The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crispèd and sere, as I sat in the porch chair and regarded our neighbor's patch of woodland; and I thought: The skies may be ashen and sober, and the leaves may be crispèd and sere, but in a maple wood we may dispense with the sun, such irradiation is there from the gold of the crispèd leaves. Jack Frost is as clever a wizard as the dwarf Rumpelstiltzkin, who taught the miller's daughter the trick of spinning straw into gold. This young ash, robed all in yellow--what can the sun add to its splendor? And those farther tree-tops, that show against the sky like a tapestry, the slenderer branches and twigs, unstirred by wind, having the similitude of threads in a pattern--can the sun gild their refinèd gold? How delicate is the tinting of that cherry, the green of which is fading into yellow, each leaf between the two colors: this should be described in paint. No, I said; in a hardwood thicket, in October, though it were the misty mid region of Weir, one would not know the sun was lost in clouds. At that moment the sun adventured forth, in blazing denial. It was as if the woodland had burst into flame. * * * As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and said, "Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones," sezze, "but the bath spray is sold." * * * _IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._ _Customer--"I want to look at some tunics."_ _Irish Floorwalker--"We don't carry musical instruments."_ * * * That Tennessee congressman who was arrested charged with operating an automobile while pifflicated, would reply that when he voted for prohibition he was representing his constituents, not his private thirst. Have we not, many times, in the good old days in Vermont, seen representatives rise with difficulty from their seats to cast their vote for prohibition? One can be pretty drunk and still be able to articulate "Ay." * * * A new drug, Dihydroxyphenylethylmethylamine, sounds as if all it needed was a raisin. * * * The Gluck aria, which Mme. Homer has made famous, was effectively cited by the critic Hanslick to show that in vocal music the subject is determined only by the words. He wrote: "At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from 'Orpheus'-- 'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice, Rien n'égale mon malheur,' Boyé, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly the reverse, thus-- 'J'ai trouvé mon Eurydice, Rien n'égale mon bonheur.'