used to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of
their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into, the very top
of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came
down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. "There! did
you ever hear anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was
pretty. A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The
barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost-bitten.
The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.

Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them,
have a phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be
of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would not be
strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses. When the sun
was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the upper branches of a
yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful effect,--the gentle
contrast between the tint of the yellow in the shade, and its ethereal
gold in the fading sunshine. The woods that crown distant uplands were
seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly
marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it
were; while, the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy
shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.

The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its
small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two
little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion,
wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An
Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,--huge, golden pumpkins scattered
among the hills of corn,--a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down,
the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the
zenith; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of
water extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the
reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening
gold than the sky which made it bright.

Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a
barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a
penetrating perfume.

* * * * *

How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a
looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking
out the figures and colors of the paper hangi