When the summer shower patters down among the leaves the music of the insect orchestra ceases and the performers shield their instruments with their wings.  It passes and gleams of sunshine make jewels of the raindrops.  Then a little breeze brings the aroma of the blossoming bergamot, wild mint, basil and catnip, filling the air with a spicy fragrance.  The insects tune up; soon the orchestra is at it again.  White cumulus clouds appear, floating lazily in the azure, reflected by the river below.  They chase the sunlight across the amber stubble of the oat-fields and weave huge pictures which flash and fade among the swaying tassels of the corn.

[Illustration:  “In placid ponds” (p. 92)]

And oh, the color-splendor of these August days!  Here at the top of the cliff, the orange-flowered milkweed still flames in beauty, mingled with the pink and lavender bergamot and the varied yellows of the sunflowers and the rosin weeds.  Down nearer the water’s edge where the shelves of the cliff are layered with soil, the virgin’s bower twines clusters of creamy white.  On the grassy shore where the river begins to leave the rocks the brilliant blue lobelia is breaking into blossom, contrasted with the bright lemon yellow of the helenium.  Masses of pink light up shady places where the false dragonhead grows, and the jewel weeds are thickly hung with pendant blossoms of orange and pale yellow.  The river winds along the low shores and reedy shallows, sometimes partly losing itself in placid ponds, gay with the crimson and green and blue of the dragon-flies, and fringed by dark green reeds and rushes from which Pan might well have made his pipes to charm the gods, and the Naiads of the sacred fount.  Onward it goes, now passing by a sloping bank which the gray-leaved golden rod has covered with a wealth of golden glory; for this low-growing golden rod which blossoms so early, is the most brilliantly and richly golden of them all.

[Illustration:  “Still the river beckons onward” (p. 93)]

Great fluffy masses of pink purple at the top of large-leaved stems are the blossoms of the Joe Pye Weed, and smaller clusters of royal purple in the grassy places are the efflorescence of the iron weed.  A stretch of grassy ground, which slopes down to the river’s brink, is gemmed with the thick purple clusters of the milkwort, which shines among the grass as the early blossoms of the clover used to do when the summer was young.  Here and there the little bag-like blossoms of the gerardia, or foxglove, are opening among the stems of the fading grass, and the white blossoms of the marsh bellflower, the midget member of the campanula family, are apparently as fresh and numerous as they were in early July.  Water horehound has whitish whorls of tiny blossoms and prettily cut leaves, which are as interesting as the flowers.  And still the river beckons onward, murmuring that