Autumn spoke to industry, told of the sowing of another harvest,
of the tawny shock, of the purple grape, of the red apple, and called upon
muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men's hearts. The little
stations hummed with bustle and noise; big farm wagons rattled away and
raced with cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick steps; the
baggage-masters called cheerily to the trainmen, and the brakemen laughed
good-bys to rollicking girls.
As they left Gainesville three children, clad in calico, barefoot and
bareheaded, came romping out of a log cabin on the outskirts of the town,
and waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed on the sagging gate
in front of their humble domain, and laughed for joy to see the monstrous
caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bearing the faces by. The
smallest child, a little cherubic tow-head, whose cheeks were smeared with
clean earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood upright on a fence-
post, and blew the most impudent of kisses to the strangers on a journey.
Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green
rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous
billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country roads,
they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the
graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a purple-turbaned head,
or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train.
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