AN AUTUMNAL REVERIE.

“OH dreamy haze: veiling the murmuring river that stretches away like a silver thread under a mosquito bar, winding in wooded nooks and creeping through low lying islands where the balmy breeze is redolent with the odor of dead leaves and dead fish. Oh lovely haze; what dreams of soulful tenderness its name recalls. Oh, musty hays in the street car; oh, hays that used to be full of bumble bees; oh, hazel nuts on another man’s farm with a big dog hid in the patch. Away; these memories are too painful.

“Afar, the hillsides glitter in gold and scarlet, and the sumach bushes, climbing the slope with their nodding plumes, look like a new express wagon coming down Division Street. The mellow air brings into the city the rustle of fallen leaves piled deep on winding cow-paths, threading through quiet dells and winding along the side of purling brooks. It brings an odor of something old. Because it blows over the cheese factory.

“How faint and far off every sound. The ghosts of the dead Summer flowers sigh in every breeze, and the phantom of the cow that butted the freight train tinkles her drowsy bell afar. And in muffled tenderness, as a falling star might drop on a feather bed, we hear the teamster’s cheery call, ‘G’up! ye lop-eared spavin, ’r I’ll lam the hair off ye with a dray pin.’ And the muffled creak of the wood wagon falls plaintively on the ear. Eight dollars a cord, and only cut three feet long at that, and piled so loosely that when you go to measure it you can throw a felt hat through the pile any place and never touch a stick.

“List to the plaintive piping of the quail in the stubble. Ah, quail on toast, and the plaintive piping of the anxious waiter for seventy-five cents. Avaunt, dull dotard, take thy black shadow from the fairy scene. (This remark was addressed to the waiter, and not to the quail on toast.)

“Why, in these dreamy dark autumnal days—we don’t know what kind of a day a dark day is, but we wanted another word that begins with d and could only think of dark and another one, and the other one wouldn’t do at all; these kind of days then, bring with them a sad—a sad—sad something, we knew what it was when we started out, but stopping to explain about that dark knocked it clear out of our head; sad—it isn’t saddle, nor Sadducee, nor—ah yes, now we have it. These dreamy days, that come like a tender poem, veiled in the delicate drapery that hangs over the distant landscape, bring with them——”

At this critical juncture a man with a business-like look in his eye burst into the sanctum, slapped his hat down on the paste-cup, banged a sample case on the ink-stand, and proceeded to remark in one long unpunctuated sentence, “Good morning not a word my dear fellow I know the value of an editor’s time I wish you just to glance at this prospectus of the most valuable work that has ever been issued from the American press it is the American Centennial Portrait Gallery and you will observe contains exquisite steel engravings full page of all the Presidents with the autograph of each one appended and complete biographical sketches. Observe that engraving of Washington through this glass if you please bank note engraving not more perfect not a single line crosses or becomes merged into another one what expression what fidelity to nature what marvelous portraiture what minute attention to detail. Notice the folds in the cloak and the exquisitely penciled pattern of the ruffles at the wrists. And so with Adams and Jefferson and Madison and Monroe and Jackson and all the rest of them with biographical sketches compiled from the best authorities with facts incidents and reminiscences never before published—a book that no American of intelligence should be without a book without a rival in its field of patriotic biographical excellence. In different styles of binding—$3.00, $3.50 and $4.25. Now, sir, shall I have your name right here?”

We felt all around the room before we could catch our breath, and when we regained it we told him we didn’t believe we could put $4.25 worth of signature anywhere that morning, and, after a struggle of fifteen or twenty minutes with him, we got him close enough to the stairway to push him over the railing and heard him reach the ground floor and disappear into the street and around the corner with the long introductory sentence of his prospectus trailing after him like the dribbling shower of a runaway street sprinkler. And we went on with the dreamy, sad, sweet reverie:

“The tender song of a day whose wordless beauties haunt the mystic scene; the dreamy, vague, imperfect memories that bring——”

A man with a black coat and a high hat came softly into the sanctum, and after he laid a flat oil cloth case on the table, he lifted his hat off with both hands and said, speaking in soft and distressingly deliberate tones, and articulating with awful distinctness and precision:

“Ah—is the editor in?”

We imparted the desired information, and the deliberate man went on,

“I have taken the liberty to call on a matter of some importance to yourself, as well as to the great masses of the American people. I have here the artist’s proof of a new ker-romo entitled ‘Columbia.’ It is a centennial allegory, and is designed by Mr. Alfred Reynolds Vincenzo Fitzdaub, one of the most eminent artists of America, at immense outlay of time, labor and money. The tube colors used on the original painting alone cost seven dollars and a half, while the can-vas, when prepared and stretched for the pict-ewer, was worth nearly doub-bel that sum. Here you see, we have in the foreground Columbia, her sandaled feet resting upon the broking canning to signify that war is no more. At her right hand sits the American eagil, ger-rasping the olive ber-ranch of peace in his talents, and lifting his wings as though pluming himself for fe-light. Here on the left we have the artisin in working-dress, the statesman, the teacher, the farmer, the sai-leure, repperesenting the various callings, and here rushes a train of cars, while in the background an old-fashioned stage coach is disappearing, illustrative of the perrogeress of the past hundred years. The original painting is valued at $2,500, but these ker-romos we supply for $18 a piece, mounted ready for framing. No man of culture or artistic taste can afford to be without this ker-romo. The eye of a connoisseur can not distinguish it ferrom an oil painting. Observe the transparency of the atmosphere; notice the soft natural blending of the high light and middle tint into the hazy shadows of the backger-round, and the bold effects of the heavy cul-louds that overshadow the past, where the dim edges are silvered with the sunlight that ber-reaks ferrom the veil of the few-chewer. And here, you observe, is a blank tablet at the right of the figewer of Columbia, for a family record. Only eighteen dollars. They will be ready for delivery about the first of Jewen, and if I may have the pleasure of seeing your signature in this book, just here, it will cost you but the trifling sum of eighteen dollars, and establish more fully the reputation you have already acquired as a man of culture and refined taste.”

We got rid of him after a heated session of about half an hour, and he went away, mourning over the depravity of a man who had acquired a reputation for culture and refined taste under false pretenses. Then we resumed:

“Over the distant hills, hushed in the misty haze that hangs like a veil of peace over the motionless landscape, the fleecy clouds, like drifting air-ships on the broad expanse of melting blue, bring the sweet——”

A man with a mahogany box came in and sat down, and talked as he opened it, and displayed a variety of phials and boxes.

“The profession of literature, my dear sir,” he said, “is of all others under the ban of the fell destroyer, dyspepsia, and it is especially in the Spring of the year that literary workers suffer most keenly from its dreadful effects. An ounce of prevention, etc.—you know the old saying. Now I can see by your heavy eyes that you are at this moment suffering from headache. This ‘Centennial Cordial and American Indian Aboriginal Invigorator’ is one of the latest and most valuable discoveries in the world of medical science, and has positively no equal for the cure of jaundice and all manner of liver disorders, headache, indigestion, want of appetite, dyspepsia, bilious, remittent and intermittent fevers, ague, giddiness of the head, rheumatic affections, poverty or impurity of the blood, salt rheum, teething, cholera morbus, croup, ophthalmia, asthma, hay fever, sea-sickness, diphtheria, catarrh, toothache, sleeplessness, gray hair, pimples, tan and freckles, kleptomania, emotional insanity, growing pains, stone bruise, rattlesnake bites, jimjams, katzenjammer, tight boots, bad breath, warts, soft corns, old clothes, tailor’s bills, spring fever and all other ills to which human flesh is heir. Compounded purely of herbs and the finest cologne spirits, and selling at the ridiculously low price of $1.75 per bottle. Now sir, let me——”

And we let him out of the door and he went away, after marking us for the tomb in a few short weeks. And then we tried to get back to our reverie.

“The sweet days come and go, in hallowed rhythmic cadences, like the half forgotten chords of some tender, sobbing nocturne, while they bring the——”

“No, sir, this is not the tobacco factory; it’s the next building up the street.—Thank heaven, he’s gone.”

“——bring the sad yearning of a restless heart, that reaches out amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as it would clasp the——”

“No ma’am, we don’t want to buy ‘The Centennial Gift Book for Young Ladies;’ no, we have no young lady friends; we have no friends of any kind; we have no sisters, or brothers, or relations, we have no money, we have no literary taste, we have no desire to read anything; we can’t read, and we don’t know anybody who can.”

“——amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as it would clasp——”

“Have no use for a fly trap, sir; don’t keep house; ain’t married; don’t expect to be; haven’t seen a fly in Iowa for a thousand years.”

“——the hectic flushes of the dying year, as though——”

“No, no, no! this is not the barber-shop. No, we don’t know where the barber-shop is; there is none in this block; there are no barbers in Burlington; the nearest barber-shop is at the North Pole. No, sir, you needn’t apologize, we are not annoyed. Good afternoon, sir.”

“——amid the dying flushes of the hectic year whose pulses throb so faintly that——”

“No, we don’t want any ‘Wonderful Saponifier and Dirt Eradicator for the Toilet and Laundry.’ No, we have no family, and we never wash; never heard of such a thing as a bath; don’t want to be clean; never shave, never clean our nails, and have on the same shirt we wore the day we were born. No, sir. Yes, sir. Good afternoon.”

“——amid the flying dushes of the pulsing year whose hectics faint so throbly that——”

“Yes, sir, this is The Hawkeye office. No, sir, we do not buy sand; no, we have no old clothes to exchange for tin ware; no, we don’t want any superior stove blacking. Good afternoon, sir.”

“——amid the dusting fishes of the throbling hectics whose painted ear is throoming in the gulch, so faintly fleam the glib and——”

[Note by the editor. We entered the office at this point and found the writer of the above in convulsions. From the ravings of his delirium we gathered that he was trying to write something nice, and was tormented by innumerable interruptions. Medical assistants were summoned, and we were told to keep the young man’s head cool and he would get well. So we cut it off and had it packed in ice. It weighed two and a half ounces. The young man is doing finely, and will not need it again this year.]