52 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



air. In a light wagon a group of Indian men and 

 women, who a short time before had been amusing 

 the crowd with native dances on the judges^ stand, 

 were preparing for the twenty-five mile drive 

 homeward to the ^^Reservation." The gypsies 

 were to remain on the grounds over night, travel- 

 ing the next day along country roads westward to 

 another local fair. At various booths they were 

 asking, of comrades of a week, "Where are you 

 going next!" A man answered, "To Grundy 

 Center." A woman responded, in the drawling, 

 weary tone of one who had experienced the vicis- 

 situdes of fortune, "To Marengo. We have given 

 up Newton — he thought it wasn't worth while to 

 sue them ; might make trouble for another year. ' ' 

 In the town trees the katydid uttered his own pre- 

 cise, insistent phrases, so far as one knows taking 

 no thought of the morrow. 



Des Moines, September 7, 1907. 

 Yesterday through the car windows, appeared 

 the canvas-covered wagons of the fair-ground gyp- 

 sies, in far-stretched caravan crawling over the 

 Jasper County hills. The most distinguished 

 flower of the right-of-way was the rose-red blaz- 

 ing star, in frequent brilliant patches. Blue ver- 

 vain fringed the borders of the sloughs, ironweed 

 nodded in low meadows, wild bergamot formed 

 miniature forests on the slopes of upland pastures. 



