CHAPTER XIII
BY THE MILL-RACE
A warm, though hazy, sun followed the sharp night, and only the
blackened and damaged plants in the yard bore witness to the frost,
which had melted to the semblance of rain on the grass. On the dappled
boughs of the sycamore by the mill-race several bronze leaves hung limp
and motionless, as if they were attached by silken threads to the stems,
and the coating of moss on the revolving wheel shone like green
enamel on a groundwork of ebony. The white mist, which had wrapped the
landscape at dawn, still lay in the hollows of the pasture, from which
it floated up as the day advanced to dissolve in shining moisture upon
the hillside. There was a keen autumn tang in the air--a mingling of
rotting leaves, of crushed winesaps, of drying sassafras. As Abel passed
from the house to the mill, his gaze rested on a golden hickory tree
near the road, where a grey squirrel sported merrily under the branches.
Like most of his neighbours, he had drawn his weather predictions from
the habits of the wild creatures, and had decided that it would be an
open winter because the squirrels had left the larger part of the nuts
ungarnered.
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