420 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



OF THE SOIL OF THE EAETH 



BY SPENCER TROTTER 



SWARTHMOKE COLLEGE 



ONCE upon a time — certainly more than two hundred years ago 

 and no man knows how long a time before — an aboriginal folk 

 fished in the waters of the West Fork of Brandywine. The remains of 

 an old breastwork of stones point to the former site of a dam, con- 

 nected probably with a rude sort of weir. Such is the tradition handed 

 down through several generations in the family of an alien occupant 

 of the land. This occupant and his descendants to the present time 

 have never permitted the ancient work to be disturbed, a rare and 

 kindly virtue in these days of scant sentiment. Only the unhindered 

 stream has worked its will. Not far from this dam, on a low rise 

 of land overlooking the valley, stands a scattered group of trees — 

 white oak and shellbark hickory — and here, again tradition has it, this 

 aboriginal folk buried its dead. Certain it is that the alien occupant, 

 though he ploughed deeply all about, likewise left this spot sacred to 

 the hand of time. The site is not marked by any tumuli; only the 

 level ground appears a trifle more grassy in some places, more springy 

 under the foot, which lends color to the tradition of long-forgotten 

 graves. 



It was beyond a question that somewhere in this ground the mortal 

 traces of a man lay scattered — hidden as completely as in that prior 

 time of his being when as yet there was none of them. Deep in some 

 maternal tissue there had once been that marvelous gathering together 

 of elements — that ever-repeated miracle of the fashioning of a form 

 of life. Where no light was there was yet the molding of a structure 

 that in the days to come would be responsive to the light and to every 

 play of color; a structure that would hold wonderful pictures of land 

 and sea and sky. Where no sound was there was yet the molding of 

 another structure that would come to know the sympathetic voice, the 

 springtime song of birds, the multitudinous sounds of the forest, the 

 droning cadence of streams. In the depths of this nebulous man 

 another structure was being spun out of the life stuff, one that would 

 come to hold all that the sights and the sounds had to tell, that would 

 interpret their meanings, that would come to feel and to know, to 

 remember and to wonder. And yet in this dark fountain-head of being 

 there was no hint of such future possibilities. All through this forma- 

 tive man the delicate threads of life were spun between the central 



