Connecticut Western News

Indian Summer.

The rains that have fallen, so joyous in their gloom to some and so desolate to others: the graver tone of the skies, the sere leaves, denuded trees, dried grass, and whistling winds are the gateway through which the glory of the American year—its Indian summer—is entered. In spite of the mathematical calculations of the almanac men Indian summer is a moveable feast. It comes with the frost and before the snow. It comes when the cornfields are all harvested, and while the boys are gathering the latest glories of the orchard when Maud with Marion are searching the last flowers and the most brilliant leaves among all with which the American fall decorates American forests before they are surrendered to winter. It comes when the furnaces are lighted in town and plans laid before the indoor enjoyments of coming months.
Other countries have their seasonable superiorities. Nothing can be finer than the lush greenery of a perfect summer day in England: when all is repose and the atmosphere and the scenery seem freighted with wealth. The sudden burst of spring, garnished with flowers and all but developed to summer at its very birth in Italy, is fine. A winter day in Holland has been glorified by both painter and poet. But Indian summer is more bravely and gorgeously appareled here than they all; is decorated with colors they never know; lets glimpses of sunlight make burning avenues that seem unreal on canvas; has the squirrel and partridge and duck and deer to tempt the hunter's skill and enliven the artist's landscape. And the reality is as attractive as the picture. For then out door work is done for the year, and crowded barns and bursting granaries; repopulated stables and refilled tool-houses; the glow of evening windows and the reunion of separated families show that home and social life are reborn. We are on the edge of this season, and it is as fugitive as it is charming.—Exchange.