All the morning the marsh grass billowed and the water sparkled, one to another, about their houses, and if you listened to the grass you might hear its fine little sibilant song, a soft susurrus of words whose only consonant is s, set to a sleepy swing. It is a song that seems to harmonize with the fine tan tones of the bog as they fade into silvery white where the sun reflects from smooth spears. Over on the distant hillside the pines, navy blue under cloud shadows, hummed in the wind like bassoons; distant and muted cornets sang clear in the maples, and all about the feathery heads of the olive swamp cedars you caught the faint shrilling of fifes if you would but listen intently. Now and then the glocken-spiel tinkled in mellow yellow notes among the dry reeds on the marge, but these echoed but familiar runes. The tan-white bog grass that is so wild it never heard the swish of scythe, sang, soft and sibilant, an elfin song of the lonely and untamed. With the singing of the wind into the tender spring of the south side the day grew cold with clouds. The sky was no longer softly blue, but gray and chilling, the pond lost its sparkle and grew purple and numb with cold, and all among the bare limbs you heard the song of the promise of snow. But the clouds stopped at a definite line in the west and at setting the sun dropped below this and sent a golden flood rolling through the trees that mark the boundary between field and pond, lighting up all the bog with glory and gilding the muskrat teepees and the tall bog grass and the distant trees across the water till all the sere and withered leaves were bathed in serenity, as softly and serenely bright as if the golden age had come to us all. In this wise the crystal day, with its sheltered exultation of spring and its gray promise of winter’s snow all fused into one golden delight of sunset glory, marched on over the western hills trailing paths of gilded shadow behind it along which one walked the homeward way as if into the perfect day. CERTAIN WHITE-FACED HORNETS