When I was young and used to roam around over the country, gathering water-melons in the dark of the moon, I used to think I could milk anybody's cow, but I do not think so now. I do not milk a cow now unless the sign is right, and it hasn't been right for a good many years. The last cow I tried to milk was a common cow, born in obscurity; kind of a self-made cow. I remember her brow was low, but she wore her tail high and she was haughty, oh, so haughty. I made a common-place remark to her, one that is used in the very best of society, one that need not have given offense anywhere. I said "so"--and she "soed". Then I told her to "histe"--and she histed. But I thought she overdid it. She put too much expression in it. Just then I heard something crash through the window of the barn and fall with a dull, sickening thud on the outside. The neighbors came to see what it was that caused the noise. They found that I had done it in getting through the window. I asked the neighbors if the barn was still standing. They said it was. Then I asked if the cow was injured much. They said she seemed to be quite robust. Then I requested them to go in and calm the cow a little and see if they could get my plug hat off her horns. I am buying all my milk now of a milk-man. I select a gentle milk-man who will not kick and I feel as though I could trust him. Then if he feels as though he could trust me, it is all right. AUTUMN THOUGHTS. There can be nothing sadder than the solemn hush of nature that precedes the death of the year. The golden glory of autumn, with the billowy bronze and velvet azure of the skies above the royal robes of oak and maple, bespeak the closing hours of nature's teeming life and the silent farewell to humanity's gauze underwear. Thus while nature dons her regal robe of scarlet and gold in honor of the farewell benefit to autumn, the sad-eyed poet hies away to a neighboring clothes line, and the hour of nature's grand blowout dons the flaming flannels of his friend out of respect for the hectic flush of the dying year. Leaves have their time to fall, and so has the price of coal. And yet how sadly at variance with decaying nature is the robust coal market. Another glorious summer with its wealth of pleasant memories is stored away among the archives of our history. Another gloomy winter is upon us. These wonderful colors that flame across the softened sky of Indian summer like the gory banner of royal conqueror, come but to warn us that in a few short weeks the water pipe will be bursted in the kitchen and the decorated washbowl be broken.