VII.--AN OLD ROAD IN JULY
In the old woods road a soft haze hung, too subtle to see save where
its delicate colorings were contrasted against the dark green leaves
of the oaks beyond the fence. Not the tangible, vapory haze of early
morning, but a tinted, ethereal haze, the visible effluence of the
summer, the nimbus of its power and glory. From tall cord grasses
arching over the side of the road, drawing water from the ditch in
which their feet were bathed and breathing it into the air with the
scent of their own greenness; from the transpiration of the trees,
shrubs and vines, flowers and mosses and ferns, from billions of pores
in acres of leaves it came streaming into the sunlight, vanishing
quickly, yet ever renewed, as surely as the little brook where the
grasses drank and the grackles fished for tadpoles and young frogs,
was replenished by the hidden spring. Mingled with it and floating in
it was another stream of life, the innumerable living organisms that
make up the dust of the sunshine. Pink and white, black and yellow
spores from the mushrooms over the fence in the pasture; pollen pushed
from the glumes of the red top grasses and the lilac spires of the
hedge nettle and germander by the roadside; shoals of spores from the
mosses and ferns by the trees and in the swamp; all these life
particles rose and floated in the haze, giving it tints and meanings
strangely sweet.
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