In All Woods The Leaves Were Fast Ripening For Their
Fall; For Their Full Veins And Lively Gloss Mark The
Ripe leaf,
and not the sered one of the poets; and we knew that the maples,
stripped of their leaves
Among the earliest, would soon stand
like a wreath of smoke along the edge of the meadow. Already the
cattle were heard to low wildly in the pastures and along the
highways, restlessly running to and fro, as if in apprehension of
the withering of the grass and of the approach of winter. Our
thoughts, too, began to rustle.
As I pass along the streets of our village of Concord on the day
of our annual Cattle-Show, when it usually happens that the
leaves of the elms and buttonwoods begin first to strew the
ground under the breath of the October wind, the lively spirits
in their sap seem to mount as high as any plough-boy's let loose
that day; and they lead my thoughts away to the rustling woods,
where the trees are preparing for their winter campaign. This
autumnal festival, when men are gathered in crowds in the streets
as regularly and by as natural a law as the leaves cluster and
rustle by the wayside, is naturally associated in my mind with
the fall of the year. The low of cattle in the streets sounds
like a hoarse symphony or running bass to the rustling of the
leaves. The wind goes hurrying down the country, gleaning every
loose straw that is left in the fields, while every farmer lad
too appears to scud before it, - having donned his best pea-jacket
and pepper-and-salt waistcoat, his unbent trousers, outstanding
rigging of duck or kerseymere or corduroy, and his furry hat
withal, - to country fairs and cattle-shows, to that Rome among
the villages where the treasures of the year are gathered.
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