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 hill-sides 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 hill-side, 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 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
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.