The curlew is still whistling under the plum-bushes not far away, so that the dog sometimes starts up to see who calls him; but now all the fragrant plum-blossoms have fallen away and the small green fruit hangs in clusters. Midsummer has gone; with it came the scorching southeast wind which turns the grass to hay and kills the flowers like a November frost. And, since they are dead, the wilderness is too lonely. While they lived, they were society enough for a hermit; they smiled a sweet good-morning at every sunrise, and filled the evening twilight with fragrance which carried my thoughts away to an old New England home and to happy days spent long ago in gathering forest flowers on the Connecticut hills. There has been enough of hermit life for one year. It has been pleasant; but the end of it will be pleasant, too. [Illustration] The Dangerous Dog The dangerous dog in the drawing-room lay, And snapped at the houseflies that came in his way. "I'm a dangerous canine!" he said "Beware how you trouble a creature of my--" But his speech was cut short as he happened to spy A bumble-bee close to his head! GEORGE WASHINGTON. [_An Historical Biography._] BY HORACE E. SCUDDER. [Illustration: WASHINGTON'S SWORD,--NOW IN THE LIBRARY OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT AT WASHINGTON.] CHAPTER XXII. MR. WASHINGTON. It was hard for Washington at first to forget that he was no longer Commander-in-Chief. He had so long been accustomed to wake early, and at once begin to think of the cares of the day, that it was a novel sensation to discover that he had no cares beyond looking after his estate. It chanced that the winter of 1783-4 was a very severe one. The roads were blocked with snow, the streams were frozen, and Washington found himself almost a prisoner at Mount Vernon. He was not even able to go to Fredericksburg to see his mother, until the middle of February. He was not sorry for his enforced quiet. It left him leisure to look over his papers and enjoy the company of his wife and his wife's grandchildren, whom he had adopted as his own children. His public papers had been put into the hands of Col. Richard Varick, in 1781, and they were now returned to him, arranged and classified and copied into volumes, in a manner to delight the methodical soul of their author. [Illustration: A LAMP THAT ONCE BELONGED TO WASHINGTON--NOW IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.]