176 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



were looking for it, a crisping frost had tinted the long 

 grass of the prairies with a sunlike hue, and crowned as 

 Avith rubies the old maple that shadowed their cabin. 



^'But so glorious was that autumn, that none of them 

 mourned for the lost summer. Like a dream of beauty 

 it lay on their hearts; day after day of the calmest, lov- 

 liest weather coming to delight them. The golden air 

 was fragrant with balmy winds; the sky was splendid, a 

 thousand flitting tints of blue and amber chasing over 

 its zenith, while pale, purplish mists hung about its hor- 

 izon; the woodland grew each day more gorgeous in its 

 coloring; the river sang more softly, while the prairies 

 were more magnificent than ever, their long grass roll- 

 ing and swelling like the waves of an ocean, while the 

 flowers that lingered were kingly in their hues, giving 

 here a rich amethystine glory to the landscape, and 

 there clothing it with a star-like radiance." 



(The text states that the events connected with the 

 scenes described above occurred fifteen years before the 

 novel was published, which was in 1860.) 



III. NOTES FOR NOVEMBER 



20. In the edition of 1908 this extension is made: 

 "and rarely throughout autumn and winter." Rich, 

 abundant blossoms are sometimes seen at Lawrence in 

 December and even in January. Dandelions were re- 

 ported in bloom in Grinnell at the end of November, 

 1907. 



21. It was probably in the early eighties that a one- 

 wagon menagerie of Nebraska wild animals was drawn 

 into Grinnell by a team of buffaloes. In September, 



