It seems as if October is running by with the speed of a swift bird. Autumn is a beautiful time of the year. All the trees are dressed in their yellow and orange clothes and the flowers bedecked in their best.

Autumn in Iowa is especially beautiful. I remember when I was in High school riding on our school bus. It was a very little yellow bus. Iowa is rolling country with many trees and as the bus came over a hill there in front of us was a quilt of trees in reds, oranges and yellows. Now the flowers are blooming profusely but soon they will get kissed by the frost.

Soon I will pull up my flowers. I have flowers that don't die, not because I have a green thumb.

When I was a girl I went to the neighbors and begged flowers from them. That's because I had many cats, but someone seemed to be poisoning them, so I had a lot of cat funerals. Of course I had to put flowers on those graves. I went to the neighbors and asked them if I could pick some of their flowers. They were always very nice and let me pick their flowers.

One day this summer two little girls came up to the porch where I was sitting. They asked if they could pick some of my flowers. I had to turn them down and I really got a guilty conscience.

"I'm sorry," I had to answer. "My flowers are artificial." That's the worst drawback I have found to planting artificial flowers.