154 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



swung from a bough, and haunches were sus- 

 pended against the trunk. That camp is daguer- 

 reotyped on my memory: the old tree, the wliite 

 tent, with Shaw sleeping in the shadow of it, and 

 ReynalPs miserable lodge close by the bank of the 

 stream. ' ' ^° 



The ^'Big Rock," too, remembered by a thou- 

 sand travelers on foot, or in wagon or carriage, as 

 they came down the long hill, turned south and 

 *^ struck the road" between the counties, is said to 

 be blasted and removed. We will loaf no more on 

 its granite surface, in June sunshine, comrades of 

 mine. No more will we brush the snow from the 

 gray-whit e-black mosaic and stamp our chilly feet 

 till they are warm for the homeward stretch. But 

 the oranges are still l}dng caught in the thorny 

 branches of the osage ; the tree sparrows still ren- 

 der tinkling music from the brush-heap in the 

 farmyard; the black furrows of newly ploughed 

 fields are again waiting for the snows of Decem- 

 ber and the seed of a late March day. 



Laivrence, Kansas, November 30, 1913. 

 We have had chiefly warm weather throughout 

 the month, with the temperature passing seventy 

 degrees a number of days, and on Thanksgiving 

 and since, cloudiness, rain, mist, or fog. Within 

 the last ten days or so, many insects have been 



30 Oregon Trail, Chapter X. 



