SUMAC

Mother and Jenny looked along the roadside ditches for hidden hen’s nests. Jenny thought this was fun. It was something like an Easter egg hunt. Sometimes the hens hid their nests in odd places. Mother liked to find them before the eggs became too old to sell, and before the laying hen became a brooding hen and would not be laying any more eggs for a while. Hens did not understand that raising a brood away from the protection of the coop made them an easy mark for predators.

They wore their jackets, as the first cool days of autumn had arrived, a blessed relief from the dogged persistence of late summer.The ground was carpeted with red, gold, and brown fallen leaves and the air was filled with fragrance after the season’s first frost. The big cottonwoods in the draw were masses of bright yellow now; many of their leaves were raining down. Jenny picked a faded sprig of go###≈ldenrod, but most of it came apart in the air, the downy bits tickling her nose.

“We’ll go up the road a ways and pick some sumac,” Mother said.

“What’s sumac?” asked Jenny.

“See that,” and Mother pointed to some red and gold splashes on the distant bank above the grader ditch.

“Oh, good! Flowers!” exclaimed Jenny.

“No, they’re leaves.”

As they drew closer, Jenny could see that they certainly were leaves. There were different shades of dark red and gold leaves with a few remaining green ones. Jenny thought they were beautiful and wanted to stay here for a long time. Then an unhappy thought struck her.

“Mother, who does this belong to?”

“Well, it’s on the Painter’s side of the road, so I suppose it belongs to them.”

“Will we be put in jail if we pick some?”

“No, I”m sure they won’t mind. We’ll just pick a little and there will be plenty left.”


Mother broke off several sprays of the vivid leaves and handed them to Jenny. They were sticky in places. The back of the leaves wasn’t as bright as the front, so Jenny tried to keep them all turned in one direction. Mother got two vases and filled them with the sumac and put in some water. In a short time the leaves began to lose their brightness. They didn’t look as pretty inside the house as they had in the bright sunlight. Maybe they shouldn’t have picked them. You couldn’t bring the outdoors indoors any more than you could bring the indoors outdoors. She remembered the time she had wanted to eat her snack outdoors, making a little island of buffalo grass her table. The ants crawled into her glass of milk and all over her bread and butter and she had to throw them both away. The bright shells and pebbles she had found in a stream one time, became dull after she brought them home and they had dried. The sumac was prettier just growing on the roadside. Maybe some things were better left as they were.