454 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



aflforded by the charming scenery before us. 

 It is the answering tones of Nature in our 

 hearts. Before us is an expiring world ; a 

 world that only a few days ago was green and 

 vigorous, and of exceeding beauty, — now per- 

 fected and going into decay, but like the last 

 hours of the Christian, greatly illuminated by 

 the perfections of its former life. So may it 

 be with us all. 



But it is folly for us to write, when we can 

 find it so much better done by another and an 

 unknown hand. Read and see how vividly he 

 brings autumn scenes before you. The very 

 things you have seen and done yourselves, and 

 thought of a hundred times since, — and if shut 

 up in the city, that you have gone back to see 

 and live your youth over again among them. 

 How life-like and beautiful is the following 

 sketch : — 



"We do not now, and never did believe that 

 autumn days are 'the saddest of the year.' To 

 us they seem the brightest and happiest of the 

 twelvemonth. They come with their delight- 

 ful coolness close after the sweltering summer, 

 and they bring with them the treasure that the 

 spring promised and the summer toiled to per- 

 fect. The countless wealth of the teeming 

 earth comes home to the barns or hangs pen- 

 dant on the boughs. The grapes turn purple 

 and grow red in the face with the unpressed 

 wine that fills their bursting skins. The nuts 

 the boys and girls seek under the thick limbed 

 beech, or beat from the walnut and oil nut i 

 trees, are waiting to be gathered. The cider 

 mill has its teeth examined, and its tubs 

 washed, and its press made ready for the cart 

 loads of apples that are turned out at its door. 

 So like an old epicure of an anaconda that 

 wakes from months of sleep to glut itself on 

 the rabbits that are near it ! And the squir- 

 rels chirp and frisk so merrily, with their 

 cheeks plethoric with nuts and stolen corn, as 

 an honest Jack's with 'old soldiers.' What j 

 rare sport is to be had with the lOons when 

 the harvest or the hunter's moon plavs at 'bo- 

 peep' with the sun, raising their broad faces i 

 over the eastern horizon, just as the sun 

 draws his below the western." I 



And the month of the huskings, now by re- | 

 suits of the husking machine, fast becoming . 

 memories of the past or only to be found in ] 

 rocky New England. And the large mellow 

 pumpkins, that dot the corn-field all over with i 



their rich color, and seem to be aching to be 

 niade into luscious pies for these same husk- 

 ings, where rural maidens and their lovers pop 

 the question and claim the forfeit kiss. 



"And what an event is the lighting of the 

 first fire in the sitting-room, particularly if it 

 be of wood, and be in one of those smoky, 

 roomy, uncomfortable, delightful old-fashioned 

 fire-places. How the smoke runs into all the 

 little crevices of the chimney, and then, fright- 

 ened at itself, draws back and comes to the 

 hearth again, timid and distrustful of the world 

 outside. And so it coquets and flirts till the 

 flames, getting bold and blustering, run up the 

 chimney and encourage the smoke. And when 

 it does at last get over the top, one little wave- 

 let after another, it loiters for a minute, un- 

 certain and irresolute, and then goes off in 

 such volumes and rises up so buoyantly, and 

 keeps up such a race with the flames all the 

 long evening. Henceforth the fire absorbs all 

 Tom's care and his mother's, and another is 

 added to his 'chores,' viz : to bring in chips 

 and wood. The Lares and Penates* take their 

 seat upon the broad hearth-stone for the win- 

 ter, the cricket chirps, and 



'Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

 Hunted to death in galleries blind.'" 



And how grand is what we call Nature. 

 The gorgeous sunsets, the myriad-hued foli- 

 age, even the bare trunks and stripped branches 

 of the forest are all alive with beauty. And 

 to us it seems a gladsome beauty. There is 

 nothing sombre in it. The trees put off their 

 lea ves as the soldier who has done his duty 

 doffs his uniform when his work is done, and 

 the victory gained. The trees have borne 

 their fruit, they have withstood the spring 

 freshet and the summer drought. Their duty 

 was to grow, and they have done it. They 

 can point to feet of new twigs, and inches of 

 new circumference, and they lay off their gar- 

 ments for the rest of winter. 



"And how the earth takes up their cast off 

 garments, to make from them a garment for 

 herself. Driven from the garden of sununer, 

 as Mother Eve was from the garden of Eden, 

 old Mother Earth sows leaves together, and 

 makes to herself an apron to cover her lap, 

 and of such a Aveb of many colors as no Isaac 

 ever yet chose for his Joseph." 



What a close observer the writer of the 

 above must be. How he has treasured up the 



* The household gods of the Iloinans. 



