No More Learning

At last we have not only
the purple sea, but the purple land.

The chestnut beard-grass, Indian-grass, or wood-grass, growing here
and there in waste places, but more rare than the former (from two to
four or five feet high), is still handsomer and of more vivid colors
than its congeners, and might well have caught the Indian's eye. It
has a long, narrow, one-sided, and slightly nodding panicle of bright
purple and yellow flowers, like a banner raised above its reedy
leaves. These bright standards are now advanced on the distant
hillsides, not in large armies, but in scattered troops or single
file, like the red men. They stand thus fair and bright,
representative of the race which they are named after, but for the
most part unobserved as they. The expression of this grass haunted me
for a week, after I first passed and noticed it, like the glance of an
eye. It stands like an Indian chief taking a last look at his favorite
hunting-grounds.


THE RED MAPLE

By the twenty-fifth of September, the red maples generally are
beginning to be ripe. Some large ones have been conspicuously changing
for a week, and some single trees are now very brilliant. I notice a
small one, half a mile off across a meadow, against the green woodside
there, a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer,
and more conspicuous. I have observed this tree for several autumns
invariably changing earlier than its fellows, just as one tree ripens
its fruit earlier than another. It might serve to mark the season,
perhaps. I should be sorry if it were cut down. I know of two or three
such trees in different parts of our town, which might, perhaps, be
propagated from, as early ripeners or September trees, and their seed
be advertised in the market, as well as that of radishes, if we cared
as much about them.

At present these burning bushes stand chiefly along the edge of the
meadows, or I distinguish them afar on the hillsides here and there.
Sometimes you will see many small ones in a swamp turned quite crimson
when all other trees around are still perfectly green, and the former
appear so much the brighter for it. They take you by surprise, as you
are going by on one side, across the fields, thus early in the season,
as if it were some gay encampment of the red men, or other foresters,
of whose arrival you had not heard.

Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen against others of their
kind still freshly green, or against evergreens, are more memorable
than whole groves will be by and by. How beautiful, when a whole tree
is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from
lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward
the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape?
Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon
occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity,
and get into the mythology at last.

The whole tree thus ripening in advance of its fellows attains a
singular preeminence, and sometimes maintains it for a week or two. I
am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for
the regiment of green-clad foresters around, and I go half a mile out
of my way to examine it. A single tree becomes thus the crowning
beauty of some meadowy vale, and the expression of the whole
surrounding forest is at once more spirited for it.

A small red maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of some
retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faithfully
discharged the duties of a maple there, all winter and summer,
neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the
virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth for so many
months, never having gone gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it
was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a
shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and
committed them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of knowing,
perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved maples are already
settled in life somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its leaves
have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper, "When shall we
redden? " And now, in this month of September, this month of traveling,
when men are hastening to the seaside, or the mountains, or the lakes,
this modest maple, still without budging an inch, travels in its
reputation,--runs up its scarlet flag on that hillside, which shows
that it has finished its summer's work before all other trees, and
withdraws from the contest.