28 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



Sabiila to Sioux City, circa September 25, 1893. 



After many months in the unceasing tnmult of 

 New York City, after a hurried visit, amid restless 

 crowds, to the Cohimbian Exposition in Chicago, 

 it was good to spend a quiet, beautiful September 

 day crossing the old home state. The route 

 touched no large town, but justified the familiar 

 phrase ''an agricultural state" by offering a con- 

 tinuous succession of pastures, orchards, and tilled 

 fields, varied only by woods and villages. Perhaps 

 the first morning sensations of freshness, calm, 

 and above all, of wide expanse, dawned on a 

 drowsy intelligence somewhere in the neighbor- 

 hood of Marion. "We were rolling then along the 

 crest of a height of land, with miles and miles of 

 fertile valley on both sides, bound on the dim hor- 

 izon by low, blurred masses of woodland — ''tim- 

 ber" or grove. 



A few hours later we whirled through the "Res- 

 ervation." The old word "savages," so common- 

 ly used in early records of Western life, might 

 perhaps apply in a degree to the speeding, shout- 

 ing Indians we had watched a night or two before, 

 under electric lights, in the great tent of Buffalo 

 Bill's Wild West ShoAv. Along these low river 

 lands this calm morning, the dignified indi^dduals 

 or stolid little groups of red men gave a very dif- 

 ferent impression. To the writer, a glimpse of the 

 Tama village readily excites vivid memories of 



