Long ago, they say, the forest was green all year round, and never changed at all. The leaves stayed the same flat green from one season to the next, and the animals, though they did not complain, had quite forgotten what it was like to see something new. In this forest lived a clever little fox named Russet, who had the reddest coat anyone had ever seen — the color of warm embers, of sunset, of ripe rosehips.
"Such a shame," Russet thought, looking up at the endless green, "that the trees never get to wear a color as fine as mine."
One cool morning, Russet brushed past a low branch, and a tuft of his red fur caught on a twig and stuck fast to a leaf. The leaf, where the red fur touched it, slowly turned from green to a glowing scarlet. Russet stared. Then he grinned a clever foxy grin, for he had just had a wonderful idea.
He began to run through the forest, brushing his bright coat against every tree he passed — and everywhere his fur touched, the leaves blushed red and orange and gold.
For three days and three nights Russet ran, tireless, painting the forest with his own warm colors. He climbed to the highest branches and rubbed his tail along the topmost leaves. He leapt and twirled and rolled through the bushes. Slowly, tree by tree, the endless green gave way to a blaze of crimson and amber and burnished gold, until the whole forest glowed as if it were on fire with beauty.
The animals crept out of their dens and gasped. They had never seen anything so lovely in all their lives.
"What have you done?" asked an old owl, blinking at the glorious colors. "I gave the forest a new coat," said Russet proudly, "so it could feel as fine as I do." The animals played all day among the falling leaves, kicking up showers of gold, marveling at how a familiar place could become so wondrously new.
But after a while the painted leaves grew tired, and one by one they let go and drifted softly to the ground, leaving the branches bare.
At first the animals were sad. But Russet smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "In the spring, new green leaves will come — and when they grow old, I'll paint them again." And so he did, every single year. That, the old foxes say, is why the leaves turn red and gold each autumn and fall: it is Russet the fox, painting the world bright before its winter rest, so that nothing ever stays the same for too long.
"A little change," Russet would say, "makes the whole world new again."
And every autumn since, the forest has worn the colors of a clever, generous little fox.