Wild apples

September 21

P. M. - To Conantum . 

The small skull - cap and cress and the mullein still in bloom . I see pigeon woodpeckers oftener now , with their light rears . Birches and elms begin to turn yel- low , and ferns are quite yellow or brown in many places . I see many tall clustered bluish asters by the brooks , like the A. undulatus . The blue - stemmed goldenrod is abundant , bright and in its prime . The maples begin to be ripe . How beautiful when a whole maple on the edge of a swamp is like one great scarlet 

fruit , full of ripe juices ! A sign of the ripening . Every leaf , from lowest limb to topmost spire , is aglow.¹ The woodbine is red , too , and its berries are bluing . The flattened black berries of the cucumber - root , with the triangular bases of its leaves tinged red beneath , as a sort of cup for them . My red ball fungus blossoms in the path in the midst of its jelly . 

As I walk through the maple swamp by the Corner Spring, I am surprised to see apples on the ground. At first I suppose that somebody has dropped them, but, looking up, I detect a wild apple tree, as tall and slender as the young maples and not more than five inches in diameter at the ground. This has blossomed and borne fruit this year. The apples are quite mellow and of a very agreeable flavor, though they have a rusty-scraperish look, and I fill my pockets with them. The squirrels have found them out before me. It is an agreeable surprise to find in the midst of a swamp so large and edible a fruit as an apple.

Of late we have much cloudy weather without rain . Are not liable to showers , as in summer , but may have a storm . The Lentago berries appear to drop off before , or as soon as , they turn . There are few left on the bushes . Many that I bring home will turn in a single night . The sassafras leaves are red . The huckleberry bushes begin to redden . The white actæa berries still hang on , or their red pedicels remain . 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1852

My friend is he who 

can make a good guess at me -

hit me on the wing.