AUTUMN 107 



or past the time of it and promising no 

 more, have been pulled up ; a few have 

 been cut down ; some have been mulched ; 

 and the place no longer wears the tropic 

 look of summer. In the shortening after- 

 noons I shower the grass with a hose, and 

 keep that bright ; but the best of the flower- 

 time is passing. So I steal away on my 

 bicycle, and run through the parks and out 

 on Long Island, and on the roads that over- 

 look the Hudson ; for the color of the gar- 

 den now is as nothing to the color that 

 fills the woods. There are yellow, orange, 

 scarlet, crimson, purple, brown, green, 

 sometimes confusing, always gorgeous, tri- 

 umphant, joyous, exhilarating. There are 

 no tapestries, no Oriental rugs, no Chinese 

 porcelains, no silks from the East, like unto 

 these leaves of beech, birch, poplar, ma- 

 ple, sumac, oak, ampelopsis, and woodbine. 

 The poplar is nearly at the top of the 

 gamut with its pale yellow, the oak at the 

 bottom with its crimson bronze mottled by 

 dark green ; but the chief factor in the 

 celebration, the carnival that precedes the 

 winter rest, is the maple, most gorgeous 



