Now is
the golden age; this hour is the center of eternity.
* * * * *
Red tints of the sunrise brightened into yellow, then followed the
white light of an August day. Now the morning mist has gone; woods,
fields and river lie silent in the hot, bright, apathetic morning.
Peace reigns over the smiling fields where Plenty pours from her
golden horn. Here, on the ridge at the top of the cliff, the woods
stretch back half a mile to meet the prairie. Straight down from the
red cedars on the brink of the rock the river softly eddies round a
huge boulder,--the remnant of some cliff tragedy countless years ago.
In the rent of the rock from which it fell a turkey-buzzard often sits
and spreads her huge wings as the boats glide by. Storms have
scalloped pockets in the softer strata; in them still hang the
phoebe's nests, which were filled with young birds in June. Here
and there a swallow's hole may be seen in the rock; earlier in the
season the young birds often peeped out from these holes as if wishing
for strength to come speedily to their wings. Across the river there
is a wide beach where the low water makes ripple-marks in the sand.
Narrow leaves of sand-bar willows fringe the shore, and back of these
are the shining leaves of the oaks.
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