Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1890-11-13


cealed the rich black loan, the productive
farms of future generations. But
the dainty blue violet and other
wood flowers bloomed in their season,
in scant profusion. Now, however, only
the latest of summers colors frightened
the earth or perfumed the leafy arches
with their fragrance. Instead, the ground
was beginning to be covered with an
irregular mosaic of dead and dying au-
tumn leaves. The trees, too, were dis
playing the same diversity or color AS
one looked down into the depths of the
forest he could trace every shade of green
and brown, with here and there a scarlet
fringe. Here is all oak with leaves still
green as spring, and farther on a distant
cousin who is coming out in colors such
as artists never hope to initiate with
paint and brush; while standing side by
side with this gay young gallant is more
unfortunate brother doomed to pass into
his winters sleep in dusky, ugly brown.
The long feather-limbed elms and branch
ing NAPLES that have not yet been touched
by frost, protected, perhaps. by other
trees. proclaim their respective family
traits. and wave aloft their family colors
of lighter tint of green than the hard
wooded oak; while those which have felt
the first touches of winters pioneersman
are gracefully turning themselves into
the more subdued of autumn colors, more
delicate, if less gorgeous, than the colors
twines in and out among the branches of
some friendly tree and mingles its bright
redleaves with the green of its supporter.
When the tree is brown, as perchance it
may be, the brilliant colors peeping out
from beneath or behind the more sober
suit, reminds one of a gayly 'plumaged
bird flirting its feathers within its cage or
of captive peeHing out from behind his
prison bars.
In Sagnauck also signs of autumn were
visible, and the thrifty pioneers were fol-
lowing nature in their preparation for the
being robbed of their spoils, and i'm
mense mounds marked the places where
the crops of potatoes and turnips and ap-
pies had been covered with thick layers
of straw and earth, to protect them from
the severe New England cold.
Yellow ears of corn showed themselves
through the lower chink of the log
granaries which before another month
would be filed to the very brim. Be-
side the kitchen doors lay golden heaps
Of mammoth pumpkins and long-necked
squashes, which were being constantly
diminished by the busy housewife and
her daughters, who cut and hung them in
long festoons from the kitchen rafters.
Embryo woodpiles, which before another
month would be heaped high as the
house and again dwindle down to their
present size by spring, marked each
more secure, and the pens were filed with
hogs, which had nothing to do all day
long but MUNICH the yellow ears Of corn
and grow fat for Christmas killing.
Upon the inlets which had been cut
from the settlement into the woods to let
the waves of human work and life far
Their out were rows of corn shocks, not
unlike in appearance the Indian wigwams
which a century before may have graced
their very site. These little lamentations
of the forest, like so many arms reaching
out from the town to reclaim the land and
wrest it from the woody giants which
held it for miles around, had been the
result of five years of honest toll, Of fell
ing of trees and grub hing of roots, until
now so much of the rich black earth had
been reclaimed and was yielding an abun-
dant harvest. This harvest the sturdy
boys of the colony were attacking as
though it were an Indian village to be
ranstcked, and, having laid the wigwams
low, proceeded leisurely to separate them
into piles of yellow ears and great heaps
OF 70. der-the one ich winter food fol
the cattle; the former to be hauled 10 the
mill by the creek and ground into mea
for fam ly ash-eakes, bread, and pud-
dings.
This mill, which was owned by the
colony. was a picturesque bu lding, haC
been brought from the mother country II
pieces and set up here by Sagnaucl