at Sheldon Center was half-past six; and this, by the way, was a surprise we encountered more than once on our journey. Supper-time in the American road-house is an hour severely observed, and you disregard it at the peril of your empty stomach, for no larders seem so hermetic

active hostess flowered out upon us from her forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors-for the hotel was quite a barracks-thawing out into conversation on the way. The place, he explained, was a little out of order, owing to "the ball"-an event he referred to as a matter of national knowledge, and being, we understood, the annual ball of harvesti

for a better supper than the fried eggs and fried potatoes which copiously awaited us down-stairs. As Colin washed his down with coffee, l

ur small, carefully selected knapsack library, I found the gay-hearted fantastical boo

palm-by which tokens I realized that my slumbers were to be under the wing of the ancient Mother. As I closed my eyes, the musical chi