Juju

“ Our primitive ancestors used to hold hee-hee councils and work off their surplus emotions in the same way. If this juju festival lasts two days more, I think it will peter out and wind up in a palm-wine debauch. Then they'll come back and be good!"
"It's the gorilla I'm worried most about just now," said Arthur grimly. "The natives are men, and you can anticipate their moves, but there's no telling what an animal will do, particularly a pongo."
Evan laughed. ”

“ Evan puffed casually upon his cigarette. "Poison would be the result of the juju. I went at the fountain head. Kongo natives are deadly afraid of gorillas, but just a little way from gorilla country, the natives fear them vastly more than where familiarity has had time to breed, if not contempt, at least some measure of accustomedness. The natives here would be horribly afraid of them. ”

“ Farther south the withering heat hints of July; farther north there may be an edge of cold to the air; but in Georgia it is always perfectly June in June, all softness, fragrance, filled with the fearless growth and bloom of every living thing—the sort of day that seems to hum to itself with the wings of a thousand bees; adolescent weather, fragrant, soft, filled with the growth and yearning of every living thing from the frailest flower that blooms to the oldest tree and the oldest man. ”

“ JUNE
The month of June brings roses sweet,
And daisies blooming at our feet;
When Nature sings her sweetest tune,
'Tis in the balmy month of June.
And glad vacation June will bring,
Then old school bells will cease to ring,
But wedding bells their sweet refrain
Will ring and ring out just the same.
Now lilies white upon the stream,
In early morning will be seen;
And cherries ripe upon the tree
Are tempting to the birds and me.
So robin hops from limb to limb,
And seems to think they're all for him ”

“ In England and in Sweden, May Day is given up to dance and song and flower shows. This festival began in honor of Odin, the old Norse god of the sun.
June has no day that is remembered as a universal holiday. But in July we find the greatest day of the year—the Fourth of July, Independence Day. Every child knows that on this day our nation was born. The flags, the drums, the trumpets, the cannon,—all awaken in the breast of every American a thrill of love and pride that will never pass away. ”

“ They manage to look down upon the many of us who prefer the daisy fields to the time “when hills take on the noble lines of death.” But whims of the worshiper steal no splendor from the god. June has nothing to place beside a moonlit November night, whose shadow dance of multiform boughs is never seen through leaves, while shadows on the snow are hard of outline, unlike the illusive phantoms running over autumn’s brown grass. June has no flowers so quaint, pathetic, and austere as the trembling weeds of November. What does the goldenrod, white with age, care for frost? ”

“ Yet what a day it was in which to live and love, and motor over perfect roads through that radiant summer-land which the Ligurians loved, the Romans conquered, and the modern world comes from afar to see.
Though it was early in April, with Easter but a few days behind us, the sky, the air, the flowers, belonged to June—a rare, rich June to praise in poetry or song. Billows of roses surged over old pink and yellow stucco walls, or a soaring flame of scarlet geranium ran along their tops devouring trails of ivy with a hundred fiery tongues. ”

“ With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes.
He steals behind her, gathering, as she goes
Heedless of summer's end certain and soon,—
Of winter rattling at the door of June.
When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still,
Forsaken of her lovers and her lords,
And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill
Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words.
At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame,
Move at his magic with her bells and birds;
The rose will redden as he speaks her name,
He shall release earth's frozen bosom there,
And with great words shall cuff the whining air! ”

“ When you are within doors, knowing that out-of-doors it is June, the urge to be out there with it is resistless. But though you wade in green, steep in sun, breast wind, and glory in them all, still the day itself eludes you. It would seem, in June, that there should be a specific for the malady of being oneself, so that one might get to be a June day outright. However, if one were oneself more and more, might not one finally become a June day?... ”

“ There is no month in all the twelve as lovely and loved as October. A single, glorious June day is close to the full measure of our capacity for joy; but the heart can hold a month of melancholy and still ache for more. So it happens that June is only a memory of individual days, while October is nothing less than a season, a mood, a spirit, a soul, beautiful, pensive, fugitive. So much is already gone, so many things seem past, that all the gold of gathered crops and glory on the wooded hillsides only gild and paint the shadow that sleeps within the very sunshine of October. ”

“ Well, it is June to-day—an afternoon in June; a day to make one feel life in every limb—a day when but to exist is a luxury. The roses are bending their heads in the sweet sunshine, for there is not a cloud in Heaven’s blue. The butterflies are chasing each other among the flowers on the lawn, where we recline among the daisies, and the big velvety bees go droning and humming from clover blossom to clover blossom.
“Strange, is it not, my dear Ben,” I said, “that on such a day as this, and in the midst of sunshine, I should bethink me of some night-scenes at sea and on land? ”

“ On such a night in June,
[84] With the beautiful soft half-moon,
And all these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!
Wordsworth.
When the wind's in the south
The rain's in its mouth.
No weather is ill
If the wind be still.
Old saying.
All through the sultry hours of June,
From morning blithe to golden noon,
And till the star of evening climbs
The gray-blue East, a world too soon,
There sings a thrush within the limes.
God's poet, hid in foliage green,
Sings endless songs, himself unseen;
Right seldom come his silent times.
Linger, ye summer hours serene! ”

“ Let her beware--the world full soon Like me shall tearless turn away, And woo, instead of thine, O May! The brown, bright, joyous eyes of June. O June! forgive the long delay, My heart's deceptive dream is o'er-- Where I believe I will adore, Nor worship June, yet kneel to May.
SUNNY DAYS IN WINTER. Summer is a glorious season Warm, and bright, and pleasant; But the Past is not a reason To despise the Present. So while health can climb the mountain, And the log lights up the hall, There are sunny days in Winter, after all! Spring, no doubt, hath faded from us, Maiden-like in charms ”

“ July is their holiday season, and therefore a glorious and delicious month. I feel with them, not only because we all make holiday with them, but because there is a singular splendour in the full fruition of the summer, and in the depth of summer influences witnessed and felt in July. Its sultriness, its rains, its glare of sunshine and gravity of shade may sober down the exhilaration of the early year; but they create a deeper pleasure than that of exhilaration. Perhaps July is not exactly the month that I should choose for a long journey of pleasure ”

“ Delancy, rising also. "June gives us wide green carpets and magnificent draperies of the same deep color, but her red and golden broideries are few; it is the hand of July that throws them in with rich profusion."
"But June flowers are sweetest and dearest--tender nurslings of the summer, first-born of her love," said Rose, as they stepped out into the portico. "It may be that the eye gets sated with beauty, as nature grows lavish of her gifts ”

“ O sunny joys of sunny June, how soon will you be scorched by the eager months coming burning from the equator!
July. Rouse up! The temperate heats that filled the air are raging forward to glow and overfill the earth. There are deep and unreached places for whose sake the probing sun pierces down its glowing hands. The earth shall drink of the heat before she knows her nature or [102] her strength. Then shall she bring forth to the uttermost the treasures of her bosom. For there are things hidden far down, and the deep things of life are not known till the fire reveals them. ”

“ If June is the most flowery of months, May is certainly the most musical. The days are drawing near when there will settle on the green world of woods and lanes and meadows the silence of the summer. The grey dawn is still almost as full as ever of sweet sounds. The songs of thrush and blackbird are still glorious in the evening twilight. Wren and robin still sing to us at intervals from dawn to sunset. But through the long hours of daylight we miss already the notes of many a wandering singer, for whom June is the limit of the season. Already the cuckoo's voice is breaking. ”

“ June came and went, followed by July and August, with their burning splendor of sunlight and heat. Many of the flowers bloomed in sweetness for a little while, and then dropped their leaves and died to earthly things, and passed away to the heaven where flowers bloom forever. Others, fragrant and fresh and fair, came to take their places, and so the whole world was sweet until the autumn came. ”

“ And hasn't their name stuck to it ever since? Yes, indeed! So, be as merry as you can, my chicks; but, with all your fun and frolic, be thankful, and make June weather all about you. June time—any time—is full of joy when hearts, brimming over with thankfulness, carry cheer to other hearts, making
"A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune,"—
like the little stream that bubbles by the foot of our meadow. ”

“ There is plenty for everybody to do in July, though the barley will not put on its dazzling whiteness till the end of the month, nor the red wheat yet look as if it was tanned by the sun. We call it an interval of leisure between the hay and the corn harvests; but there is plenty to do and to learn, as my lads and I shall find, from beginning to end of our holiday time. If there is any leisure, it is when St. Swithin’s Day makes good its old promise; but July rains keep no rational people within doors for many hours at a time. ”

“ By the end of July we entered Dijon; by the end of July those hours, days, and weeks had mingled with the ocean of forgotten time, which in their passage teemed with fatal events and agonizing sorrow. By the end of July, little more than a month had gone by, if man's life were measured by the rising and setting of the sun: but, alas! in that interval ardent youth had become grey-haired; furrows deep and uneraseable were trenched in the blooming cheek of the young mother; the elastic limbs of early manhood, paralyzed as by the burthen of years, assumed the decrepitude of age. ”

“ Of June is over the earth,
And the birds are singing together
In a wild, mad strain of mirth,
As the skies of June can be,
I would like to have the summons
Sent down from God to me.
I would not wait for the furrows--
For the faded eyes and hair;
But pass out swift and sudden,
Ere I grow heart-sick with care;
I would break some morn in my singing--
Or fall in my springing walk,
As a full-blown flower will sometimes
Drop, all a-bloom, from the stalk. ”

“ It was a lovely morning in June, and the sun slowly and beautifully rose in the blue heavens, spreading out his sheet of golden light over the broad canopy of heaven, scattering with the melting influence of his rays the heavy mist and fog which lay spread over the valleys of S——. There a scene of rare loveliness was spread out to view—rich landscapes and sloping meadows, clothed in green, waving their heavy burden in the morning breeze. ”

“ The meadow grass was heavy with dew, and the birds were chattering together in every tree at the edge of the field. Whoever thinks that a summer dawning is a time of peace should get up and go out into the wet, warm, sweet, talkative world for an hour—then he would know better.
Some one beside the small girl was abroad that delicious morning of the very first day in June—a woman, tall and graceful, dressed in filmy white, and carrying a rose-red parasol, against the menace of the coming sun. ”

“ June is the month of roses. It is then that the wild rose wreathes our hedgerows with its bloom. It is everywhere lovely, and the sweetbriar exhales one of the most delicious of fragrances. It was a custom in England for girls to gather a rose on Midsummer Eve, wear it all day, and then place the petals in a Prayer Book and note whether it lost its hue before New Year’s Day, and take omen thereby. ”

“ With the intense and subtle beauty of this June landscape, where the witness could see no sympathy with the human trouble of the time, we may compare that former picture of the grim glory of a November sky after sunset, seen from the invested walls of Paris, when heaven did seem in harmony with the time, and the watcher saw there a reflection of war and mourning, from the west as white as a shroud to the east as black as a pall and along the line of horizon the likeness of a blood-red sword let fall from the hand of a god after some battle with a giant of equal stature. ”

“ It is not that certain flowers that came joyously in June are now but dry bracts and seed pods. She has given us other beauties and fragrance to take their places. It is rather that summer herself is gently breaking with us, giving us the full joy of her warmth through the day, but discreetly withdrawing at nightfall and lingering late in her own apartments of crisp mornings when there is a tonic as of frost in the air, whereby October woos us. ”