76 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



found way back east or up north or way out west. 

 Yet this stream of our ramble today has reaches 

 of fairly deep channel for its size, flows here and 

 there over sandy bars, pebbles, small boulders; 

 has miniature waterfalls that make a gurgling 

 sound, and all in all has more of brook character 

 than many of the streams near town. 



In the higher hard clay or loam banks there are 

 holes where we look for bank swallow nests in the 

 spring. The principal trees near the channel are 

 willows and gnarled wild crab apples — now with 

 fruit about as ripe as it ever gets, though green 

 and hard. On the levels above the slopes of the 

 valley are osage hedges along the borders of farm 

 fields, where in places one can find bittersweet and 

 wild grapes. On the more open summits the prai- 

 rie chickens sometimes gather in the spring to hold 

 their love tournaments — curious proceedings in 

 both sounds and movements. From a hillside now 

 and then one can pick up a sparkling geode. After 

 crossing a rough, rather remote country road, the 

 stream runs through a hilly farm owned by a man 

 who lives in town. He is a graduate of an eastern 

 college who came west not to seek his fortune in 

 the usual sense, but to recover the lost fortune of 

 health. There are few if any log cabins now left 

 in this vicinity, but the small house on this farm is 

 suggestive of pioneer life, and the farm, not close 

 to neighbors, composed of some rough hilly lands. 



