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Chapter XV
Joyous Autumn Days

To the normal country boy, keen eyed, strong of limb, and full of the zest of living, every season of the year is the best season ever.

When the fifteenth of April comes, and he digs some angleworms and takes his fish-pole and goes away to the little alder-fringed trout brook, to renew his acquaintance with the Kingfisher, he thinks that spring is the best time of year. When summer comes with her full tide of life and he goes away to the pasture to pick wild strawberries, or blueberries, he votes for summer-time. When autumn comes and the nuts hang ripe on chestnut and butternut tree and he vies with the squirrels for the ripe nuts, he declares for autumn. But when winter comes with its skating and coasting, its fresh invigorating winds, with snowballing and snow forts, he is quite sure that winter is the best season of the year.