SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS I2Q 



inconspicuous Orchises whose petals still appear to 

 partake strongly of the leaf nature. 



All this time six feet are loitering along the 

 road toward the Old Hemlocks, two wearing 

 leather shoes and four iron, both wearers absorbed 

 in the spring greenery, Leather -shoes reveling with 

 her eyes, Iron -shoes with her mouth. 



The Old Hemlocks are not the woods that 

 follow Saugatuck, Time o' Year's stream, nor the 

 midway Aspetuck, but the companions of a river 

 that once threaded the mill-ponds on its course 

 like a string of glistening beads, passing saw-mills, 

 grist-mills, mills with great wooden overshot wheels 

 that circled slowly like a moving flight of steps, 

 spreading magic rings of greenery about them by 

 their splash and spray. There was even a little 

 place, half forge, half saw -mill, set in a deep ravine 

 among the rocks, that turned out musket -stocks 

 and axe -helves. Now all save one of the clatter- 

 ing wheels along the river's course have been 

 silenced by the decrees of so-called progress and 

 the buying -power of a water company. 



Twice have these grand old woods been wasted 

 by the axe and once by fire, yet much of their 

 beauty still remains, for tirelessly these many times 



I 



