Fields as green as when the summer birds caroled above them, woods more
gorgeous with innumerable hues and tints of ripening leaves than a
blooming parterre, are spread beneath the azure sky, whose deepest color
is reflected with intenser blue in lake and stream. In them against this
color are set the scarlet and gold of every tree upon their brinks, the
painted hills, the clear-cut mountain peaks, all downward pointing to
the depths of this nether sky.
Overhead, thistledown and the silken balloon of the milkweed float on
their zephyr-wafted course, silver motes against the blue; and above
them are the black cohorts of crows in their straggling retreat to
softer climes. Now the dark column moves steadily onward, now veers in
confusion from some suspected or discovered danger, or pauses to assail
with a harsh clangor some sworn enemy of the sable brotherhood. Their
gay-clad smaller cousins, the jays, are for the most part silently
industrious among the gold and bronze of the beeches, flitting to and
fro with flashes of blue as they gather mast, but now and then finding
time to scold an intruder with an endless variety of discordant outcry.
How sharp the dark shadows are cut against the sunlit fields, and in
their gloom how brightly shine the first fallen leaves and the starry
bloom of the asters. In cloudy days and even when rain is falling the
depths of the woods are not dark, for the bright foliage seems to give
forth light and casts no shadows beneath the lowering sky.
The scarlet maples burn, the golden leaves of poplar and birch shine
through the misty veil, and the deep purple of the ash glows as if it
held a smouldering fire that the first breeze might fan into a flame,
and through all this luminous leafage one may trace branch and twig as a
wick in a candle flame. Only the evergreens are dark as when they bear
their steadfast green in the desolation of winter, and only they brood
shadows.
In such weather the woodland air is laden with the light burden of odor,
the faintly pungent aroma of the ripened leaves, more subtle than the
scent of pine or fir, yet as apparent to the nostrils, as delightful and
more rare, for in the round of the year its days are few, while in
summer sunshine and winter wind, in springtime shower and autumnal
frost, pine, spruce, balsam, hemlock, and cedar distill their perfume
and lavish it on the breeze or gale of every season.
Out of the marshes, now changing their universal green to brown and
bronze and gold, floats a finer odor than their common reek of ooze and
sodden weeds--a spicy tang of frost-ripened flags and the fainter breath
of the landward border of ferns; and with these also is mingled the
subtle pungency of the woodlands, where the pepperidge is burning out in
a blaze of scarlet, and the yellow flame of the poplars flickers in the
lightest breeze.
The air is of a temper neither too hot nor too cold, and in what is now
rather the good gay wood than green wood, there are no longer pestering
insects to worry the flesh and trouble the spirit. The flies bask in
half torpid indolence, the tormenting whine of the mosquito is heard no
more. Of insect life one hears little but the mellow drone of the
bumblebee, the noontide chirp of the cricket, and the husky rustle of
the dragonfly's gauzy wing.
Unwise are the tent-dwellers who have folded their canvas and departed
to the shelter of more stable roof-trees, for these are days that should
be made the most of, days that have brought the perfected ripeness of
the year and display it in the fullness of its glory.