In the fall of the year the meadows of Aspen glimmer in the sunlight
like crumpled sheets of beaten gold; for Aspen is the land of
golden-rod, of yellow earth and gilded fern.
There the crisp oaks rustle, every leaf a blot of yellow; there the
burnished pines sound, sound, tremble, and resound, like gilt-stringed
harps aquiver in the wind.
Sweet fern, sun-dried, bronzed, fills all the hills with incense, vague
and delicate as the white down drifting from the frothy milkweed.
And where the meadow brook prattled, limpid, filtered with sunlight,
Sweetheart stood knee-deep in fragrant mint, watching the aimless
minnows swimming in circles. On a distant hill, dark against the blue,
Donald moved with his dogs, and I saw the sun-glint on his gun, and I
heard the distant "Hi--on! Hi--on!" long after he disappeared below the
brown hill's brow.
Walter, too, had gone, leaving us there by the brook together,
Sweetheart and I; and I saw the crows flapping and circling far over
the woods, and I heard the soft report of his dust-shot shells among
the trees.
"The ruling passion, Sweetheart," I said. "Donny chases the phantom of
pleasure with his dogs. The phantom flies from Walter, and he follows
with his dust-shot."
"Then," said Sweetheart, "follow your phantom also; there are
butterflies everywhere." She raised both arms and turned from the
brook. "Everywhere flying I see butterflies--phantoms of pleasure; and,
Jack, you do not follow with your net."
"No," said I, "the world to-day is too fair to--slay in. I even doubt
that the happiness of empires hinges on the discovery of a new species
of anything. Do I bore you?"
"A little," said Sweetheart, touching the powdered gold of the blossoms
about her. She laid the tip of her third finger on her lips and then
on the golden-rod. "I shall not pick it; the world is too fair to-day,"
she said. "What are you going to do, Jack?"
"I could doze," I said. "Could you?"
"Yes--if you told me stories."
I contemplated her in silence for a moment. After a while she sat down
under an oak and clasped her hands.
"I am growing so old," she sighed, "I no longer take pleasure
in childish things--Donald's dogs, Walter's humming birds, your
butterflies. Jack?"
"What?"
"Sit down on the grass."
"What for?"
"Because I ask you."