Natural history -- Massachusetts; Natural history -- Outdoor books; Plymouth County (Mass.)
In those crisp morning hours of early sunlight all the ghosts are
laid. The winter chill which made them has frozen them all out of
the air. The twigs and leaves that gave them refuge have wept and
kissed them good-bye at the shout of the oncoming sun and no
suggestion from the world beyond meets the eye. The ghost chill is
frozen out of the sky with the ghosts; the wine of the morning is
so poured through the dry air that you must drink it to the lees
whether you will or not. Such mornings as you have had in April
you may get in November, nor hardly can you tell without the
assistance of the almanac which season it is. The bare twigs have
the flush of expectancy on them, the blushing hope of new buds, as
soon as the leaves of the year are off them. It may not be so
bright and winning, but you will not note the difference, for it
is there, painted during the ripening of this year's leaves. If it
were not that some of these still cling the illusion might be
complete.
There too, to be sure, are the brown stems of the pasture
goldenrod standing stiffly as if to state with grim definiteness
that all rainbow hopes are folly and there will be no more
blossoming for them. Their leaves are dun and sere where they have
not already fallen and their tops that in early September were
such soft cumulus clouds of golden yellow are but scrawny clots of
brown, draggled by the tears in which the sudden sun has drowned
the pasture. Yet these least of all should be pessimistic in
November, for as the sun dries their tears another summer comes
back to them and to us, Indian summer, which is the finest season
of the year. The Indian winter of the dark hours before dawn
steals dawn with all spears pointed for the massacre of the summer
flowers that still linger unprotected, and the white magic of its
own cold changes the spears to delicate, tiny frost fronds and
blooms on all the outdoor world. Then, with the full day, comes
Indian summer, slipping along all the pasture paths and lingering
in the sheltered hollows among the evergreens. In her presence all
the sorrowing plants seem to lift their heads and a new blossom
time comes back to the brown, despondent goldenrod. A warmth glows
in its pith which is as dear as that of its prime yet has in it
some of the stir of autumn crispness. Under its power the draggled
clots that once were flowers lift, fluff out, bud and bloom as
does the magic plant under the potent spell of the sorcerer of the
Far East. You may see on such Indian summer mornings the florets
of these dead goldenrod stems lifting and spreading and before
your very eyes the plant bursts into bloom once more. These blooms
are the day-time ghosts with which the November pastures are full,
misty gray flowers that stand on the same receptacles that held
the yellow blooms of late summer, but are lovelier far than the
first blossoms were. Each dewy night, each rainy day, they shrivel
and seem to pass but the warmth of the sun and the drying wind
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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