We may ingeniously say that the reason that these leaves are so anæmic is that they grew in the shade and had not in their veins the good green blood of those that flourished in the open and absorbed from the sun and wind of summer the burn and tan that were to show in autumn. Yet, how can we be sure of this when those leaves which grow side by side on the same tree vary so in their autumnal tints?
Here upon a maple I find leaves that are still green, while others just beside them are scarlet. From the hilltop those maples which show the fieriest flame are the ones that on close inspection show leaves where the green and red mingle either in the same leaf or contiguous leaves. Perhaps the green, complementary color of the red takes the part of shadow background and throws up the more vivid color in greater prominence.
The swamp maples are unique in their way of taking on autumnal tints, anyway. In common with all trees that stand with their feet in the water, they lose the rich green of full summer growth long before the frosts touch them, and long before similar trees standing on upland slopes have any idea that autumn is approaching. Occasionally a maple branch growing on some swamp tree, bowered in a little cove of woodland greenery, will flame up in early July, as if some _ignis fatuus_, wandering in by ghostly moonlight from a near-by ditch, had touched the bough with strange fire that crimsoned but did not consume.
There is nothing the matter with the tree; it is well nourished and of vigorous growth, yet it flares this early signal that winter with her train is sooner or later to whistle down the tracks of the great northern road. Such a maple is like an over-zealous flagman who stands on the crossing and waves his signal before the train has even started from the distant city. I do not recall seeing this trait exhibited by other trees.
Again, individual trees of many species will show ruddy tints in the swamp, sometimes in early September, before other trees of the same species, standing near by, have even a suspicion of it. Yet this rule holds good; the swamp trees color first and lose their leaves first, the maples first of all. Sometimes by October first precocious specimens are bald, their gray polls conspicuous spots among the surrounding greenery. With their vivid colors, their premature baldness, their usually smaller size, and a generally devil-may-care air which, perhaps, is only seeming because of these facts, the swamp maples always appear to me like swashbucklers, roistering young blades in whom riots the wine of life, whose red faces early in the morning of the autumn and whose premature baldness both hint of dissipation. Their roots are deep in the richest of mold dissolved in the water of copious springs. The most bounteous of banquets and the warmest of wine is continually at their lips. It is no wonder if their youth is tempted to excesses.