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 wood-side
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 travelling, when men are
hastening to the sea-side, 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. At the eleventh hour of the year, the tree which no scrutiny
could have detected here when it was most industrious is thus, by the
tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the
careless and distant traveller, and leads his thoughts away from the
dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits. It flashes out
conspicuous with all the virtue and beauty of a Maple,—_Acer rubrum_.
We may now read its title, or _rubric_, clear. Its _virtues_, not its
sins, are as scarlet.
Notwithstanding the Red Maple is the most intense scarlet of any of our
trees, the Sugar-Maple has been the most celebrated, and Michaux in his
“Sylva” does not speak of the autumnal color of the former. About the
second of October, these trees, both large and small, are most
brilliant, though many are still green. In “sprout-lands” they seem to
vie with one another, and ever some particular one in the midst of the
crowd will be of a peculiarly pure scarlet, and by its more intense
color attract our eye even at a distance, and carry off the palm. A
large Red-Maple swamp, when at the height of its change, is the most
obviously brilliant of all tangible things, where I dwell, so abundant
is this tree with us. It varies much both in form and color. A great
many are merely yellow, more scarlet, others scarlet deepening into
crimson, more red than common. 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 Hazel-Nut burr; 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 snowdrifts
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 tree-top 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 worshipped in groves then. Perhaps that is
what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds
for.