11 October 1858 – 17 October 1858

P. M. — To Conantum. The autumnal tints have not been so bright as usual this year,’ but why it is hard to say. The summer has been peculiarly cool, as well as wet, and it may be that the leaves have been the more inclined to decay before coming to maturity. Also, apparently, many leaves are killed by the mere frosts before ripening, the locust for instance, — and the frost came early this year, — just as melons and squashes before they have turned yellow; v. €., the leaves fall while they are still green. I observe the small cornel or bunch-berry conspicu- ously green now, like wintergreen and evergreen in the woods, amid the changed or withered foliage of the forest floor. Yet I have seen it purple (?) in the winter, me- thinks. See a small flock of cowbirds (?), with at any rate con- spicuously drab head and shoulders, — the rest black. What were those slender sparrow-like birds which went off singly from the sides of Conantum hills, with a sharp chit chit, a peculiar note, flying somewhat like a goldfinch but not quite so ricochet? They are quite shy. 1 ?? Perhaps they were later (?). Witch-hazel, grape, smooth sumach, and common hazel are partly fallen,—some of the first-named wholly, — yet full of bloom. It is a cool seat under the witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! The leaves are greenish and brownish yellow. White pines are apparently ready to fall. Some are much paler brown than others. The small botrychium has shed pol- len apparently within ten days. The Viburnum Lentago is generally a dull red on a green ground, but its leaves are yet quite fresh.

P. M. — Up Assabet. Most exposed button-bushes and black willows are two thirds bare, and the leaves which remain on the former are for the most part brown and shrivelled. The balls stand out bare, ruddy or brown. ‘The coarse grass of the riverside (Phalarts ?) is bleached as white as corn. The Cornus sericea begins to fall, though some of it is green; and the C. florida at Island shows some scarlet tints, but it is not much exposed. I believe that this was quite showy at Perth Amboy. There are many maple, birch, etc., leaves on the Assa- bet, in stiller places along the shore, but not yet a leaf harvest. Many swamp white oaks look crisp and brown. I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blos- som-buds, so prepared are they for another year. With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year’s flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident. The river is lower than before this year, or at least since spring, yet not remarkably low, and meadows and pools generally are drier. The oak leaves generally are duller than usual this year.’ I think it must be that they are killed by frost before they are ripe. Some small sugar maples are still as fair as ever. You will often see one, large or small, a brilliant and almost uniform scarlet, while another close to it will be perfectly green. The Osmunda regalis and some of the small or mid- dle-sized ferns, not evergreens, in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent. Hickories are for the most part being rapidly browned and crisp. Of the oaks, the white is appar- ently the most generally red at present. I see a scarlet oak still quite green. Brakes are fallen in the pastures. They lie flat, still attached to the ground by their stems, and in sandy places they blow about these and describe distinct and perfect circles there. The now fallen dark-brown brake lies on or across the old brake, which fell last year and is quite gray but remarkably conspicuous still. They have fallen in their ranks, as they stood, and lie as it were with a winding-sheet about them. Young sweet-fern, where it had been burned in the spring, is quite green. Exposed clethra is crisp and brown. Some bass trees are quite bare, others but partly. The hop hornbeam is in color and falling like the elm. Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling. They are so fair and plump and glossy that I love to handle them, and am loath to throw away what I have in my hand. I see a squirrel-nest of leaves, made now before the leaves are fallen. I have heard of judges, accidentally met at an evening party, discussing the efficacy of the laws and courts, and deciding that, with the aid of the jury system, “substan- tial justice was done.” But taking those cases in which honest men refrain from going to law, together with those in which men, honest and dishonest, do go to law, I think that the law is really a “humbug,” and a benefit principally to the lawyers. This town has made a law recently against cattle going at large, and assigned a penalty of five dollars. I am troubled by an Irish neigh- bor’s cow and horse, and have threatened to have them put in the pound. But a lawyer tells me that these town laws are hard to put through, there are so many quibbles. He never knew the complainant to get his case if the defendant were a-mind to contend. However, the cattle were kept out several days, till a Sunday came, and then they were all in my grounds again, as I heard, but all my neighbors tell me that I cannot have them impounded on that day. Indeed, I observe that very many of my neighbors do for this reason regularly turn their cattle loose on Sundays. The judges may discuss the question of the courts and law over their nuts and raisins, and mumble forth the decision that “substantial justice is done,” but I must believe they mean that they do really get paid a “substantial” salary.

Rain, all day, more or less, which the cloudy and rather still yesterday threatened. Elm leaves thickly strew the street now and rattle underfoot, — the dark- brown pavement. The elms are at least half bare.

P. M. — Sail to Ball’s Hill. The white maples are now apparently in their au- tumnal dress. The leaves are much curled and of a pale hoary or silvery yellow, with often a rosaceous cheek, though not so high-colored as two months ago. They are beginning to lose their leaves. Though they still hold on, they have lost much of their vitality. On the top of Ball’s Hill, nearly half-way its length, the red pine-sap, quite fresh, apparently not long in bloom, the flower recurved. As last year, I suspect that this variety is later than the yellowish one, of which I have seen none for a long time. The last, in E. Hub- bard’s wood, is all brown and withered. This is a clear and distinct deep-red from the ground upward, all but the edges and tips of the petals, and is very handsome amid the withered lower leaves, as it were the latest . flower of the year. The roots have not only a sweet - earthy, but decidedly checkerberry, scent. At length this fungus-like plant bursts red-ripe, stem and all, from the ground. Its deep redness reminds me of the deeper colors of the western sky after the sun has set, — a sort of afterglow in the flowery year. I suspect that it is eminently an autumnal flower. The tufts of Andropogon scoparius, which 1s common on the sandy shore under Ball’s Hill and yet more on the hill just behind Reuben Brown’s place, are now in their autumnal state, — recurved [ ? ] culms adorned with white fuzzy spikes. The culms still are of a dull-red color, quite agreeable in the sun. Paddling slowly back, we enjoy at length very perfect reflections in the still water. The blue of the sky, and indeed all tints, are deepened in the reflection.

The balm-of-Gileads are half bare. I see a few red maples still bright, but they are commonly yel-. low ones.’ White pines are in the midst of their fall. The Lombardy poplars are still quite green and cool. Large rock maples are now perhaps in their prime, — later than I supposed, — though some small ones have begun to fall. Some that were green a week ago are now changed. The large white oak by path north of Sleepy Hollow is now all red and at height. Perhaps half the white ash trees are yellow, and if the mulberry ones were dulled (?) a week ago, the yellow ones, me- thinks, are fresher or brighter than ever, but fast falling. White birches, though they have lost many leaves, are still, perhaps, as soft a yellow as ever, a fine yellow im- brication seen against the greener forest. They change gradually and last long. P. M. — To Walden. White oaks are rapidly withering, — the outer leaves. The small black oaks, too, are beginning to wither and turn brown. Small red oaks, at least, and small scarlet ones, are apparently in their prime in sprout-lands and young woods. The large leaves of the red oaks are still fresh, of mingled reddish or scarlet, yellow, and green, striking for the size of the leaf, but not so uniformly dark and brilliant as the scarlet. The black oak is yellow- ish, a half-decayed or brownish yellow, and already becoming brown and crisp, though not so much so as the white. The scarlet is the most brilliant of the oaks, finely fingered, especially noticeable in sprout- lands and young woods. The larger ones are still al- together green, or show a deep cool green in their recesses. If you stand fronting a hillside covered with a variety of young oaks, the brightest scarlet ones, uniformly deep, dark scarlet, will be the scarlet oaks; the next most uni- formly reddish, a peculiar dull crimson (or salmon ?) red, are the white oaks; then the large-leaved and variously tinted red oaks, scarlet, yellow, and green; and finally the yellowish and half-decayed brown leaves of the black oak. The colors of the oaks are far more distinct now than they were before. See that white and that black oak, side by side, young trees, the first that peculiar dull crim- son (or salmon) red, with crisped edges, the second a brownish and greenish yellow, much sun still in its leaves. Looking at a young white oak, you see two dis- tinct colors, the brighter or glossier red of the upper sur- faces of the inner leaves, as yet not much affected by frost and wind, contrasting with the paler but still crimson- tinged under sides of the outmost leaves, blown up by the wind and perhaps partly crisped.’ I notice thorn bushes in sprout-lands quite bare. The lower leaves of huckleberry bushes and young wild black cherries fall first, but for the most part the upper leaves of apple trees. The high blueberries are still a bright or red scarlet. Goldenrods now pretty generally show their dirty-white pappus together with the still yellow scales, the last preserving some semblance of the flowers. Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods. Cinnamon ferns in Clintonia Swamp are fast losing their leafets. Some large dick- sonias on the moist hillside there are quite green yet, though nearly prostrate in a large close patch slanting down the hill, and with some faded nearly white. The yellow lily in the brook by the Turnpike is still expanding fresh leaves with wrinkled edges, as in the spring. The Saliz humilis falls, exposing its great cones like a fruit. On the sandy slope of the cut, close by the pond, I notice the chips which some Indian fletcher has made. Yet our poets and philosophers regret that we have no antiquities in America, no ruins to remind us of the past. Hardly can the wind blow away the surface anywhere, exposing the spotless sand, even though the thickest woods have recently stood there, but these little stone chips made by some aboriginal fletcher are revealed. With them, too, this time, as often, I find the white man’s arm, a conical bullet, still marked by the groove of the rifle, which has been roughened or rucked up like a thimble on the side by which it struck the sand. As if, by some [un]explained sympathy and attraction, the In- dian’s and the white man’s arrowheads sought the same grave at last.

P. M. — Sail up river. There is less wind these days than a week or fortnight ago; calmer and more Indian-summer-like days. I now fairly begin to see the brown balls of the button-bush (which is about bare) reflected in smooth water, looking black against the sky, also the now withered straw-col- ored coarse grass (Phalaris); and the musquash-houses rapidly rising of late are revealed by the fall of the but- ton-bush, willows, pontederia, etc. In the reflection the button-bushes and their balls appear against the sky, though the substance is seen against the meadow or distant woods and hills; 2. e., they appear in the reflection as they would if viewed from that point on the surface from which they are re- flected to my eye, so that it is as if I had another eye placed there to see for me. Hence, too, we are struck by the prevalence of sky or light in the reflection, and at twilight dream that the light has gone down into the bosom of the waters; for in the reflection the sky comes up to the very shore or edge and appears to extend under it, while, the substance being seen from a more elevated point, the actual horizon is perhaps many miles distant over the fields and hills. In the reflection you have an infinite number of eyes to see for you and report the aspect of things each from its point of view. The statue in the meadow which actually is seen obscurely against the meadow, in the reflection appears dark and distinct against the sky. The mikania, goldenrods, and Andropogon scoparius have now their November aspect, the former showing their dirty-white pappus, the last its white plumose hairs. The year is thus acquiring a grizzly look before the snows of winter. I see some Polygonum amphibium, front-rank, and hydropiperoides still. At Clamshell the large black oaks are brownish and greenish yellow; the swamp white, at a distance, a yellowish green; though many of the last (which are small) are already withered pale-brown with light under sides. Willows generally turn yellow, even to the little sage willow, the smallest of all our species, but a foot or two high, though the Salzx alba hardly attains to more than a sheeny polish. But one willow, at least, the S. cordata, varies from yellow to a light scarlet in wet places, which would be deeper yet were it not for its lighter under sides. ‘This is seen afar in considerable low patches in the meadow. It is remarkable among our willows for turning scarlet, and I can distinguish this species now by this, 7. e. part of it, in perhaps the wettest places; the rest is yellow. It is as distinctly scarlet as the gooseberry, though it may be lighter. The oak sprout-land on the hillside north of Puffer’s is now quite brilliant red. There is a pretty dense row of white birches along the base of the hill near the meadow, and their light-yellow spires are seen against the red and set it off remarkably, the red being also seen a little below them, between their bare stems. The green white pines seen here and there amid the red are equally important. The tupelo by Staples’s meadow is completely bare. Some high blueberry is a deep dark crimson. In sprout- lands you see great mellow yellowish leaves of aspen sprouts here and there. See a large flock of grackles steering for a bare elm- top near the meadows. As they fly athwart my view, they appear successively rising half a foot or a foot above one another, though the flock is moving straight forward. I have not seen red-wings [for] a long while, but these birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about.

P. M. — Up Assabet. There are many crisped but colored leaves resting on the smooth surface of the Assabet, which for the most part is not stirred by a breath; but in some places, where the middle is rippled by a slight breeze, no leaves are seen, while the broad and perfectly smooth portions next the shore will be covered with them, as if by a cur- rent they were prevented from falling on the other parts. These leaves are chiefly of the red maple, with some white maple, etc. To be sure, they hardly begin to con- ceal the river, unless in some quiet coves, yet they remind me of ditches in swamps, whose surfaces are often quite concealed by leaves now. The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle, and both by sounds and sights I am reminded that I am in the very midst of the fall. Methinks the reflections are never purer and more distinct than now at the season of the fall of the leaf, just before the cool twilight has come, when the air has a finer grain. Just as our mental reflections are more dis- tinct at this season of the year, when the evenings grow cool and lengthen and our winter evenings with their brighter fires may be said to begin. And painted ducks, too, often come and sail or float amid the painted leaves. Cattle are seen these days turned into the river meadows and straying far and wide. They have at length reached those “pastures new”’ they dreamed of. I see one or two large white maples quite bare. Some late red maples are unexpectedly as fair and bright as ever, both scarlet and yellow, and still distance all com- petitors. There is no brighter and purer scarlet (often running into crimson) and no softer and clearer yel- low than theirs now, though the greater part have quite lost their leaves. The fires I thought dulled, if not put out, a week ago seem to have burst forth again. This accounts for those red maples which were seen to be green while all around them were scarlet. They but bided their time. ‘They were not so easily affected. I distinguish one large red oak — the most advanced one — from black ones, by its red brown, though some others are yellow-brown and greenish. The large red oaks are about in their prime. Some are a handsome light scarlet, with yellow and green.’ The Cornus sericea is a very dark crimson, though it has lost some leaves. The Salix lucida lower leaves are all fallen (the rest are yellow). So, too, it is the lower leaves of the willows generally which have fallen first. Saw a small hawk come flying over the Assabet, which at first I mistook for a dove, though it was smaller. It was blunt or round-shouldered like a dove. It alighted on a small elm and did not mind a wagon passing near by. Seen through my glass twenty rods off, it had a very distinct black head, with apparently a yellowish-brown breast and beneath and a brown back, — both, however, quite light, — and a yellowish tail with a distinct broad black band at the tip. This I saw when, in pruning itself, it was tilted or flirted up. Could it have been a sparrow hawk? One reason why I associate perfect reflections from still water with this and a later season may be that now, by the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow.