The Pine-boughs are the green calyx to their red petals. Or, as we go
along a road in the woods, the sun striking endwise through it, and
lighting up the red tents of the Oaks, which on each side are mingled
with the liquid green of the Pines, makes a very gorgeous scene. Indeed,
without the evergreens for contrast, the autumnal tints would lose much
of their effect.
The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the brightness of late October
days. These bring out its colors. If the sun goes into a cloud, they
become comparatively indistinct. As I sit on a cliff in the southwest
part of our town, the sun is now getting low, and the woods in Lincoln,
south and east of me, are lit up by its more level rays; and in the
Scarlet Oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, there is brought out
a more brilliant redness than I had believed was in them. Every tree of
this species which is visible in those directions, even to the horizon,
now stands out distinctly red. Some great ones lift their red backs high
above the woods, in the next town, like huge roses with a myriad of fine
petals; and some more slender ones, in a small grove of White Pines on
Pine Hill in the east, on the very verge of the horizon, alternating
with the Pines on the edge of the grove, and shouldering them with their
red coats, look like soldiers in red amid hunters in green.
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