CHAPTER XI
SPRING IN THE SAVANNAS
Spring and autumn kissed yesterday in the
savannas east of Lake Okeechobee, and autumn
died of it. Autumn was lucky thus to be raptured
out of existence, for he was but a weakling, lingering
along inertly, showing little of that brown
tan in which, farther north, he glories. In all
the woodland hardly a fallen leaf rustled under
his footstep and on the open savanna only the
dull olive wild grasses paid homage to him. On
the day he died I thought I saw tribute to him
in the red of a swamp maple's passing leaves, but
I was wrong. It was the blush of spring blossoms
instead, so little does the world of the
twenty-seventh parallel care for autumn, so potent
is the aura of spring as the lusty hussy sweeps in
on the wings of the southeast trades. I suspect
spring of being born on the tropic edge of the Sargasso
Sea whence these winds blow, mothered by
the cool brine of its vast depths, fathered by the
most vivid sun and bringing in her amorous heart
the alchemic vigor of both, whereby she trans-
