In this bright October day I know, not what Eve felt in leaving
Paradise, but what John Milton imagined that she felt. To be sure, I
have no such garden as hers must have been, and besides, I leave at a
different season of the year; for she inquires feelingly, “Who now
shall train these flowers?” whereas my flowers are so nearly spent
that there is no need of training them. Tuberoses are gone, verbenas
are gone, phloxes, common roses, and all the garden tribe, except
scarlet sage, faithful marigolds, that never flinch to the last, and
petunias, that are more graceful than they, and full as constant.
Besides, there is the slow-footed chrysanthemum, too late for summer,
often too late for autumn,—that never gets its Sunday jacket on until
it is time to take it off again. But the amplitude of the floral
harvest has been reaped. Now we only glean. Still one leaves a home of
two months—summer months—not without a fluttering somewhere about the
heart. The still days, the deep days, the mellow days, without
taxation or excitement, are over. Now for the plunge and rush! Now for
_men_. Farewell, Nature!
Good by, top of the hill! from which not a dwelling can be seen, only
an horizon of mountains; and where, so often, just after the sun sets,
we have lingered alone, in the mystery and inexplicable delight of an
evening solitary hour, lifted far above the surrounding earth, and
almost as one suspended in the very ether.
Good by, homely stone wall! along which have grown so many weeds which
we naughtily admired and cherished, contrary to good farming manners;
where so many shrubs, finding good soil, shot up into thickets laced
with wild grape vines. Old tumble-down stone wall! Every stone colored
and built over with weather-stains of hard moss; stones covered with
brilliant ampelopsis, with the three-leaved ivy, fair to see, foul to
touch, and with the rampant bitter-sweet! Let no one despise a stone
wall, nor judge of it only from the cow’s point of view. It is the
city of refuge to all the little fry. Squirrels run in and out, with
saucy alertness, every summer’s day. Hares and rabbits find it a
bulwark. The hoary old fat woodchuck rejoices in it as in a fenced
city. Birds, too, wrens and sparrows, creep in and out, like children
playing bo-peep. On these sturdy stones have we sat hours and hours,
asking no softer cushion, and desiring no finer spectacle than God
sent down from the heavens, or displayed upon the earth. The winter
will soon vault into my seat, and a white shroud cover down the
neglected old wall on the hill-top! Good by!
Neither can a sensitive nature forget his summer companions, or stint
them in their meed of praise and gratitude. Worms whose metamorphosis
we have watched; spiders whose webs glitter along the grass at morning
and at evening, or mark out geometric figures among the trees,—spiders
red, brown, black, green, gray, yellow, and speckled; soft-winged
moths, gorgeous butterflies, steel-colored and shining black crickets,
locusts, and grasshoppers, and all the rabble of creaking, singing,
fiddling fellows besides, which swarm in air and earth,—we bid you all
a hearty good-by. Sooth to say, we part from some of you without
regret. But for the million we feel a true yearning,—so much have we
watched your ways, so many hours has our soul been fed by you through
our eyes. Ye are a part of the Great Father’s family.
O, how goodly a book is that which God has opened in this world! Every
day is a separate leaf,—nay, not leaf, but volume, with text and note
and picture, with every dainty quip and quirk of graceful art, with
stores of knowledge illimitable, if one will only humble himself to
receive it!
One should not willingly be ungrateful, even to the smallest
creatures, or to inanimate objects, that have served his pleasure. And
so, to reed and grass, bush and tree, stone and hill, brook and lake,
all creeping things and all things that fly, to early birds and late
chirping locusts, we wave our hand in grateful thanks!
But to that Providence over all, source of their joy and mine, what
words can express what every manly heart must feel? Only the life
itself can give thanks for life!