e happens to
freshen a little in one quarter or the other. The fall of '74 was the
most remarkable in this respect I remember ever to have seen. The
equilibrium of the season lasted from the middle of October till near
December, with scarcely a break. There were six weeks of Indian
summer, all gold by day, and, when the moon came, all silver by night.
The river was so smooth at times as to be almost invisible, and in its
place was the indefinite continuation of the opposite shore down
toward the nether world. One seemed to be in an enchanted land and to
breathe all day the atmosphere of fable and romance. Not a smoke, but
a kind of shining nimbus filled all the spaces. The vessels would
drift by as if in mid-air with all their sails set. The gypsy blood in
one, as Lowell calls it, could hardly stay between four walls and see
such days go by. Living in tents, in groves and on the hills, seemed
the only natural life.

Late in December we had glimpses of the same weather,--the earth had
not yet passed all the golden isles. On the 27th of that month, I find
I made this entry in my note-book: "A soft, hazy day, the year asleep
and dreaming of the Indian summer again. Not a breath of air and not a
ripple on the river. The sunshine is hot as it falls across my table."

But what a terrible winter followed! what a savage chief the fair
Indian maiden gave birth to!

This halcyon period of our autumn will always in some way be
associated with the Indian. It is red and yellow and dusky like him.
The smoke of his camp-fire seems again in the air. The memory of him
pervades the woods. His plumes and moccasins and blanket of skins form
just the costume the season demands. It was doubtless his chosen
period. The gods smiled upon him then if ever. The time of the chase,
the season of the buck and the doe, and of the ripening of all forest
fruits; the time when all men are incipient hunters, when the first
frosts have given pungency to the air, when to be abroad on the hills
or in the woods is a delight that both old and young feel,--if the red
aborigine ever had his summer of fullness and contentment, it must
have been at this season, and it fitly bears his name.

In how many respects fall imitates or parodies the spring! It is
indeed, in some of its features, a sort of second youth of the year.
Things emerge and become conspicuous again. The trees attract all eyes
as in May. The birds come forth from their summer privacy and parody