220 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



the birches among them were all set with candles, 

 whose pale yellow flames lighted them with a 

 most chaste fire, just as in the old days of torch- 

 light enthusiasm over political campaigns we used 

 to put rows of them in the windows on the night 

 that the parade was to pass. Seeing all that I 

 felt as if autumn were again triumphantly 

 elected, and we all ought to take off our hats and 

 "give three cheers for the illumination on the 

 right." 



Surely autumn is the finest season of the year. 

 I always know that as soon as it gets here. Yes- 

 terday I revelled in the summer that had stayed 

 with us so long and still seemed to show few 

 signs of going. Today the fall coloring is burn- 

 ing, like a wood fire on a still day, slowly up 

 from the stamps into the upland woods. Now 

 that I have begun to notice it I see that the color- 

 ing is touching the underleaves of the hillside 

 birches, those nearest the stem, and that perhaps 

 one in five has the same cool, pale yellow fire 

 alight. Thus rapidly does the conflagration 

 spread from swamp to hillside, from the shade of 

 the grove to its topmost boughs and before we 



