AFTERMATH 



333 



whose shaggy Fall coat had taken up a 

 collection of all the stick -tights and seed- 

 ing things in the wood road that were pro- 

 vided with hooks and claws instead of wings 

 to ensure their transportation to new soil. A 

 tuft of Burdocks ornamented the end of 

 her nose, and she lowered her head to 

 show us that one of the mobile ears was fastened 

 edge to edge by the same persistent seeds. As we 

 stopped to pick them off, our own skirts were soon 

 fringed with Beggar's Ticks and the long-hooked 

 seeds of Brook Sunflowers that had grown about 

 a wayside water -.trough. 



Everything that had not already gone to seed was 

 surely beginning its journey that day, and each fresh 

 gust from over the fields was laden with flying down, 

 sometimes so fine as to appear to be only a quiver 

 of the air, such as is made by summer gnats. The 

 trees were leafless except those Oaks and Beeches 



