the quest of the flower-lover is not yet done and that the prize awaits the victor who presses on to the swamp around the bend where the birches hang drooping branches over quiet, fish-full pools.  The prize is worth the extra half-mile.  It is the gorgeous flower of late summer, a fit symbol of August, the queen blossom of a queenly month, the brilliant red lobelia, or cardinal flower.  There is no flower in the year so full of vivid color.  Sometimes, but only very rarely, the purple torches of the exquisite little fringed orchis (habenaria psychodes) lights up a swampy place beneath the trees and sheds its delicate fragrance as a welcome to the bees.

* * * * *

The life 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.