All through the warm days of July and August, the grain ripens in the rays of the sun, and in September the fields are yellow with nodding heads of golden grain. Ceres, the earth mother, has been driving north and south, east and west.

Two beautiful maidens always attend her,—Flora, with garlands of roses, who cares for the lovely flowers, and Pomona, who ripens the fruits for man to eat.

As Ceres passes, the fields and woods gleam with color and beauty, and all the voices of nature join man’s in hymns of thanksgiving for her bounty. The old Greeks tell us, that it is she who taught men how to cultivate the fields; how to prepare the soil for the seed, when to plant the many grains and fruits, and how to care for the young and tender plants.

In autumn, after the work of spring and summer, she rejoices in the bounteous harvests, in the vineyards filled with purple grapes. Great golden pumpkins, like huge apples, lie basking in Apollo’s rays; the purple aster and the golden-rod add color to the landscape. Ceres is glad at heart. She is happy in the results of her labor and in the presence of her lovely daughter, Persephone. But when Persephone leaves her mother, Ceres is sad, and winter, cold and drear, settles over the earth.