Grandpa teaches the boy where to look for the hazelnuts, two by two, in their prickly pods. Goldenrod sets the world on fire. Grandpa is sad to see it. One more year gone. The men split the hake and haddock and dry them in the sun on the fish flakes. Eel skins are dried for the hinges to flails. The dog catches a woodchuck at last, but it is only an up-country cousin of John Henry's and won't be missed. New potatoes come from the garden. The boy sleeps little at night on account of the mercury leaves he has waded in.
Now bays are goosefleshed by mackerel, and they take them by boatloads, the nets groan with them. They salt them down by the barrel. The boy dreams of the chevroned tinker mackerel, he tastes the fish in his dreaming.
Virgo's the sign. The boy sees Molasses-Curls in her father's boat, passing, and he loves her now more than ever. The boat is black with gold stripe, an longer and faster than Father's. She is the only child, and maybe the boat will come with her! He is promised a trip to the city, but fogs set in again. August means fogs, the Old Farmer's Almanac says so: He knew how Roman legions looked, for he Had seen the Maine coast fogs march in from sea For many years now, in August days.
Winds are forever south, south, south.
All at once, the wind falls. The arrow of the vane hangs still, then it leaps and points at the Pole. The north win rises like a shout, trees turn white under it. That night the Dead Men dance, as Grandpa said they would, hand in hand, circle over circle, millions of them, faint and flickering, over the northern spruces. They make the night like day, and a boy holds in his breath to see these ol ghosts of the Indians making holiday late at night. The grandfather sighs: the year's backbone is broken, it is goodbye summer. An old man has not so many summers left to him, and he is sorry to see one go.
It is the month of hoes and high weeds, a hazy month, and a tired one. But it fills the bins, it fills the barrels, it fills the jars and cellars, and men have much to thank it for.
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