Immediately across the road lay a rich velvet meadow, luxuriant still
and green--for the preceding month had been rather wet, and frost had
not set in to nip its verdure--sloping down southerly to a broad shallow
trout-stream, which rippled all glittering and bright over a pebbly bed,
although the margin on the hither side was somewhat swampy, with tufts
of willows and bushes of dark alder fringing it here and there, and
dipping their branches in its waters--the farther bank was skirted by a
tall grove of maple, hickory, and oak, with a thick undergrowth of sumac
arrayed in all the gorgeous garniture of autumn, purples and brilliant
scarlets and chrome yellows, mixed up and harmonized with the dark
copper foliage of a few sere beeches, and the gray trunks apparent here
and there through the thin screen of the fast falling leaves.
Beyond this grove, the bank rose bold and rich in swelling curves, with
a fine corn-field, topped already to admit every sunbeam to the ripening
ears. A buckwheat stubble, conspicuous by its deep ruddy hue, and two or
three brown pastures divided by high fences, along the lines of which
flourished a copious growth of cat-briers and sumacs, with here and
there a goodly tree waving above them, made up the centre of the
picture.
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