96 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



not infrequently the season of first snow fall, 

 though this is sometimes recorded, for poetic pur- 

 poses, when amounting to little more than a few 

 flying flakes. An interesting snowstorm occurred 

 here on the twenty-fifth of the month in 1898. One 

 awoke to look out on a white world, and snow fell 

 more or less all day, driven by fairly strong winds. 

 Surprised citizens trudged along the sidewalks 

 carr}dng new snow shovels. Many branches of 

 trees were bent till they touched the ground, large 

 limbs were broken off by the weight of the snow, 

 and there were many other wintry effects not often 

 seen in October. 



There are many fine moonlit evenings during 

 the month, favorable to strolling lovers, boys play- 

 ing shouting games of search, campfires gleaming 

 cozily by mid-field hedges. Hallowe'en is often a 

 festival when outdoor sorceries are as natural and 

 as thrilling as those indoors with sheeted ghosts, 

 candles in hollowed pumpkins, nuts, apples, and 

 cider, festoons of bittersweet, scarlet branches of 

 oaks and maples. The heavens in October declare 

 their glory not merely by flooding moonlight, 

 sparkling stars, and meteors, but now and then 

 in rarer form not peculiar to the season. This year 

 near the middle of the month there was a total 

 eclipse of the moon; many years ago a brilliant 

 comet, visible at four or five o'clock in the morn- 



