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one of Nature's kindly mysteries. But there 

 they stand and grow and blow. Year by 

 year the carpet of yellow-green fans spreads 

 farther and farther, and sends up new blos- 

 som-tipped lances to put the ogre Barren- 

 ness to flight. Where the road dips, look 

 up on either hand. Saw you ever aught 

 more enheartening than this springing of 

 fresh beauty from desolation ? It is an 

 army of hope. Its banners are orange 

 flecked with scarlet. Mark how lithely 

 they bend and sway in summer's sweetest 

 wind! One small, six -cleft cup would go 

 quite unnoticed. Here, in serried ranks, 

 thousand upon thousand, they spread a 

 glory of sun and summer over the waste 

 places of the land. Leave them ungath- 

 ered , they are creatures wholly of the open. 

 Besides, they yield fruit after their kind 

 a sort of glistening berry that in winter 

 keeps many a wild thing from hunger. 



Come away to the woods. They are 

 green and thick and deeply shadowed, with 

 damp black earth at foot. Winter and spring 

 it is a quaking bog, where you might sink 

 at any incautious step. Now you may go, 

 free and fearless, to its very heart, and fling 

 yourself down upon a moss carpet where 

 the foot sinks out of sight. A little way 



