White Hills. Where the Ghosts Dance at Midnight.

the people have gone, leaving frame shacks, empty and forgotten, to the mercy of sun, wind and desert.

August

SUMMER in our land really gets in its licks in August. If you like summer and hot weather, you will like our August. This month, early in the month, the wise, venerable Hopi prepare for their dances. Toward the end of the month they gather on their mesas, perform their old rituals and their old ceremonies. White folks will cross the Painted Desert to watch and wonder at the dances. The gods of the Hopi people will be there, too, listening to the supplications of the people for rain. More times than not rain will come with the prayers. Truly the gods have been kind to these Mesa Dwellers; for how else could they have survived the years-turned-centuries in their parched, barren land?

In Navajoland the winds of August will bring great white clouds to break the endless blue of the Navajo sky. Against the blue and white of the sky colored cliffs and buttes of the country will stand out crimson, blue-red, red-orange and vermilion. Rains will come and go quickly in the afternoons moistening the red soil to a dull brown, putting diamonds on each blade of grass. Spots of white and color in the landscape mark the passing of a flock of sheep, a few spotted goats, the silent, watching Navajo children tending the flock. How lonely must be their life, these Navajo children, following the sheep flock from sunrise to sundown! Yet they seem happy and contented with their life, as perhaps all children are in August.

The days of August are long, dreamy creations in sunshine. The sun, quite an agile fellow, arouses himself early these days and hangs around long after good people should be in bed. You'd think he had nothing better to do; the truth to tell, he hasn't. You could almost accuse him of trying to hog the stage, so reluctantly does he bow out to let the moon and night take over for a scene or two.

An Arizona night in August is something to write about. You may be up in the high mountains, or on the plateau of Northern Arizona or on the desert of Southern Arizona. The effect is just as romantic, as overwhelming. The old moon comes out like a ripe, red orange, truant from a vegetable stand. It looks good enough to eat. August nights in Arizona never become wholly dark because light of day still clutches the horizon, lending shape, form, substance to hills, mountains, plateaus.

In August the sun plays loud drums on the desert. Even insects stop their idle talk, all things seeking shady repose. The heat of the desert in August is clean and light, the air is heavy with the smell of summer, the smell of the plants that people the desert. In the late afternoon when the sun begins to slips westwardly, the desert then comes to lfie. Birds, insects, lizards, animals all desert folk begin to stir about, shouting latest gossip at each other as they hurry about their shopping after the afternoon's siesta.

August brings summer's afternoon showers to quench the desert's thirst. In mid-afternoon clouds, like great white sponges, will drift in over the mountains, scowl awhile, then with shouts of thunder pour showers earthward. These summer rains are brief. They pass quickly leaving the sun to brighten up the landscape.

August has its charm, too, in our land. R. C.