Connecticut western news., 1910-09-29
TIME IS FLYING

The summer has passed and autumn is here. It seems but few weeks ago, when we were all eagerly planning our vacation visits. We looked forward in anticipation to the summers outing, and out heart thrilled with joy as we thought of the lakes and mountains, the sea, and river sides, where as vacation dwellers we would while away the hot summer days.
 We'll, vacation came, and vacation days are gone. We look back upon them now as thing that is past. If we got out of them all the joy and pleasure we hoped to gain, we are fortunate. If there were disappointments we bore them as best we could and the waning summer brought to us at least some measure of compensation.
 Now we look back upon it, as we do upon so many other things that are past and gone. Autumn is with us. We are once more back i'll the harness of work, or at least most of US are, and the days, are fitting by just as they passed in the summer by the lakes and the rivers, and in the hills and the noun tains and sea.
 Only few more days and the leaves will be painted with the rich tints of the later autumn, and on every hillside a wealth of gold and crimson will take the place of the emerald green. Once more we will see nature in it's changing mood, then the leaves will fade, and fall and die, and only the barren branches of the trees will stand silhuetted against the sky or the background of rugged rock or dingy earth, to mark the spot once gloryerowned.
 Earth will give upits summer raiments and the ermine of winter will clothe the hills and the valleys. The musical jim gle of sleigh h-bells will usprp the shrill honk of auto horn and 'feathery snow fakes will rest where erstwhile emerald leaves clothed the trees in beauty.
 Then will come Christmas. It seems to you now 8 long look ahead; but Christ mas will soon be with us. Already the contemplating drummers are placing their orders with business firms for the Christ mas stock, and it won't be many weeks before the store windows will blossom out with wonderous combinations of color, and toyland will again reestablish itself in every village and hamlet and town where busy merchants keep pace with the trend of the times.
 Yes, Christmas will soon be here, and many home will ring with shouts of merriment, for no where in this great, wide world, is the Christmas season more generally observed than in the do- mains of Uncle Sam.
 Other homes there will be where sad ness rsigns, for death, the great leveler of rank and condition has been busy with his sickle. From this home he has taken one loved one and from that home another loved ono, and where last Christ mas there was joy and gladness, the mis- tletos and the holly will this year stand as symbols of grief.
 Little hands which year ago clutched the toys, clasp them no more in many a home. The little voice that so fondly murmured ehe name of mama is hushed, and in the stiffness of the coming Christ mas dawn, mother will listen in vain for patterlng footsteps which never more shall echo through that home, and hear no longer the prattling voice, rejoicing ill eostaoy over the Christmas toys.
 Old Santa Claus will miss many lit tie stocking he filled last Christmas. But who shall disclaim that from realms of light, from whence the angles came with their songs of glad tidings and of peace on earth, good will to men. that little one may not, the coming Christ mas, look down upon father and mother and with the sweet smile reflected from the Bethlehem babe, send greetings to lonely hearts saddened by the very joys of Christmas time.
 Yes, time is fitting. One by one dear ones have gone out of the home circle, into the homeland; gone never to re- turn. Hearts are filled with sorrow and burdens of grief seem harder to bear and the path is steep and rocky, but beyond the sorrow and the tears is the Light of the World, that shines on and on unto she perfect day.