Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

"The wondrous shine on autumn leaves must be the golden notes

That beat on them the summer through, From songbirds' rapturous throats."

Sudie Stuart Hagar calls them Goldsmiths, those songsters that are now silent. A lone chickadee song was all I heard on my solitary hike in Sunday's sunshine. A snowy tree cricket fiddled away as the strong breezes blew from the southwest, bringing down little, yellow locust leaves like rain.

"There's a purple tint on the woodland leaves, And the winds are up all day!

There's a rustling heard in the yellow leaves, And it seems to sadly say: Sweet summer's gone...