_Sept. 5._--It had not occurred to me that fall is closing in until some
one brought a big ripe pumpkin from the cornfield and placed it by the
kitchen door. A handful of red crab-apples happened to be thrown beside
it, and, with a white wall for a background, it was a picture to tempt
an artist--or a cook. This has been a good year for pumpkins, and,
although the one I speak of is merely an average specimen, the children
cannot put their arms around it, and to be able to lift it even an inch
off the ground is a feat of strength to be "blowed" about with popping
eyes and excited faces. There is much speculation as to how many pies it
will make. By the way, wouldn't it be a good scheme for some
enterprising grocer or baker to put a fine ripe pumpkin in his window
and offer a prize to the person who could guess how many pies could be
made from it? The prize might take the form of a dozen pumpkin pies, and
I miss my guess if grave professional men and magnates who were once
country boys would not step in to take a chance. Pumpkin pies are just
as good as ever they were, and yesterday at the thrashing I attended I
asked for a second piece. Then I came home and clamoured for pumpkin
pies and would not be comforted until I saw them being put in the oven.
Of course there are other signs of fall, but they have not forced
themselves on my attention. Every night we are serenaded by the crickets
that, according to Maeterlinck, are the possessors of a wonderful
musical instrument, "whose bow numbers one hundred and fifty triangular
prisms that set in motion simultaneously the four dulcimers of the
elytron." (School teachers might find it profitable to use this sentence
in the Friday spelling match.) I had no idea that the cricket's music
was so complex, but the scientists say it is, and we must believe them.
Anyway, the music is better than the description of it sounds, and our
choir--"The Choir Invisible"--must number several millions, and they are
all singing of the fall and harvest home. Many of the summer birds, such
as the bobolinks and blackbirds, have flocked and disappeared. A flock
of wild ducks that is evidently making its way south has lately been
haunting the Government drain and the pond in the gravel-pit. Yesterday
the turkeys were lying on the ground with one eye turned towards the sky
while they sounded their peculiar note of warning, and after straining
my sight for awhile I discovered a flock of hawks circling in the upper
air. But in spite of all these signs the country looks more like June
than September. The heavy rains during the harvest freshened the
pastures and the foliage of the trees; a vigorous growth of weeds or a
catch of clover has hidden the harvest stubble, so that everything looks
fresh and luxuriantly green. This may be fall, but it is hard to believe
it.
While out walking a few days ago I came to a patch of woods that has
been enclosed for several years. Sheep, cattle, and hogs have not been
allowed to pasture in it, and already it gives a hint of what the
country must have been like in the days of the pioneers. Seedling trees
are coming up by the thousand, while flowers and plants with strange
berries that I cannot remember having seen before are everywhere. The
earth under the underbrush is moist and cluttered with rotting
vegetation. Even the woodland odours are different from those you notice
in ordinary woods from which the underbrush has been cleared, and where
the cattle have been allowed to have their will. Many of the birds, too,
were unfamiliar, and the change I found on climbing the line fence from
a piece of unprotected woods into this patch, which is being protected,
reminded me of a passage in one of Darwin's books, in which he told how
the flora and fauna of a whole countryside was changed by the enclosing
of a piece of forest that had been open to pasture. I wished that I had
with me three or four scientists who could have told me all about the
wonders I found. As it is, I am determined to take up the study of
botany, entymology, and all other 'ologies that will help to acquaint me
with all the marvels of such spots as this.