The evening of All Souls we lit candles for our grandparents and said a prayer for the departed. Grace was so sweet. She went back and spent a time looking at each picture. Then she very lovingly said "may you rest in peace." I wish I had been able to sneak a picture. It is a memory that I will cherish.

I love fall. The cool crispness to the air (which is so welcome in the deep south) and all the colors! I think it would be wonderful to have the leaves keep their autumn glory from spring through fall.

These are pictures of a wonderful hickory tree in our front yard. The oaks are catching up in color and the leaves will be knee deep pretty soon. My children are going to have lots of jumping to do.

When I was a little girl, I would spend hours going through my grandmother's set of Childcraft books and her encyclopedias. A few years ago I stumbled across some in a thrift store and had to bring them home. There was a poem in one that I felt was quite fitting for today.

A Vagabond Song

There is something in the Autumn

that is native to my blood---

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple

and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples

can shake me like a cry

Of bugles goin by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters

like smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October

sets the gypsy blood astir,

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls

each vagabond by name.

Bliss Carman