The lime-trees turned bright yellow and the beech bronze, but the elder-tree even blacker than it had been. The bell-flower rang with white bells, where it used to ring with blue, and the chestnut-tree blessed all the world with its five yellow fingers. The mountain-ash shed its leaves that all might admire its pretty berries; the wild rose nodded with a hundred hips; the Virginia creeper broke over the hedge in blazing flames.
The moss grew soft and green; and the toadstools shot up in the night. Queer, soft, pale creatures they were and poisonous and envious they looked. But some of them had a scarlet hat on and all were overjoyed with life.
But the siskin could find no flies and was wailing pitifully.
“Then go away!” said the Prince of Autumn. “Your time is over; and I have plenty of birds left.”
Away flew siskin and linnet and many with them. But Autumn put his horn to his mouth and blew:
The loveliest things of Autumn’s pack
In his motley coffers lay:
Red mountain-berries,
Hips sweet as cherries,
Sloes blue and black,