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Show in miiiiim i i liwaiiiiBrflrrrre-,"li''m- ssTrittamrzvrr&jzixTamBievmnr,i - SEZLOTS OF INDIANS HERE-I'W) WfMl AB0UT5 AN' I FOUND AN J r? J Wm J$V' V'K fo ARROW HAO RlGrfr 8Y feVHM C JS 5OkW OUR CRICK, MY5ELF . 41- ! J . f ?1 )'Ll BfT THERE AR 'fefS UPjJ M WfWr. inDtM GHOSTS ALL AROUND US AT THIS iZ!Prf TIME 0' YAR. - POP -53 5AD MOPJm-''-' f By ELMO SCOTT WATSON BANG! goes another of our Illusions! It Is in reictird to that pleasant perioj In autumn, au-tumn, known as Indian suin-pA suin-pA uier. And as usual, it Is sel-'.V sel-'.V ence which has disillusioned us. No less an authority than the United States weather bureau, basing its statement upon accurate motwrolosieal observa- tions, has this to say about that delectable season, famed for Its genial ! sunshine and nllurlnc haze: I Indian summer is the name nrpl"! j tn this country to a rtr'oJ ot mild fall : weaihtT following a ppvll of unta'n- able cold weather known as "!"iuaw j winter." such as occurred this fall. It j Is not a fixed season in the calendar, t In many years tt Is Intermittent; j that is. there may he several lndmn summers in one autumn. Thoreau in notes on weather conditions at Con-I Con-I cord, Mas?., from 1 S l to records ! the occurrence of Indian summers on I dates i-anping from September 27 to j December 13. In Europe as well as In this coun-' coun-' try it Is popularly believed that a re newal of mild weather occurs every au-j au-j tumn, and the dates of its supposed ' occurrence are more definitely fixed ' than Is the case in America. Tht period Is associated with the names of various saints. The mild period thus, is known In i different parts of Europe as "St. Mar-I Mar-I tin's Summer," "St. Luke's Summer" oi I "St Michael's Summer," and tradition fosters the idea that it is always mild ! and warm, about the time of thee j various saints' days. CI i Histological facts, however, do not always square with this belief. Indian summer has always been a favorite theme of artists and poets, j especially the latter who, however, have usually been better verse mak-: mak-: ers than meteorologists. "When was i the red man's summer?" asks Lydia j riuntley Sigourney, "the Felicia II e-j e-j mans of America" and one of the early j Nineteenth century poets. Then, with, j out trying to fix the date in one of her poems, she says It came When the groves In fleeting colors wrote their own decay; de-cay; When with heart Foreboding or depressed, the white man marked The signs of coming winter, then began ! The Indian's joyous season. John G. C. Brainerd, a contemporary contempo-rary of Mrs. Sigourney, is more specific spe-cific in placing the season at the time When the frost Turns Into beauty all October's charms. Longfellow fixes the season about the first of November in a passage In his 'Evangeline" as follows: Then followed that beautiful season, Called by the pious Acadian peasants j the summer of All Saints, i Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and" the landscape Lay ts if new-created in all the freshness fresh-ness of childhood. Since election day comes in November, Novem-ber, the following quotation from Whittier's, MThe Eve of Election" also places Indian summer in that mouth : From gold to gray Our mild sweet day Of Indian summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above tha sea Hangs, whti and calm, th hunter's , moon. In lta pale flr The village eplre Show like th iodine's spectral lance; The palntrd wnlls Whereon it falls Transfigured stand In marble trance! Stephen Henry Thayer puts It a little lit-tle Inter lu the month when he s:iy that It is In the autumn's dotage, mid November, No-vember, When Rkies. seductive, seem to woo the earth. Other poets, however, are more concerned con-cerned with what It Is rather than when It Is and have given us some charming" descriptions. Sam Walter Fuss, In his Inimitable dialect, calls it "a piece of sweetmeat" In the following fol-lowing verse : "Natur, the gocd eld school-marm who pities our distre;-. She gives her children every year a little glad recess; An ol" grny-hended boys and girls they feel their hearts thaw out. An' life flows on as music' ly as water wa-ter from a Fpout; An' now the Ingin Summer time, "1th all Its rest is here, A piece of sweet moat stuck between the slices of the year; A sorter reign er Jubilee twlxt snow an" thunder showers; A chunk of sweetness sandwiched In between the frost and flowers. Nor were the early American poets the only ones who paid their tribute, as witness the following by Marian Isabel Angus: 'INDIAN SUMMER Indian summer broods today Over the mellow autumn lands, , Soft wispy veils of amethyst And amber pale stream from her hands. Vines hang heavy with purple grapes; Apple trees bend with crimson gemD. And in the woods the great oak trees Are crowned with golden diadems. Like topazes the pumpkins lie Set In a ring of brown and green. And mock the sun, while slender spears Of goldenrod make gay the scene. Nature Is drowsy; her work is done. Now she awaits her winter rest; Harvest is over; the tired brown earth Will sleep with red leaves on her breast. And Minna Irving paints this gayly-j gayly-j colored word picture of I INDIAN BLANKETS Sumac fires are burning brightly. Ruby-red the embers glow, Indian council fires rekindled From the ash of long ago; And the wind's a runner passing With his feet in deerskin shod, And a chief's tall feather tosses In the dusty goldenrod. Wild grapes ripen in the thicket. Purple asters edge the stream. And the braves to earth returning By the moon's enchanted beam Hang their redand yellow blankets On the windy maple bough When the frosty night is over, For it's Indian summer now. Another famous dialect poet, Frank L. Stanton, writing of Indian summer in his native state of Georgia, declares that Injun minimcr suits me, soft nlKht and Kttlly dny. And J could keep on dreamln' till 1 dreamed my life away. And Cornelia It. Doherty calls it the seannn WHEN THE ACORNS DROP There's a whSper on the hilltop and a murmur In the wood There's a dream of Kolden lory ever)' ev-er)' w hero ; On the beech a ruNaet cover, on the e!m a motll-d hod. While the wa"lnut lifts her branches lirown n nd l:i re. Oh, the crows h-iM their meeting In the old oak s top, And ho, for Indian summer when lh acorns drop; There's a bloom upon the meadow like the ghot of summer tlowcr.". But the forest and the valleys ar all a me. And on hilMde and in hollow throughout through-out all the misty hours Dtirt-nd the rjstling drops of autumn au-tumn rain. Oh. the niiuirrol'a at his feasting In the old oak's top. And ho, for Indian summer when the acorns drop! When the chestnut and the hazelnut put on a richer brown, And the blackbirds all are gathered In a flock. When mallow-in-the-marshes buttons up her yellow gowns, Then it's lime to hc-ap the fodder In a shock. Oh, autumn's on her waning; better gather in the crop! And ho. for Indian summer when the acorns drop! But not all the beautiful tributes to Indian summer have been in verse. Oliver Wendell Holmes, writer of delightful de-lightful prose ns well as poetry, In his essay on the seasons, says: In October, or early in November, after the "equinoctial storms." comes the Indian summer. It is the time to be in the woods or on the seashore a sweet season that should be given to lonely walks, to stumbling about in old churchyards, plucking on the way tli j aromatic silvery herb everlasting, and smelling at its dry flower until it etherizes the soul into aimless reveries outside of space and time. There it no need of trying to paint the still, warm, misty, dreamy Indian summer in words, there are many states that have no articulate vocabulary, and are only to bo reproduced by music, and the, mood this season produces is of that nature. In "The Guardian Angel" he continues contin-ues on that theme thus: To those who know the Indian summer sum-mer of our northern states it Is needless need-less to describe the influence It exerts on the senses and the soul. The stillness still-ness of the landscape in that beautiful time 1? as if the planet were sleeping, like a top, before it begins to rock with the storms of autumn. All natures na-tures seem to find themselves more truly in its light; love grows more tender, religion more spiritual, memory mem-ory sees farther back into the past, grief revisits its mossy marbles, the poet harvests the ripe thoughts which he will tie In sheaves of verses by his winter fireside. And in "Elsie Venner" he refers again to this season by declaring that "The real forest is hardly still except In Indian summer; then there is death in the house, and they are waiting for the sharp shrunken months to come with white raiment for the summer's burial." |