get the fragrance and the bloom of it, and show it to Polly, who is making herself useful, as taster and companion, at the foot of the ladder, before dropping it into the basket.  But we have other company.  The robin, the most knowing and greedy bird out of paradise (I trust he will always be kept out), has discovered that the grape-crop is uncommonly good, and has come back, with his whole tribe and family, larger than it was in pea-time.  He knows the ripest bunches as well as anybody, and tries them all.  If he would take a whole bunch here and there, say half the number, and be off with it, I should not so much care.  But he will not.  He pecks away at all the bunches, and spoils as many as he can.  It is time he went south.

There is no prettier sight, to my eye, than a gardener on a ladder in his grape-arbor, in these golden days, selecting the heaviest clusters of grapes, and handing them down to one and another of a group of neighbors and friends, who stand under the shade of the leaves, flecked with the sunlight, and cry, “How sweet!” “What nice ones!” and the like,—­remarks encouraging to the man on the ladder.  It is great pleasure to see people eat grapes.

Moral Truth.—­I have no doubt that grapes taste best in other people’s mouths.  It is an old notion that it is easier to be generous than to be stingy.  I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

Philosophical Observation.—­Nothing shows one who his friends are like prosperity and ripe fruit.  I had a good friend in the country, whom I almost never visited except in cherry-time.  By your fruits you shall know them.

SEVENTEENTH WEEK

I like to go into the garden these warm latter days, and muse.  To muse is to sit in the sun, and not think of anything.  I am not sure but goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire.  The late September and October sun of this latitude is something like the sun of extreme Lower Italy:  you can stand a good deal of it, and apparently soak a winter supply into the system.  If one only could take in his winter fuel in this way!  The next great discovery will, very likely, be the conservation of sunlight.  In the correlation of forces, I look to see the day when the superfluous sunshine will be utilized; as, for instance, that which has burned up my celery this year will be converted into a force to work the garden.

This sitting in the sun amid the evidences of a ripe year is the easiest part of gardening I have experienced.  But what a combat has gone on here!  What vegetable passions have run the whole gamut of ambition, selfishness, greed of place, fruition, satiety, and now rest here in the truce of exhaustion!  What a battle-field, if one may look upon it so!  The corn has lost its ammunition, and stacked arms in a slovenly, militia