orchard it is almost like a light snowfall.
The meadows rising beyond the barns are silvered over wherever the long
tree-shadows still lie. And in my garden, too, where the shadows linger,
every leaf is frosted, but as soon as the sun warms them through, leaf and
twig turn dark and droop to the ground. It is the end.

Except, indeed, for my brave marigolds and calendulas and little button
asters. It is for this reason that I have given them space all summer,
nipping them back when they tried to blossom early, for they seem a bit
crude compared with the other flowers. But now that frost is here, my
feelings warm to them. I cannot criticize their color and texture, so
grateful am I to them for not giving up. And when last night's cuttings
have faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing mass of marigold beside my
fireplace, and of the yellow stars of calendula, like embodied sunshine,
on my dining-table.

Well, then, the frost has come! And after the first pang of realization, I
find that, curiously enough, the worst is over. Since it has come, let it
come! And now--hurrah for the garden house-cleaning! The garden is dead--the
garden of yesterday! Long live the garden--the garden of to-morrow! For
suddenly my mind has leaped ahead to spring.

I can hardly wait for breakfast to be over, before I am out in working
clothes, pulling up things--not weeds now, but flowers, or what were
flowers. Nasturtiums, asters, cosmos, snapdragon, stock, late-blooming
cornflowers--up they all come, all the annuals, and the biennials that have
had their season. I fling them together in piles, and soon have small
haystacks all along my grass paths, and--there I am! Down again to the good
brown earth!

It is with positive satisfaction that I stand and survey my beds, great
bare patches of earth, glorified here and there by low clumps of calendula
and great bushes of marigold. Now, then! I can do anything! I can dig, and
fertilize, and transplant. Best of all, I can plan and plan! The crisp
wind stings my cheeks, but as I work I feel the sun hot on the back of my
neck. I get the smell of the earth as I turn it over, mingled with the
pungent tang of marigold blossoms, very pleasant out of doors, though
almost too strong for the house except near a fireplace. I believe the
most characteristic fall odors are to me this of marigold, mingled with
the fragrance of apples piled in the orchard, the good smell of earth
newly turned up, and the flavor of