Indian Summer Reverie 233 



and sturdy oaks, some deep blood-red, but mainly 

 russet and lighter browns. Among these the 

 white pine lifts its aristocratic head, full of grace 

 and elegance ; and the sturdy yellow pine, one 

 of our most characteristic trees, whose keen and 

 forceful clusters of stout needles are companioned 

 by such multitudes of cones, each with its scores 

 of seeds to keep the forest living. The oaks and 

 the pines, the chestnuts and the hickories, disdain 

 destruction. Here also are the noble hemlocks, 

 which join grace and dignity in a harmony all 

 their own, and in the deep marshes rise the hack 

 matacks, in their eccentric grace, with their light 

 yellow plumy branches defined against the bare 

 boughs of the deciduous trees and the darkness 

 of the evergreens. 



But what shall tell the wealth of the marshes 

 in these closing days of the living year ? To 

 penetrate their deep recesses is to enter fairy-land. 

 Here yet the swamp maples bear a few bright 

 leaves, and the water oaks are richly red. Over 

 the trunks of the maples and cedars, the spruces 

 and pines, the lichens are fresh and soft in their 

 delicate greens, and the fine, tangled green mosses 

 hang from the boughs in long streamers. Beneath 

 is a wondrous fabric of sphagnum, deep-rooted 

 water cryptogams, now blushing with their au 

 tumn colours, besprent with starry crowns, trav- 



