The first boy cap on the first boy haircut, for the first day of school. All the tragedy of all change in that haircut to mother. Epochal barbering that shears away an era of life Mother has saved one lock from the ruin. Sweetest years are locked away with that curl in mother's drawer.

First Day of School
Coal wagons are beginning to crunch the gravel driveways. They still use horses to haul coal in our town. The roar of anthracite down the shute draws all the children on the street. The coal man takes the ice man's place in their interest. The ice man's boy has gone back to school. Next week he'll be in football armor and his customers' children will cheer him as their hero.
Signs of Fall
I'm not pounding her head. I'm just patting it. Der, der, don't cry, 'ittle baby. Can't I just rub it? Why hasn't she got any eye winkers? Won't she get dirt in her eyes? What does she chew the air that way for? I guess she's hungry
New Baby
O, Dad, put it in the paper that Stewie found a snake. I'll tell you how to write it. Stewie Downs picked up a snake on the street where he lives an' swinged it round his head an' then he threw it away. Gee I 'most ran right into it on my tryke. I thought it was a piece of rope or somethin'.
Know Somethin'
Do you love me? How much, a bushel? Do you love Grammy a bushel too? How much do you love Mummy? Do you love the baby a bushel? How much do you love Tip? Just as much as the baby? Mummy only loves Tip half as much as the baby. She loves the baby and me the same and you and Grammy the same. I asked her if she didn't love Tip as much as the baby and she said no he's only a puppy. Poor old Tippy. I love Tippy two bushels and the baby two bushels and you three bushels and Mummy four bushels.
To Go To School - Or To Be Sick?
But this coldness in greeting the expected Spring is broken down at supper:
"We played a marble game this afternoon," begins the first grade member.
"What was the game?" encourages his mother.
"Keeps."
Then philosophic crunching of his toast.
"Dad, will you buy me some more marbles?"
Catalog's Come
Boys have to be nagged now about rubbers and coats. But the season is especially hard on dogs. While the ground is muddy the best-bred canine is persona non grata in kitchen or entry, but he cannot yet dig to bury bones and so his bones litter the yard to be confiscated by neat housewife or reluctant husband.
Mud Season
Editor's Preface
The roaring twenties were in full swing in Boston while my grandfather, Louis M. Lyons, was a reporter for The Boston Globe. After running down the big city stories of the day, he would take the 5:20 PM train north out of Boston to Reading where he would enter the family home on 24 Vale Road and greet those eagerly awaiting his daily return to being Dad.
Capturing the poignant moments of home

The interaction of microorganisms with geological activities results in processes influencing development of the Earth's geo- and biospheres. In assessing these microbial functions, scientists have explored short- and longterm geological changes attributed to microorganisms and developed new approaches to evaluate the physiology of microbes including microbial interaction with the geological environment. As the field of geomicrobiology developed, it has become highly interdisciplinary and this book provides a review of the recent developments in a cross section of topics including origin of life, microbial-mineral interactions and microbial processes functioning in marine as well as terrestrial environments. A major component of this book addresses molecular techniques to evaluate microbial evolution and assess relationships of microbes in complex, natural c- munities. Recent developments in so-called 'omics' technologies, including (meta) genomics and (meta)proteomics, and isotope labeling methods allow new insights into the function of microbial community members and their possible geological impact. While this book summarizes current knowledge in various areas, it also reveals unresolved questions that require future investigations. Information in these chapters enhances our fundamental knowledge of geomicrobiology that contributes to the exploitation of microbial functions in mineral and environmental biotechn- ogy applications. It is our hope that this book will stimulate interest in the general field of geomicrobiology and encourage others to explore microbial processes as applied to the Earth.

The interaction of microorganisms with geological activities results in processes influencing development of the Earth's geo- and biospheres. In assessing these microbial functions, scientists have explored short- and longterm geological changes attributed to microorganisms and developed new approaches to evaluate the physiology of microbes including microbial interaction with the geological environment. As the field of geomicrobiology developed, it has become highly interdisciplinary and this book provides a review of the recent developments in a cross section of topics including origin of life, microbial-mineral interactions and microbial processes functioning in marine as well as terrestrial environments. A major component of this book addresses molecular techniques to evaluate microbial evolution and assess relationships of microbes in complex, natural c- munities. Recent developments in so-called 'omics' technologies, including (meta) genomics and (meta)proteomics, and isotope labeling methods allow new insights into the function of microbial community members and their possible geological impact. While this book summarizes current knowledge in various areas, it also reveals unresolved questions that require future investigations. Information in these chapters enhances our fundamental knowledge of geomicrobiology that contributes to the exploitation of microbial functions in mineral and environmental biotechn- ogy applications. It is our hope that this book will stimulate interest in the general field of geomicrobiology and encourage others to explore microbial processes as applied to the Earth.

Recent improvements in the performance of light sources, i.e., reduction in pulse length and increases in wavelength range and power levels, have led toultrafast technology becoming a basic tool in a wide variety of scientific fields. This book presents the very latest developments in the rapidly rxpanding field of ultrashofrt lase pulses and their applications in physics, chemistry, biology, and artificial devices. It provides the most up-to-date record of current research and references in the field of ultrafast phenomena. Contents: Elementary Dynamics: Chemistry, Biology and Physics - Spectrospcopy and Advances in Measurements - Tools: Sources and Amplifiers - High Intensity and Nonlinear Effects - Semiconductors, Confinement and Opto-Electronics - Biology: Primary Dynamics, Electron and Energy Transfer - Chemistry: Electron and Energy Transfer, and Solvation Dynamics.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research, CPAIOR 2019, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2019. The 34 full papers presented together with 9 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 94 submissions. The conference brings together interested researchers from Constraint Programming (CP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Operations Research (OR) to present new techniques or applications and to provide an opportunity for researchers in one area to learn about techniques in the others. A main objective of this conference series is also to give these researchers the opportunity to show how the integration of techniques from different fields can lead to interesting results on large and complex problems.

Witchcraft has recently been undergoing a huge popular revival, but does modern pagan witchcraft really bear any resemblance to its historical antecedents? The witch in history was a very different creature from her modern counterpart, and this book sets out to explore the historical background to the European witchcraft phenomenon. It examines in detail the growth of the ideological, cultural and legal concepts that eventually led to the carnage of the Witch Craze in the 16th and 17th centuries, which, it is estimated, may have claimed the lives of around 40,000 people. For both Medieval and Reformation scholars alike the Devil and all his works were a very real threat. Their conviction that witches were the servants of Satan led to the formation of perhaps one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all time: a belief that witches were working in league with the Devil in a diabolical plot against all Christendom. Witches were transformed from poor deluded old women who rode out at night with the pagan goddess Diana into devil-worshipping heretics who became the focus of a centuries-long, Europe-wide campaign determined to seek out and destroy this evil wherever it was to be found, regardless of whether any of its victims were actually guilty or not.

Where would churches, ministries or businesses be without the administrators, the directors of departments, or the executive secretaries and administrative assistants? Those organizations who have them know their value. Those who don't may or may not realize what they are missing. It has been my desire to share a bit of what I have experienced, and learned, over 40 years. Each one of you who now serves in this capacity is very important to the "visionaries." The work that you do, and the support that you consistently give, enables the top leaders of the organization to do what they have been given by the Lord to do. I like to think of our role as similar to that of my Biblical heroes. Joshua assisted Moses and Timothy served with Paul. May the Lord encourage you as you read my thoughts and what has worked for me. I hope the stories and suggestions will impart to you further measures of blessing, for those you support and also to those you give direction to. Steve Martin