Norwich bulletin., 1918-08-31
MIDSUMMER IN NEW ENGLAND

All the way from Maine the painted fields unrolled themselves from the train windows with divers colors as of needlework. Green grasses and red, purple grass and bronze were there, and every field and meadow was starred with the passing glories of early summer. Mustard spread cloth of gold, the gladiate leave of iris rlnged the still brown pools, or march, ed along the woods edge with the wild red lily. bearing aioft it's oriftamfne of scarlet I had the fancy that here too were the colors of all the Allies; dew il's paintbrush in the daisy fields un- furled the banner of Italy.
 The woods and fields of Massa chu- setts merge into those of New Hamp- shire and those of New Hampshire into Main, all in an hours time, yet each had a character of it's own. The farm houses of Massachusetts were white, braod, and genial, their acres gently undulating; New Hampshire farms
 were fewer, small. gray, lonely, wealth err beaten, beautiful but aloof; their fields had become pastures, rock ribbed crowned with juniper, dafkened with sweet fern. In Maine the hills were l higher, the fields broader, the trees
 larger; certain ascetio grandeur ap- peared and grew with the passing miles.
 l The skyline. high above New Eng l land hills, showed the heavy, many toned clouds of Maxfield Parrish drawing, as tangible and as sunlit for l all the pines that shared their beauty pines straight and serried or solitary
 and grotesque. Later in the day they grew yet more solid, as improbable yet 1 as real as the ice cream clouds" of a
 Zuloaga, with only an occasional scare
 crow cavalier or quixotic pine black on l the near horizon.
 l SS to Maine--Maine of many woods
 and water, where the pines are music incense, and cathedral aisles all in one; where the lakes are as wild as they I were in HiaWatha's age, or as kindly and open as the lake country of thu poets; where the streams are ale. brown under the alders and hazels ant blue with piekerel- and jewele( l dfa son flies in the sun; Maine Whert 1 there are yet evening campfires, ant
 singing fishermen, and where the ai
 is heavens ether.
 Tn the sunny hill pastures that are s'
 subtly the essence of New England
 fairer that her forests, even withou
 the field flowers, sweet fern and tat
 tered calico bush, raspberries glow il the wei patches. or brake where Sprln
 Watefcourse lost its way. and amonj
 the pallid ferns that cluster among tn
 rougher hummocks belated straw
 berry is still sweet The beauty of tn
 pasture is beauty of color, however wind bent birch or cedar, rocky ledg
 that no summers growth will eve cover, or cratic storewall. On tn
 alders that have wandered up the hi , from the pond nearby I see a spotte sandpiper protesting against my pres . enee. At my approach she flies lo' l acress my path to grove Of abandone ] bean poles that stand gaunt in vast 7 of ghostly mullein. Rocking on tn top of.a pole, she gives utterance t . her excitement in a kind of barkin [ noise, darting her long neck and bob , bing her tail. When I am near enoug 5 to see her spotted breast and whit 7 shoulder markings, she, leaves her pcs , and flutters aleng the ground befer inc, her every action inviting me { look for her nest. Why is 1t that som 5 birds proclaim their secrets from th 1 housetops, and others carry discretio 5 to the point of camoufage9 If ther f is more hectic bird than the spotte g sand piper may we seldom meet.
 Beyond the pasture is row of To Q apple trees along a stone wall. Ever , other tree has an empty robins ne