WHITE DUCK 115 



which she threw out were carried away by floods and 

 the current of the great river. Thus even to the end 

 did her evil spirit sustain her, and the tree bent and 

 swayed in the mighty wind, and at last fell with a noise 

 as of many thunders, shaking the world with its fall, 

 and filling all its inhabitants with terror. Only when 

 they saw the tree which had stood like a vast green 

 pillar reaching to the sky lying prone across the world 

 did they know the dreadful thing which had been done. 



So ended that great tree named Caligdawa ; and so 

 ends my story, originally taken down from the lips 

 of wise old men who preserved the history and tradi- 

 tions of their race by a missionary priest and read by me 

 in my early youth in the volume in which he relates it. 



But I will venture to say that the story has not 

 been dragged in here ; I had no thought of using it when 

 I sat down this evening to write about a white duck. 

 That vision of the sunlit, surprisingly white, yellow- 

 billed ducks floating on the wind-rippled blue pool — 

 for it was like a vision — had to be told ; but how, 

 unless I said that it was like a glimpse into some un- 

 earthly place where all things are as on earth, only 

 more beautiful in the brighter atmosphere ? My blue 

 pool with white birds floating on it, in a spring-green 

 field, blown on by the wind and shone on and glorified 

 by the sun, was like a sudden vision, a transcript of 

 that far-up country. 



And now, just at the finish, another chance thought 

 comes to help me. The thought has, in fact, been 

 stated already when I said that half the inhabitants of 



