IN FIELD AND WOOD 



their day is done, and one by one they let go their 

 hold upon the parent stem, and fall to the earth. 



Some come hurrying and tumbling dovm; some 

 drop almost like clods; some come eddying and bal- 

 ancing down; and now and then one comes down as 

 gracefully as a bird, sailing around in an easy spiral 

 like a dove alighting, its edges turned up like wings, 

 and its stems pointing downward like a head and 

 neck. One can hardly believe it is not a thing of life. 

 It reaches the ground as lightly as a snowflake. If 

 one could only finish his own career as gracefully! 



What a contrast to the falling of the leaves of some 

 other trees, say those of the mulberry! The leaves 

 of this tree fall, on such mornings, like soldiers slain 

 in battle with all their powers in full force. They 

 drop heavily and clumsily, apparently untouched 

 by the ripening process that so colors the maple and 

 other leaves. They are rank green and full of sap. 

 So with the locusts, and the apple and cherry leaves; 

 they all seem cut off prematurely. 



But the leaves of most of our native trees — oak, 

 ash, hickory, maple — seem to fall in the fullness 

 of time. They have ripened like the grain>and the 

 fruit; they are colored like the clouds at sunset; and 

 their demise seems a welcome event. They make the 

 woods and groves gay; they carpet the ground as 

 wi±h sunset clouds; it is a funeral that is like a festi- 

 val; it is the golden age come back. 



The falling of these gayly colored leaves seems to 

 247 



