Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

“It didn’t shoot straight anyway and so he told Fred that if he sold it, he could have a quarter. Riches had some rats then that bothered his chickens. Fred lent the gun to him and I guess he happened to kill a rat, so he gave Fred two dollars for it That’s all the gun cost.”
“Fred ought to have gotten fifty cents for that.”
“Or else put in jail for false pretences!” But let’s go to the woods anyhow; it’s a nice day”
“All-right. Are you going to wear those clothes?”
“I guess so. I don’t think I’ll hurt them.”
Off we started, headed for Bentleys Woods, which is the nearest one to our homes. On the way we picked to dry milk-weed stalks and use them as spears bombarding each other like a couple of savages. We soon found ourselves in the woods. What a scene of desolation here! Birds gone, everything green now brown, and a stillness that said summer is gone!
“Sommer ist hin” I chanted
“Ihr sonnigen Weiden, lebt wohl.”
Pages of the old German folk-song that we had studied last year and Wilkelm Tell came to my mind if it looked around thru the solitude. But the very sadness of it is a pleasing sen-