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 barnyard. 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.