CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL 



241 



the real life has begun ; only a change 



bug anyhow. So with your bluebird, Only a circle of gold typifying never 



these fellows being not indifferent fly ending union of two lives in never end- 

 catchers. It was not hypnotically at- ing love; only a few drops of water and 

 tracted by your finger any more than 

 was the great-crested tyrant possessed 

 of sudden animosity toward my friend 

 as the latter certainly imagined. Both 

 were hungrily attracted by winged tid- 

 bits and with your bluebird an un- 

 seen specimen of insectine character 

 happened to make a bee line past the 

 bird's perch straight for you and be- 

 neath your table. No other explana- 

 tion will suffice. 



S. F. Aaron. 

 Doubted. The bluebird, from the 

 distance and straight line of flight, was 

 seli-evidently not in pursuit of an in- 

 sect. I am also inclined to think that 

 the "snap" of your flycatcher's bill 

 was an attack on your friend. — E. F. B. 



A Heart From the Earth. 



Dudley, Massachusetts. 

 To the Editor : 



I am sending you a heart-shaped po- 

 tato raised by one of our Dudley far- 

 mers, and exhibited at our Grange Har- 

 vest Festival. Something should be 

 done by camera and literature, possi- 

 bly the latter in poetry, to extol this 

 find in the humble earth and in the 

 humble potato. It is as if Mother 

 Earth, whose bosom is the burial place 

 of so much that we love had relented 

 as to the secrets within her breast 

 this once, and had sent to us, out of 

 the mold of centuries, her heart bidding 

 us hold to the love that nurtured us, 

 and that all is well for us and for her! 

 It needs a stronger pen than mine. I 

 know you are the one to receive this 

 curious and kindly message from our 

 common soil. 



Cordially your friend. 



Samuel Morris Con ant. 



The potato, coming in this form, has, 

 in both Mr. Conant and myself, awak- 

 ened thoughts too deep for expression. 

 Ever sincerely, 



(Mrs. S. M.) Nellie F. Conant. 

 Only an emblem of a heart — only a 

 commonplace notato. But life's great- 

 est ioys and sorrows are expressed in 

 emblems of commonplace material. 

 Yet, are not emblems and the ideals 

 for which thev stand, nil that makes 

 life worth living — and even death 

 worth the dying - ? 



THE "HEART" POTATO. 



of form and a handful of dust, "earth 

 to earth," — Ideals and their emblems 

 are everything; they are the reality, 

 and if the daisy shall bring thoughts 

 too deep for tears, so shall the heart 

 buried in Mother Earth, returning in 

 one of her commonplace products, 

 rightly "awaken thoughts too deep for 

 expression." 



"HEART'S LOVE REMAINS." 



By Charles H. Crandall, Idylland, Stamford, 

 Connecticut. 



We buried a Heart in the mother mold, 

 A Heart that was silent, still and cold, 

 And we went about in our saddened round, 

 Trying to smile as we tilled the ground, 

 Dropping the seed in the fruitful earth, 

 Praying, with faith, for the timely birth 

 Of flower and fruitage to greet our eyes — 

 But Oh, that Heart we buried with sighs! 

 Of the flower and harvest we feel so sure! 

 But what of that Heart? Shall it endure? 



Blade and leaf and blossom have come, 

 Frost the garden will soon benumb, 

 Faith is faltering, promises weak; 

 But still the earth has a word to speak, 

 As out of the soil we lift this sign — 

 Life, like all life, ever divine — 

 Lowly type of immortal kind, 

 Bringing the promise again to mind: 

 "Hearts may be dust, hearts' loves remain; 

 Hearts' love shall greet us yet again." 



