Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/242

Summer is over. Again the air becomes cooler. The straw hats are discarded, so also are the linen suits; we begin to look up heavier clothing, for although the sun still shines brightly, the nights are growing chill. Even at midday we no longer seek the shady side of the streets or roadways.

In the woods all the little inhabitants are preparing for the approaching winter. Backward and forward, from the beech tree to his nest under the wood-pile, runs the nimble little brown-coated, striped-back chipmunk, each trip adding to the pile of beech nuts secreted in the storehouse of this provident little fellow. Scampering along the top rail of the fence the gray squirrel may be seen, also busily engaged in laying up a supply of winter stores. The birds are gathering in large flocks, with noisy twitterings and excited flutterings, preparatory to their yearly pilgrimage to the Sunny South. The bouncing hare is thinking of discarding its summer coat of brown and donning its white winter furs. The leaves of the ivy vines shine like red fire wreathed around the tree trunks. All nature seems busy going through a transformation scene—an air of preparation is visible everywhere.

The reports of the sportsmen's guns may be heard, and their dogs may be seen in the stubble-fields manœuvreing like well-