Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1903 — An Autumnal Memory. [ARTICLE]

An Autumnal Memory.

When the autumn skies are (raying and the earth Is turning brown And the leaves in golden showers from tho trees are falling down. Memory on Its silent pinions wings away toward the days When the sun of youth was shedding on our head Its golden rays. We can see the shocks of fodder standing just as when we left. See the chipmunks holding acorns in their claws so sharp and deft. Hear the hick’ry nuts come falling from the grand old shellbark trees When their limbs were softly shaken by the Angers of the breese. We can hear the turkeys gobbling In the barnyard 'cross the lane. Hear the humming of the thrashers pounding out the golden grain. See the yellow old cow pumpkins lying thick upon the ground. With the stubble of the cornstalks sharply hedging them around. But the very sweetest migrtc that came to our boyish ears; Music that has clung unto us through the Intervening years. Was the music that was started by the antics of the breese— Hick’ry nuts a-rattllng downward from the shaggy shellbark trees How us wild shock headed youngs term, hardy products of the farms. Hastened to the nearby woodland, pillowslips hung on our arras, Lading echoes with our laughter, answering the bob white'a call. When the treat was on the fences and the nuts began to fall! Busy were our little Angers as we filled the muslin slips, Rude at times the exclamations that would ripple from our lips As we'd guy the bold Intruders, saucy, ■ well dressed boys from town Out among the. shellbark hlck’rles when the nuts were falling down. Looking back o'er life so riddled with Its pleasures and its pains. With its seasons glad with sunshine and its days of chilling rains. Like an ever sparkling Jewel In the mem’ry crown a blase Cornea the joyous recollection of those careless boy hod days; Comes a picture of the farmhouse, of the crooked old rail fence. Of the saucy squirrels barking In the wood so deep and dense. Of the leaves so softly rustling when dl*-' turbed by passing breese, And the Wek*ry nuts a-falllng frotn the, grand old shellbark trees. —James Barton Adams In Denver Post. J