WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 1, No. 48: September 28, 2022
Autumn’s
Arrival
“A Tribute to Johnny Appleseed: Pioneer Nurseryman”
By Rob Chappell, M.A.
Adapted & Expanded from Cursus Honorum VI: 3 (October
2005)
This woodcut of John Chapman
appeared in Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio (Ohio Centennial Edition,
1903). (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
Ever since my Kindergarten class took a field trip to a local apple orchard in September 1973, I’ve been a perennial fan of Johnny Appleseed. The pioneer hero who headed west from his New England home to bring apple trees to the pioneers and Native Americans captured my imagination at an early age and has never let it go.
Johnny Appleseed, one of
America's most beloved homegrown heroes, has been the subject of countless
poems, folksongs, novels, plays, and even a Walt Disney cartoon. Johnny’s
appeal has vastly increased over the past fifty years, concurrent with the
emergence of global concern over rampant deforestation and the drive to develop
sustainable agriculture on a worldwide scale. Behind the larger-than-life
legend of Johnny Appleseed, however, there was once an admirable historical
person: John Chapman, a pioneer nurseryman from New England.
John Chapman was born on September 26, 1774 near Leominster,
Massachusetts. Details of his childhood are sketchy, but he learned to read and
write at an early age and evidently chose to follow an arboricultural career in
his teens, for by the time he was 25, he had already planted apple orchards in
the western counties of New York and Pennsylvania. During the early 1800s, he
pushed farther west into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois – planting apple trees all
over the wilderness, where they could be enjoyed by the arriving settlers.
Wherever he journeyed on the
frontier, Chapman earned the respect and trust of the Native Americans and
coexisted peacefully with the wild animals. He practiced vegetarianism, never
carried a weapon of any kind, and was by all accounts an amiable and
hard-working person. Although he led a solitary life in the wilderness for
weeks or months at a time, he enjoyed interacting with the people who crossed
his path and regaling them with stories of his frontier adventures. It is
estimated that he planted millions of apple seeds during his fifty years of
arboricultural activity; this was his lifelong philanthropic service to our
country.
Johnny Appleseed, as he came to
be known in his later years, died near Fort Wayne, Indiana, on March 11, 1845. His grave has become a
historic site, as have other places where he once lived and labored.
Descendants of his original apple trees can still be found throughout Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois, and his legacy of philanthropic arboriculture is still
celebrated at annual Midwestern festivals, especially in the autumn, when apple
cider is in season.
Johnny Appleseed’s popularity
shows no sign of waning. He played many roles during his lifetime --
nurseryman, peacemaker, pioneer, and storyteller. In our own time, he has come
to represent such worthy causes as conservation, environmentalism, and
sustainable agriculture. John Chapman will no doubt continue to inspire
generations yet to come with his philanthropic life and trailblazing
achievements that still benefit his fellow Americans more than two centuries
after his labors first began.
“A Song of
Early Autumn”
By Richard
Watson Gilder (1844-1909)
When late in
summer the streams run yellow,
Burst the
bridges and spread into bays;
When berries
are black and peaches are mellow,
And hills
are hidden by rainy haze;
When the
goldenrod is golden still,
But the
heart of the sunflower is darker and sadder;
When the corn
is in stacks on the slope of the hill,
And slides
over the path the striped adder;
When
butterflies flutter from clover to thicket,
Or wave
their wings on the drooping leaf;
When the
breeze comes shrill with the call of the cricket,
Grasshopper’s
rasp, and rustle of sheaf;
When high in
the field the fern-leaves wrinkle,
And brown is
the grass where the mowers have mown;
When low in
the meadow the cow-bells tinkle,
And small
brooks crinkle over stock and stone;
When heavy
and hollow the robin’s whistle
And shadows
are deep in the heat of noon;
When the air
is white with the down of the thistle,
And the sky
is red with the Harvest Moon;
O, then be
chary, young Robert and Mary,
No time let
slip, not a moment wait!
If the
fiddle would play it must stop its tuning;
And they who
would wed must be done with their mooning;
So let the
churn rattle, see well to the cattle,
And pile the
wood by the barn-yard gate!
“Autumn”
By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The morns
are meeker than they were,
The nuts are
getting brown;
The berry’s
cheek is plumper,
The rose is
out of town.
The maple
wears a gayer scarf,
The field a
scarlet gown.
Lest I
should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a
trinket on.
“Autumn”
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Thou comest,
Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With
banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter
than brightest silks of Samarkand,
And stately
oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou
standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy
bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched
with benedictions o’er the land,
Blessing the
farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield
is the red Harvest Moon, suspended
So long
beneath the heaven’s o’er-hanging eaves;
Thy steps
are by the farmer’s prayers attended;
Like flames
upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And,
following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine
almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!
“To Autumn”
By John Keats (1795-1821)
.jpg)
A 1905 illustration for Keats’
poem “To Autumn” by Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966). (Image Credit: Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons)
Season of
mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close
bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring
with him how to load and bless
With fruit
the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with
apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all
fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the
gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet
kernel; to set budding more,
And still
more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they
think warm days will never cease,
For Summer
has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not
seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes
whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting
careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair
soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a
half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with
the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the
next swath and all its twined flowers:
And
sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy
laden head across a brook;
Or by a
cider-press, with patient look,
Thou
watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are
the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of
them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred
clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch
the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a
wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the
river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking
as the light wind lives or dies;
And
full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets
sing; and now with treble soft
The
red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And
gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
“Autumn”
By William Blake (1757-1827)
O Autumn,
laden with fruit, and stained
With the
blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my
shady roof; there thou mayest rest,
And tune thy
jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the
daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the
lusty song of fruits and flowers.
“The narrow
bud opens her beauties to
The Sun, and
love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms
hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish
down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till
clustering Summer breaks forth into singing,
And
feathered clouds strew flowers round her head.
The spirits
of the air live on the smells
Of fruit;
and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens,
or sits singing in the trees.”
Thus sang
the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose,
girded himself, and over the bleak
Hills fled
from our sight; but left his golden load.
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