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النشر الإلكتروني

AUTUMN LEAVES

ELBERT A. SMITH, Editor

Published Monthly for the Youth of the Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by
the Herald Publishing House, Lamoni, Iowa.
Entered as second-class matter at Lamoni post-office.

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SHE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRANY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
LDER POUNDATION!

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An Old Desk.

Memories of House Cleaning, by L. H. S. STRONG odor of soapsuds greeted me as I entered the hall, and I felt rather than saw the evidences of a great domestic upheaval. I went upstairs to my room in some doubt, for you never know what may have happened during your absence in house cleaning time.

Everything was there, looking span clean; I missed nothing, yet that room didn't look natural. I was checking off the various articles of furniture, trying to account for the difference, when mother came in and enlightened me at once.

"Everything is all right, save that old desk. I couldn't put that back until you cleaned out the drawers. Why don't you do it now?" So that was it. My desk-an ancient affair handed down from past generations, sat out in the middle of the room. "Yes," called out my sister, "give the old curiosity shop an airing."

I had nothing particular to do, so after supper I sat down to the desk and resolved to clear it up. With the wastebasket at my side. I began.

Drawer number 1.-School notebooks, old compositions, and examination papers I had kept through my school days. Most of those could go in the basket, but mother interposed, "Don't destroy those, that shows your work through all the grades. Don't you remember this?" holding up a crude drawing of what looked like a red box with legs and branching antlers on its front. "You were always afraid of cows, and one day you came home from school with this, saying, "This cow won't hook; this is a good cow.'" So it went. Drawer number 1 was carefully put back, contents undisturbed. Number 2 disclosed a motley collection of dance programs, baseball score cards, souvenir postals, and valentines. These went into the basket straightway.

Drawer number 3 I opened, hesitated, then looked at its contents. Beneath my hand lay the picture of a soldier boy, and scrawled in pencil was the line, "San Juan, Cuba"; but the fearless eyes gazing at me are closed in slumber and only the picture is left me of the boy who was once my chum. Beside it lies a ringlet from a once fair head. She, too, sleeps in a far-off grave. The wastebasket can not claim them. Tenderly I put them aside and take up a bulky envelope. Faded and brown petals drop from the envelope and I read, "Roses for your Thanksgiving table from our garden, Santa Barbara, California, 1906." They are only faded flowers, but memories of the hands that gathered them, of the lips that pressed them, are sweet. Faded flowers-yes, but they meant so much once; back they go into the drawer. Here is a letter from a brother grown old in God's service. I read the stirring words, yet simple withal, that helped and strengthened me in time of trouble, and put it back. It may yet do missionary duty. My baptismal certificate, long mislaid, comes to light; programs of conventions that bring recollections of many friends and workers I have associated with since

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