Summer Passes
by Rowland E. Robinson
WHEN we were in the midst of the desolation of winter with the
muffled whiteness spread far around us, the nakedness of trees on every
side, far and near only gray and white, and above us the cold steel-blue
of the sky, no songs of birds, no lap of waves on shores, no tinkle of running
brooks, no cheerfuller sound anywhere than the mournful baying of hounds
awakening the echoes among the silent hills, summer with all its gladness
and brightness seemed as far away and unattainable as the red and golden
glory that mocked us in the sunset cloud.
Yet, like the swift, unaccountable shiftings of a dream, we have seen the
transformation from white and gray through almost imperceptible changes
to drearier dun, to the green flush of sunny slopes, to purpling of woods
with swelling buds, then sprinkling of tender green, then to full leafage
with tints as varied as autumn's hues, and the broad fields, green with
lush herbage, dappled with bloom. And again we have heard the rush of free
brooks and the wash of waves on pebbly shores, and the songs of all the
birds, and the droning of the vagrant bumble bee.
The summer that but a while ago seemed so far off has come. Sunbonnets and
straw hats bobbing above the herdsgrass and daisies, with bobolinks in arrested
flight scolding musically over them, give token of ripe strawberries. Busy
robins flock to the cherry trees to claim the first fruit. The incessant
chirr of the mowing machine comes from a distant meadow, like the voice
of some gigantic locust, and, mingled with it, the old midsummer music of
the whetted scythe. The first raspberries ripen in the fence corners, the
apple branches stoop to the weight of growing fruit, and the squirrels make
midden heaps under the pear trees.
There are days and weeks of drought, when corn leaves droop and curl, and
even the sturdy weeds wilt; the crop pastures grow sear and dusty under
the hooves of hungry flocks and herds; the babbling rivulets are silent
dry gullies, and the noisy rivers are shrunk to attenuated threads that
crawl among the boulders of their beds with scarcely enough strength to
stir their shallow pools. Distant thunderstorms growl unfulfilled promises
of rain. For a little while the red, rayless sun is veiled with clouds;
the shifting breeze brings the wholesome fragrance of moist earth, and the
parched ground is tantalized with a patter of great raindrops, and then
the red sun blazes forth again, fierce and relentless.
But one night we awake to hear the steady patter of rain upon the roof and
leaves, the drip of eaves, until the thirsty earth drinks its fill, and
the replenished brooks overflow and comb the meadow grass down flat and
straight upon their banks.
Along the shaded stream or rock-bound shore of lake the angler invites the
capricious bass with various lures, or trolls for pike and pickerel in winding,
rush-paled channels where white squadrons of anchored waterlilies are tossed
on the boat's wake. The splash of oars frightens a wood duck and her half-grown
brood to flight, tearing out of the sedges with a prodigious flutter and
a clamor of tremulous squeaks that makes one's heart beat as quick as their
vibrant wings, in anticipation of glorious autumnal sport. A startled bittern,
with an unmistakable expression of disgust at the intrusion, springs awkwardly
from the weeds, and a great heron breaks from statuesque repose and sags
away on laboring pinions, until he is a wavering speck against the sky.
Wandering in neighboring woods where dwarf cornel dapples the hemlock shade
with its white blossoms and scarlet berries, the summer idler may get a
shack of the nerves by the sudden outburst of a pack of grouse from a quiet
bramble thicket, the half-grown birds almost as strong of wing as the old,
and already shaking thunder from their swift pinions, sounding another promise
of autumn's glorious days.
As swiftly as the spring went, the summer passes; the bobolink has donned
his sober coat and gone; the plover chuckles his farewell to northern uplands;
the swallows congregate in grand council, considering migration; the last
flame of summer is kindled in the cardinal's bloom; presently we shall see
the first glow of autumn's many-colored fires.
Rowland E. Robinson was a turn-of-the-century Vermonter.