Fall Colors: A Fable

Belinda rustled her leaves a little, trying to get the attention of the handsome oak across the creek, but she could see it was no use. There were people using the aluminum recycling center over there, and a dryad would never come out when people might see him. There was no reason for her to stay in her tree, though, so she brought her dryad form outside. It was an interesting feeling; we might compare it to pulling off a band-aid, while at the same time being the band-aid. Even at a distance she could still feel the wind in her branches and the sun on her leaves.

Her friend Pertha came over to be sociable. Pertha’s tree was one of a small clump of ashes standing by the railroad tracks.

“Hello, Darling,” Pertha greeted her, sitting down under the silver maple. “How’s tricks?”

“Well enough, I suppose. I feel fall in the air. The days are getting shorter and cooler.”

“Ah, yes. Why, I could even tell just by looking at your leaves.”

“My leaves? Am I starting to go yellow already?

“Why I should say so. Just a little around the top, that’s all. So far.”

Belinda looked over at Pertha’s tree. “You don’t have a bit of fall color yet.”

“Well,” Pertha chuckled, “I had a little help.”

“Do you mean you had them greened up?”

“Just a bit of green, you know. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Look at my bark.”

Belinda peered over at the ash again. “It looks a little puffy. Did you get another bark peel?”

Pertha smiled. “Not this time. I had herbicide injected in my epidermis.”

“Herbicide!” Belinda exclaimed, shocked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Of course not, Dear. Not any more than any other beauty procedure.” She gave Belinda a sideways glance. “Perhaps you should consider it.”

“Me?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to be worried about. You know how it is, all of us get a little roughness to our bark once we hit that certain age.”

“Well I don’t know about that. How about the leaf dying – that’s not hard, is it?”

“Nothing easier. Someone just has to go up there and inject each leaf with a little dye.” Belinda considered this. Pertha leaned over and added confidentially, “You know, Dear, I really didn’t want to say anything, but some of the other girls are starting to talk.” She gestured toward the ashes.

“Oh, are they? Do you think some dye will really make me prettier?”

“It will make you look younger. That’s all that counts.”

“Well, you look great, Pertha. But personally, I always thought the changing leaves and wrinkled bark looked rather pretty." She considered for a moment. Now she felt odd, being the only tree this side of the creek whose leaves were yellow. "But if you think so, I’ll try it.” So Pertha told Belinda how to contact her Cosmetic Arborist.

Soon Belinda the silver maple had her leaves dyed green, got herbicide injected under her bark, and even splurged on an exposed root pedicure. While the leaves of the other trees turned red, gold, purple, orange, or russet, hers remained green, as did the leaves of the little group of ashes. Then one day in mid-October, the green leaves all withered and fell off at once.

Belinda wasn’t sure this was exactly the effect she’d been hoping for. It certainly didn’t garner her any looks from the hunky oak. And she thought the way her bark puffed out made her look funny.


“You know,” she remarked to Pertha one day in November, “for all the work and expense it took to dye all those leaves and get the pesticide treatment, the effect certainly didn’t last long.”

“Ah, my dear,” Pertha sighed philosophically, “We women do what we have to do.”

Belinda considered this. It was true, she noted, that only female dryads seem to do such things. “Why don’t guys dye their leaves?”

“That’s different, of course,” replied Pertha. “On male trees fall colors look dignified.”