The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-12-22
Autumn Thoughts.

There can be nothing sadder than the
solemn hush of nature that precedes the
death of the year. The golden glory OF
autumn, with the billowy bronze and
velvet azure of the skies above the royal
robes of oak and maple, bespeak the
closing hours of natures teeming life and
the silent farewell to humanity's gauze
underwear.
Thus while nature dons her regal
robes of scarlet and gold in honor of the
farewell benefit to autumn, the sad
eyed poet steals swiftly away to the
neighboring clothes line, and in the
hour of natures grand blowout dons
the flaming hannels of his friend out of
respect for the hectic flush of the dying
year.
Leaves have their time to fall, and so
has the price of coal. And yet how sadly
at variance with decaying nature is the
robust coal market.
Another glorious summer with its
memories is stored away among the arch
ives of our history. Another gloomy
winter is upon us. These wonderful
colors that flame across the softened sky
of Indian summer like the CORY banner
of royal conqueror, come but to warn
us that in few short weeks the water
pipe will be busted in the kitchen and
the decorated wash-bowl will be broken.
We fit through the dreamy hours of
summer like swift-winged humble bees
amid the honeysuckle and the pumpkin
blossoms, storing away perhaps a little
glucose honey and buckwheat pancakes
for the future, but all at once, like a
newspaper thief in the night, the king of
frost and ripe, mellow chilblains is upon
US, and we crouch beneath the wintry
blast, and hump our spinal column up
into the crisp air like Texas steer that
has thoughtlessly swallowed raw
cactus.
Life is one continued round of alter
nate joys and SORROWS. To-day We are
ON the wave of prosperity and warming
ourselves in the glad sunlight OF plenty,
and tomorrow we are cast down and de-
pressed financially, and have to stand of
the washerwoman for our clean shirt or
stay at home from the opera.
The October sky already frowns down
upon us, and its frozen tears begin to
fall. The little birds have hushed their
little lay. So has the the fatigued hen.
Only little while, and the yawning
chasm in the cold, calm features of the
Thanksgiving turkey will be filed with
voluptuous stuffing and then sewed up.
Tue horid features of the polygamous
gobbler will be wrapped in sadness, and
cranberry pie will be burden, for the
veal outlet goeth to its long home, and
the ice-cream freezer is broken i'll the
woodhouse.
Oh, Time! thou bald-headed pelican
with the venerable corn cutter and the
secondhand hour-glass, thou playest
strange pranks upon the children Of men
No one would think. to look at thy bill
ious countenance aud store teeth, that il
thy bony bosom lurked such eccentric
schemes.
The chubby boy, whose danger signal
hangs sadly through the latticework Of
his pants. knows that Time, who waits
for no man, will one day, if he struggles
heroically on, give him knowledge and
suspenders. and fame and solid girl
experience and soft white mustache
and eventually a low grave in the valley
beneath the signing elms and the weep
ing willow, where, in the misty twilight
of the year, nOiselessly upon his breast
shall fall the dead leaf, while the silent
tear of the gray autumnal sky will come
and sink into the yellow grass above his
head Boomerang.