No More Learning

Look at yonder swamp of
maples mixed with pines, at the base of a pine-clad hill, a quarter of
a mile off, so that you get the full effect of the bright colors,
without detecting the imperfections of the leaves, and see their
yellow, scarlet, and crimson fires, of all tints, mingled and
contrasted with the green. Some maples are yet green, only yellow or
crimson-tipped on the edges of their flakes, like the edges of a
hazelnut bur; some are wholly brilliant scarlet, raying out regularly
and finely every way, bilaterally, like the veins of a leaf; others,
of more irregular form, when I turn my head slightly, emptying out
some of its earthiness and concealing the trunk of the tree, seem to
rest heavily flake on flake, like yellow and scarlet clouds, wreath
upon wreath, or like snow-drifts driving through the air, stratified
by the wind. It adds greatly to the beauty of such a swamp at this
season, that, even though there may be no other trees interspersed, it
is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different trees being of
different colors and hues, the outline of each crescent treetop is
distinct, and where one laps on to another. Yet a painter would hardly
venture to make them thus distinct a quarter of a mile off.

As I go across a meadow directly toward a low rising ground this
bright afternoon, I see, some fifty rods off toward the sun, the top
of a maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the
hill, a stripe apparently twenty rods long by ten feet deep, of the
most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any
flowers or fruits, or any tints ever painted. As I advance, lowering
the edge of the hill which makes the firm foreground or lower frame of
the picture, the depth of the brilliant grove revealed steadily
increases, suggesting that the whole of the inclosed valley is filled
with such color. One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the
town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and
exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not
see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in
scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then.
Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round
with horse-sheds for.


THE ELM

Now too, the first of October, or later, the elms are at the height of
their autumnal beauty,--great brownish-yellow masses, warm from their
September oven, hanging over the highway. Their leaves are perfectly
ripe. I wonder if there is any answering ripeness in the lives of the
men who live beneath them. As I look down our street, which is lined
with them, they remind me both by their form and color of yellowing
sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had indeed come to the village
itself, and we might expect to find some maturity and _flavor_ in the
thoughts of the villagers at last. Under those bright rustling yellow
piles just ready to fall on the heads of the walkers, how can any
crudity or greenness of thought or act prevail?
When I stand where
half a dozen large elms droop over a house, it is as if I stood within
a ripe pumpkin-rind, and I feel as mellow as if I were the pulp,
though I may be somewhat stringy and seedy withal. What is the late
greenness of the English elm, like a cucumber out of season, which
does not know when to have done, compared with the early and golden
maturity of the American tree? The street is the scene of a great
harvest-home. It would be worth the while to set out these trees, if
only for their autumnal value. Think of these great yellow canopies
or parasols held over our heads and houses by the mile together,
making the village all one and compact,--an _ulmarium_, which is at
the same time a nursery of men! And then how gently and unobserved
they drop their burden and let in the sun when it is wanted, their
leaves not heard when they fall on our roofs and in our streets; and
thus the village parasol is shut up and put away! I see the market-man
driving into the village, and disappearing under its canopy of
elm-tops, with _his_ crop, as into a great granary or barn-yard. I am
tempted to go thither as to a husking of thoughts, now dry and ripe,
and ready to be separated from their integuments; but, alas! I foresee
that it will be chiefly husks and little thought, blasted pig-corn,
fit only for cob-meal,--for, as you sow, so shall you reap.


FALLEN LEAVES

By the sixth of October the leaves generally begin to fall, in
successive showers, after frost or rain; but the principal
leaf-harvest, the acme of the _Fall_, is commonly about the sixteenth.
Some morning at that date there is perhaps a harder frost than we have
seen, and ice formed under the pump, and now, when the morning wind
rises, the leaves come down in denser showers than ever. They suddenly
form thick beds or carpets on the ground, in this gentle air, or even
without wind, just the size and form of the tree above. Some trees, as
small hickories, appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously,
as a soldier grounds arms at a signal; and those of the hickory,
being bright yellow still, though withered, reflect a blaze of light
from the ground where they lie. Down they have come on all sides, at
the first earnest touch of autumn's wand, making a sound like rain.

Or else it is after moist and rainy weather that we notice how great a
fall of leaves there has been in the night, though it may not yet be
the touch that loosens the rock maple leaf. The streets are thickly
strewn with the trophies, and fallen elm leaves make a dark brown
pavement under our feet.