The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1905-11-02
A DAY IN THE AUTUMN WOODS,
Take Your Sweetheart-Wife for q
Day Ct Communion With Mature;

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Day Ct Communion With Mature;
Tom Watson's Magazine (EditoriaD for October
Did you never, Mr.. Busy Man, dro]
all your crowding tasks for a space
snatch one whole day from the nois,
world In which you hustle and carry /
with you into the brilliant woods o
Indian summer?
Did you never take by the hand tn,
patient wife who loves you with suci
tried devotion, and say to her:
"Sweetheart, will you ride with mi
today?"
1t may be that Time is even nov
frosting your temples, and the shadow
beginning to follow where it used t.
lead. Quick, then, Mr.. Busy Man
Now or never, If you would taste tb.
nectar which 60 many neglect, and
which, thank God is as free to the
peasant as to the king!
Very quietly we went, my sweetheart
and I, taking our way along the path
then out across ths fallen leaves, say
ing little.
The sounds OF travel on the road
were left far behind, and were alone
she and I, in the majestic forest.
How gorgeous 1t was! The dress
parade of nature was never more thrill
lingiy splendid.
The red sugarberry flew its battle
flag from every height. The golden
maple marched side by side with the
red elm, and underneath these stately
leaders crowded the dogwood aud the
sassafras In serried skirmish line.
Mopk-like lowered the hooded pine
over blazing yellow of hickory, over
purple heads of oaks,
And the falling leaves, how they
drlfted down in dazzling showers, Drift
lug here against a rock, drifting yon-
der against bank, falling straight
or falling aslant, but falling, ever fall
ing, whispering family as they drifted
downward through the bree zsless, gold
en- afternoon.
WHAT loot Of Persian king ever tired
carpet 80 rich, so deep, so many-hued
We walked upon it slowly, hushed
into perfect silence by the nameless
spell oil primeval woods.
Above US squirrel was busy with a
nut how silly it was for him to leap
franitcally away, springing from tree
to tree till he was hidden in his hol-
low! We had no murder In our hearts
that day-certainly none that day.
The sapsuoker and the yellowham-
mer were drumming ON dead limbs,
and the tattoo which they beat with
their long bills rang metalllcally down
the forest.
A covey of partridges, summing them
selves in an open, grassy nook, got al
most under our feet before they rose
with startled and startling futter and
wblrled away.
Over ledge after ledge of rock, be-
tween two steep bills, dashed stream
from the spring far up the slope.
Was music ever sweeter! We sat
down beside the brook, and as noted
the record of the waters path On the
rocks and reflected how long that little
rilI must haye been at work cutting its
way downward to the gray stones upon
which We sat, got some idea of how
old, how very Cid, it all was; and /
wondered which one OF those smooth
worn furrows in the granite marked
the bed OF the stream when Helen OF
T1oy, was young, or when chained
thousands; groaning beneath the lash,
were fitting stones into the Pyramids.
Wrapped in this mood of idle
thought had not noticed that my
had left me and gone on
down the glen, urtiI she called me to
see the minnows, the silver sided fish,
which rose by the score to the crumbs
she scattered upon the pool, and which
she was feeding with all the delight OF
one who loves every innocent thing
that God made.
And 20 the afternoon wore away.
We strolled from rock to rock, from
tree to tree, from the hilltop to the
brook and from the brook to the bill
again, each scene so lovely that each
seemed lovelier than TIE others.
A mighty suspense hnng within
these wooded aisles, as if some my site
interval bad fallen upon the vast Ca
thedral service of nature. One felt
that something had gone before, that
something would follow after, but that,
for the moment, to be reverently silent
was worship.
Boieterous laughter among those
fading ROYALTIES of the trees would have
been sacrilege.
F1ivolity amid the showers OF these