IX. Love Manifold
The woods on the shores of Massabesic Pond were stretches of tapestry, where every shade of green and gold, olive and brown, orange and scarlet, melted the one into the other. The somber pines made a deep-toned background; patches of sumach gave their flaming crimson; the goldenrod grew rank and tall in glorious profusion, and the maples outside the Office Building were balls of brilliant carmine. The air was like crystal, and the landscape might have been bathed in liquid amber, it was so saturated with October yellow.
Susanna caught her breath as she threw her chamber window wider open in the early morning; for the greater part of the picture had been painted during the frosty night.
“Throw your little cape round your shoulders and come quickly, Sue!” she exclaimed.
The child ran to her side. “Oh, what a goldy, goldy morning!” she cried.
One crimson leaf with a long heavy stem that acted as a sort of rudder, came down to the windowsill with a sidelong scooping flight, while two or three gayly painted ones, parted from the tree by the same breeze, floated airily along as if borne on unseen wings, finally alighting on Sue's head and shoulders like tropical birds.
“You cried in the night, Mardie!” said Sue. “I heard you snifferling and getting up for your hank'chief; but I did n't speak 'cause it's so dreadful to be catched crying.”
“Kneel down beside me and give me part of your cape,” her mother answered. “I'm going to let my sad heart fly right out of the window into those beautiful trees.”
“And maybe a glad heart will fly right in!” the child suggested.