162 SEPTEMBER. 



of bright-colored fruits that meet the eye on every side 

 in the deserted haunts of the flowers. The scarlet berries 

 of the nightshade, varied with their blossoms, hang like 

 clusters of rubies from the crevices in the stone- walls 

 through which the vines have made their clambering 

 tour. On each side of the fences the elder-trees in inter- 

 rupted rows are bending down with the weight of their 

 dark purple fruit, and the catbird may be seen busily 

 gathering them for his noonday repast. Above all, the 

 barberry-bushes scattered over the hills, some in irregu- 

 lar clumps, others following the lines of the stone-walls, 

 down narrow lanes and over sandy hills, with their long 

 slender branches fringed with delicate racemes of varie- 

 gated fruit, changing from a greenish white to a bright 

 scarlet, form hedge-rows as beautiful as art, without its 

 formality. 



September is the counterpart of June, and displays the 

 transformation of the flowers of early summer into the 

 ripe and ruddy harvest. The wild-cherry trees are heav- 

 ily laden with their dark purple clusters, and flocks of 

 robins and waxwings are busy all the day in their merry 

 plunder among the branches. But in the fruits there is 

 less to be loved than in the flowers, to which imagination 

 is prone to assign some moral attributes. The various 

 fruits of the harvest we prize as good and bounteous gifts. 

 But flowers win our affections, like beings endowed with 

 life and thought; and when we notice their absence or 

 their departure we feel a painful sense of melancholy, 

 as when we bid adieu to living friends. With flowers 

 we associate the sweetness, the loveliness, and the dear 

 and bright remembrances of spring. Like human beings, 

 they have contributed to our moral enjoyments. But 

 there are no such ideas associated with the fruits, and 

 while the orchards are resplendent with their harvest, 

 they can never affect the mind like the sight of flowers. 



