Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1895-03-01

re- led tie rich black lean, the productive
fo,ms of future generations. But
the dainty blue olet and other
wood flowers bloomel in thai season,
in scant pl ofusion. Now, however, Oily
the latest of summers colors frightened
the earth or rerfumed the le fly arches
with their fra rance. Instead, the ground
was beginning to be covered With an
irregular mosai, of dead and dying au-
tumn leaves. The trees, too, were dis
PLAYING the same diversity of color. AS
one looked down into the depths of the
forest he coul trace every shade OF grean
and brown, with here onl there scarlet
fringe. Here is all oak with leaves still
green as spring, an farther on distant
cousin who is coming out i'll colo!s such
as artists never hope to initiate with
paint and brush; while st ndlng side by
sido with this gay young gallant IS moro
unfortunate brother doomed to pass into
his winters sleep in dusky, ugly brown.
The long feather-limbede elms and branch
ingmaples that have not yet been touched
by frost, protected, perhal s, by other
trees, proclaim their respective family
traits, and wave alolt tbelr family color5
of lighter tint of green than the hard
wooded oak; while those which have relt
the first touches of winters pioneersman
are gracefully turning themselves into
the more subduei of autumn colors, more
delicate, if less gorgeous, than the colors
of the oak. Sometimes the poison ivy
twines in and out among the branches OF
some friendly tree and mingles It's bright
redleaves with the green of its supporter.
When the tree is brown, as perchance IL
may be, the brllli mt colors peeping out
from beneath or behind the more ooer
suit, reminds one OF gayly plumaged
bird flirting its feathers within its cage or
of captive peering out from behind his
prison bars.
In Sagnauck also gns of autumn were
Wis BILE, and the thrifty pioneers were fol-
lowing nature in their preparation for the
long winter months. The gardens were
being robbed of their spOils, and i'm
mense mounds n ,rked the places where
the crops of potatoes an turnips and ap-
pes had been covered with thick layers
of straw and earth, to protect them from
the severe New Eng and cold.
Yellow ears of corn showed themselves
through the lower chinkS OF the log
granaries which before another month
would be flied to the very brim. Be-
side tho kitchen doors lay golden heaps
VI uGmmOIu oAA AOA
suuashes, with were being constantly
diminished by the busy housewife and
her daughters, who cut and hung them in
long festoons from the kitchen rafters.
EMBRYO wcodpileS, which before smother
month would be heaped high as the
house nd again dwindle down 10 their
present size by spring, marked each
home. Shelter for cattle Was being made
more secure, and the pens were filled 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 fe far
tber 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 indentations,
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 grubbing of roots, until,
now so much of the rich black earth had
teen re claimed and was yielding an abun-
dant harvest. This harvest the sturdy
boys of the colony were attacking as
though it were on Indian village 10 be
ransacked, and, having laid the wigwams
low. pi oceeded leisurely to separate them
into piles of yellow ears and great heaps
OF fodder-the one itch winter food for
the cattle; the former to be hauled 10 the
mill by the creek and ground into meal
for fam ly sh-cakes, bread, and pud-
dings.
This mill, which was owned by the
CO. ony. was picturesque bu ldinl, had
been brought from the mother country in
pieces and set up here by Sagnauck