C 104 ] 



NOVEMBER WOODS 



November 8, 1850. The stillness of the woods and 

 fields is remarkable at this season of the year. There 

 is not even the creak of a cricket to be heard. Of 

 myriads of dry shrub oak leaves, not one rustles. 

 Your own breath can rustle them, yet the breath of 

 heaven does not suffice to. The trees have the aspect 

 of waiting for winter. The autumnal leaves have 

 lost their color; they are now truly sere, dead, and 

 the woods wear a sombre color. Summer and har- 

 vest are over. The hickories, birches, chestnuts, no 

 less than the maples, have lost their leaves. The 

 sprouts, which had shot up so vigorously to repair 

 the damage which the choppers had done, have 

 stopped short for the winter. Everything stands 

 silent and expectant. If I listen, I hear only the note 

 of a chickadee, — our most common and I may say 

 native bird, most identified with our forests, — or 

 perchance the scream of a jay, or perchance from 

 the solemn depths of these woods I hear tolling far 

 away the knell of one departed. Thought rushes in 

 to fill the vacuum. As you walk, however, the par- 

 tridge still bursts away. The silent, dry, almost leaf- 

 less, certainly fruitless woods. You wonder what 

 cheer that bird can find in them. The partridge 

 bursts away from the foot of a shrub oak like its own 

 dry fruit, immortal bird! This sound still startles us. 

 Dry goldenrods, now turned gray and white, lint 



