152 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



old: Down the little valley the wind is fairly 

 strong, stirring the broken, trampled cornstalks 

 and leaves to sharp, insistent, rustling sounds. 

 On the eastward slope, a half mile away, a sports- 

 man with gun and dog stalks rapidly by the feed- 

 ing horses and cattle — a silent figure, looming 

 and picturesque. A small bird suddenly rises 

 from the ground with a tenuous alarm note and 

 wings skyward. Perhaps it is a horned lark. From 

 the bed of the stream a lone wader springs up as if 

 reluctant to be disturbed in its wintry solitude, 

 and flies rapidly down stream, with a sharp clat- 

 tering cry — to rise again for longer flight when 

 again the intruder approaches. 



On the hill farm which was our goal the house- 

 wife was in the yard, apologetic for her dress. 

 She had been picking corn this Thanksgiving day, 

 and her husband was found storing a wagonload, 

 fresh from the field, in the old-fashioned board- 

 latticed crib. (At least one high school principal, 

 home for the holiday, is out on the fraternal farm, 

 helping with the husking.) All about the red cyl- 

 inders of the silos, conspicuous through the bare 

 trees and hedges, are new monuments of the en- 

 during rule of the King. Passing into the corn- 

 fields, after greeting the farmer, one sees an ear 

 dropped from the wagon, shining like gold. Under 

 the standing corn, the dry, brown, matted masses 

 of silk are spread along the earth. 



