86 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



Cedar Falls, October 31, 1891. 



The first half of the month brought a few pleas- 

 ant days, mth sunsets of more or less autumnal 

 beauty, but many days were cold and rainy. Most 

 of the insect voices passed with September, and 

 the orchestral music of the birds dwindled to 

 feeble passages on a few minor instruments. For 

 a period, one heard almost daily the practical 

 notes of the nuthatch; the robin chirped a little 

 now and then ; once the song of a meadowlark came 

 in at open windows, as full and clear as in spring. 

 The bluebirds lingered to the middle of the month 

 — long enough to greet the returning snowbirds, 

 who flitted in wayside bushes, showing white feath- 

 ers prophetic of winter landscapes. Grapes from 

 the abundantly provided vines of our host were 

 among the delicacies of the season. The bloom of 

 red clover mth the contrasting gold of corn and 

 pumpkins gave almost the only rich coloring in 

 the world of herbs. By the tenth, the leaves were 

 falling in considerable numbers along the streets, 

 but there was yet no brilliance of foliage. 



Suddenly, it seemed, about the middle of the 

 month, the hard maples began to show golden 

 tints, and in a few days were in all their glory. 

 Coming home from church on the eighteenth we 

 passed through a kind of arcade or cloister fash- 

 ioned by maples with low-hanging branches. There 

 was then full sunli2:ht and one seemed to be ad- 



