The Fall of the Year

The Fall of the Year is a book by Dallas Lore Sharp. The contents list gives, among others, The Clock Strikes One, Along the Highway of the Fox, In the Toadfish's Shoe, A Chapter of Things to See this Fall and Whipped by Eagles. The author writes that neither extreme is true of nature: struggle and death go on, but, except where man interferes, a very even balance is maintained, peace prevails over fear, and joy lasts longer than pain.

The author writes that this is a divinely beautiful world, a marvelously interesting world, the best conceivable sort of a world to live in, notwithstanding its gypsy moths, tornadoes, and germs, and says his purpose in this series of nature books is to help his readers to come by this belief. The text says Whitefoot, the wood mouse, has stored his hollow poplar stub full of acorns. The text says Chickadee has done nothing at all, not so much as a bug or a single beetle's egg stored up for the winter, but knows where there is a big piece of suet for him on a certain lilac bush.