An Autumn Holiday

"An Autumn Holiday" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming novella that captures the serene beauty and introspective moments of a New England autumn. The story revolves around the themes of nature, friendship, and the simple joys of rural life, as the narrator and her companion embark on a journey to reconnect with the landscape and each other. Jewett's lyrical prose paints a vivid picture of the season, evoking a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for the small pleasures found in everyday experiences. Through rich descriptions and a focus on the relationship between humans and their environment, the novella invites readers to reflect on the passage of time and the significance of cherished moments.

• Short story

								
I had started early in the afternoon for a long walk; it was just the
weather for walking, and I went across the fields with a delighted
heart. The wind came straight in from the sea, and the sky was bright
blue; there was a little tinge of red still lingering on the maples, and
my dress brushed over the late golden-rods, while my old dog, who seemed
to have taken a new lease of youth, jumped about wildly and raced after
the little birds that flew up out of the long brown grass--the constant
little chickadees, that would soon sing before the coming of snow. But
this day brought no thought of winter; it was one of the October days
when to breathe the air is like drinking wine, and every touch of the
wind against one's face is a caress: like a quick, sweet kiss, that wind
is. You have a sense of companionship; it is a day that loves you.

I went strolling along, with this dear idle day for company; it was a
pleasure to be alive, and to go through the dry grass, and to spring
over the stone walls and the shaky pasture fences. I stopped by each of
the stray apple-trees that came in my way, to make friends with it, or
to ask after its health, if it were an old friend. These old apple-trees
make very charming bits of the world in October; the leaves cling to
them later than to the other trees, and the turf keeps short and green
underneath; and in this grass, which was frosty in the morning, and has
not quite dried yet, you can find some cold little cider apples, with
one side knurly, and one shiny bright red or yellow cheek. They are wet
with dew, these little apples, and a black ant runs anxiously over them
when you turn them round and round to see where the best place is to
bite. There will almost always be a bird's nest in the tree, and it is
most likely to be a robin's nest. The prehistoric robins must have been
cave dwellers, for they still make their nests as much like cellars as
they can, though they follow the new fashion and build them aloft. One
always has a thought of spring at the sight of a robin's nest. It is so
little while ago that it was spring, and we were so glad to have the
birds come back, and the life of the new year was just showing itself;
we were looking forward to so much growth and to the realization and
perfection of so many things. I think the sadness of autumn, or the
pathos of it, is like that of elderly people. We have seen how the
flowers looked when they bloomed and have eaten the fruit when it was
ripe; the questions have had their answer, the days we waited for have
come and gone. Everything has stopped growing. And so the children have
grown to be men and women, their lives have been lived, the autumn has
come. We have seen what our lives would be like when we were older;
success or disappointment, it is all over at any rate. Yet it only makes
one sad to think it is autumn with the flowers or with one's own life,
when one forgets that always and always there will be the spring again.

I am very fond of walking between the roads. One grows so familiar with
the highways themselves. But once leap the fence and there are a hundred
roads that you can take, each with its own scenery and entertainment.
Every walk of this kind proves itself a tour of exploration and
discovery, and the fields of my own town, which I think I know so well,
are always new fields. I find new ways to go, new sights to see, new
friends among the things that grow, and new treasures and pleasures
every summer; and later, when the frosts have come and the swamps have
frozen, I can go everywhere I like all over my world.

That afternoon I found something I had never seen before--a little grave
alone in a wide pasture which had once been a field. The nearest house
was at least two miles away, but by hunting for it I found a very old
cellar, where the child's home used to be, not very far off, along the
slope. It must have been a great many years ago that the house had stood
there; and the small slate head-stone was worn away by the rain and
wind, so there was nothing to be read, if indeed there had ever been any
letters on it. It had looked many a storm in the face, and many a red
sunset. I suppose the woods near by had grown and been cut, and grown
again, since it was put there. There was an old sweet-brier bush growing
on the short little grave, and in the grass underneath I found a
ground-sparrow's nest. It was like a little neighborhood, and I have
felt ever since as if I belonged to it; and I wondered then if one of
the young ground-sparrows was not always sent to take the nest when the
old ones were done with it, so they came back in the spring year after
year to live there, and there were always the stone and the sweet-brier
bush and the birds to remember the child. It was such a lonely place in
that wide field under the great sky, and yet it was so comfortable too;
but the sight of the little grave at first touched me strangely, and I
tried to picture to myself the procession that came out from the house
the day of the funeral, and I thought of the mother in the evening after
all the people had gone home, and how she missed the baby, and kept
seeing the new grave out here in the twilight as she went about her
work. I suppose the family moved away, and so all the rest were buried
elsewhere.

I often think of this place, and I link it in my thoughts with something
I saw once in the water when I was out at sea: a little boat that some
child had lost, that had drifted down the river and out to sea; too long
a voyage, for it was a sad little wreck, with even its white sail of a
hand-breadth half under water, and its twine rigging trailing astern. It
was a silly little boat, and no loss, except to its owner, to whom it
had seemed as brave and proud a thing as any ship of the line to you and
me. It was a shipwreck of his small hopes, I suppose, and I can see it
now, the toy of the great winds and waves, as it floated on its way,
while I sailed on mine, out of sight of land.

The little grave is forgotten by everybody but me, I think: the mother
must have found the child again in heaven a very long time ago: but in
the winter I shall wonder if the snow has covered it well, and next year
I shall go to see the sweet-brier bush when it is in bloom. God knows
what use that life was, the grave is such a short one, and nobody knows
whose little child it was; but perhaps a thousand people in the world
to-day are better because it brought a little love into the world that
was not there before.

I sat so long here in the sun that the dog, after running after all the
birds, and even chasing crickets, and going through a great piece of
affectation in barking before an empty woodchuck's hole to kill time,
came to sit patiently in front of me, as if he wished to ask when I
would go on. I had never been in this part of the pasture before. It was
at one side of the way I usually took, so presently I went on to find a
favorite track of mine, half a mile to the right, along the bank of a
brook. There had been heavy rains the week before, and I found more

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