Life's autumn comes; the leaves begin to fall; The moods of spring and summer pass away; The glory and the rapture, day by day, Depart, and soon the quiet grave folds all. O thoughtful sky, how many eyes in vain Are lifted to your beauty, full of tears! How many hearts go back through all the years, Heavy with loss, eager with questioning pain To read the dim Hereafter,--to obtain One glimpse beyond the earthly curtain, where Their dearest dwell, where they may be or e'er September's slender crescent shines again! NEEDLE AND GARDEN. THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL. WRITTEN BY HERSELF. CHAPTER IX. It must be remembered that we were on the same street with our neighbors, the Tetchy family, and that multitudes of their customers passed our gate on their way to the old established strawberry-garden. When a company of new customers came along in search of the Tetchys, some of them would stop at our gate, and, looking through the open lattice-work, would see the strawberries, and, thinking this the right place, would often come into the house and call for a saucer of fruit. Some of these did so while I was engaged in picking, even pushing through into the garden where I was at work. This publicity was a great annoyance to me, especially as my mother increased it by insisting on supplying all the fruit thus called for. Hence the same parties made repeated visits. My mother thought it as important to cultivate customers as to cultivate strawberries. They called for cream,--as all people must have the best of everything; but having no cow, she bought milk as required, and though no doubt extensively diluted before it reached us, yet it seemed to go down with entire satisfaction. Thus, without ever anticipating it, we fell heirs to a sprinkling of the profitable business which the Tetchys were carrying on: for, as part of the unintended legacy, my mother appropriated their high prices also. She took such interest in this mode of selling our fruit that I began to fear she would really convert our premises into another strawberry-garden. I confess the temptation was strong, because she thereby secured three times the profit that we could obtain at the market. As it was, she realized thirty dollars during the season from these unexpected customers. But not one of us would listen to the project of a strawberry-garden. Jane was, in fact, too proud to entertain the idea of waiting on the crowd of impudent, loafing young men who frequent such places as openings for getting rid of their money; while Fred declared that his sisters should never come down to the condition of waiters at any table but their own. So my mother was overruled, though she insisted that her little experience with a few customers had fully satisfied her that our ill-natured neighbors were making great profits out of the immense retail trade they were doing.