the tides.  The few old gentlefolks who still linger will be dead then; and I wonder if some day Kate Lancaster and I will go down to Deephaven for the sake of old times, and read the epitaphs in the burying-ground, look out to sea, and talk quietly about the girls who were so happy there one summer long before.  I should like to walk along the beach at sunset, and watch the color of the marshes and the sea change as the light of the sky goes out.  It would make the old days come back vividly.  We should see the roofs and chimneys of the village, and the great Chantrey elms look black against the sky.  A little later the marsh fog would show faintly white, and we should feel it deliciously cold and wet against our hands and faces; when we looked up there would be a star; the crickets would chirp loudly; perhaps some late sea-birds would fly inland.  Turning, we should see the lighthouse lamp shine out over the water, and the great sea would move and speak to us lazily in its idle, high-tide sleep.

SELECTED STORIES AND SKETCHES

Contents

AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY

FROM A MOURNFUL VILLAGER

AN OCTOBER RIDE

TOM’S HUSBAND

MISS DEBBY’S NEIGHBORS

An Autumn Holiday

I had started early in the afternoon for a long walk; it was just the weather for walking, and I went across the fields with a delighted heart.  The wind came straight in from the sea, and the sky was bright blue; there was a little tinge of red still lingering on the maples, and my dress brushed over the late golden-rods, while my old dog, who seemed to have taken a new lease of youth, jumped about wildly and raced after the little birds that flew up out of the long brown grass—­the constant little chickadees, that would soon sing before the coming of snow.  But this day brought no thought of winter; it was one of the October days when to breathe the air is like drinking wine, and every touch of the wind against one’s face is a caress:  like a quick, sweet kiss, that wind is.  You have a sense of companionship; it is a day that loves you.

I went strolling along, with this dear idle day for company; it was a pleasure to be alive, and to go through the dry grass, and to spring over the stone walls and the shaky pasture fences.  I stopped by each of the stray apple-trees that came in my way, to make friends with it, or to ask after its health, if it were an old friend.  These old apple-trees make very charming bits of the world in October; the leaves cling to them later than to the other trees, and the turf keeps short and green underneath; and in this grass, which was frosty in the morning, and has not quite dried yet, you can find some cold little cider apples, with one side knurly, and one shiny