38 BOULDER REVERIES. 



white and gleaming in the sunshine of a sum- 

 mer's day, the spirits of departed friends rest 

 and look down upon me. From those vast 

 heights they peer and beckon; bidding me god- 

 speed and successful future if I am in an op- 

 timistic mood, or foreboding woe and coming 

 sorrow if I chance to be cast down in spirit. 



IX. 



July 26, '00. The day is fit for gods and 

 men. I, one alone, of many millions of the 

 latter, roam in the free air or bask on the green 

 sod of that earth on which such a day has 

 dawned. 



The odor of pennyroyal is the first thing I 

 sense as I throw myself down in the shadow of 

 my boulder. The blossoming plant is every- 

 where abundant in the clayey soil of these wood- 

 land slopes; the little tubular, two-lipped pink- 

 ish flowers in clusters about the axils of the 

 stems. From the sterile soil its rootlets gather 

 in the elements of the essential oil which exhales 

 the penetrating odor. Within the cells of leaf 

 and stem those elements are combined and, by a 



