of 



or flight the seed comes to rest where it will 

 sprout or perish. Generally it dies. 



One autumn afternoon in southeastern Mis- 

 souri, seated upon some driftwood on the shal- 

 low margin of the Mississippi, I discovered a 

 primitive craft that was carrying a colony of 

 adventurous tree seeds down the mighty river. 

 As I watched and listened, the nuts pattered 

 upon the fallen leaves and the Father of Waters 

 purled and whispered as he slipped his broad 

 yellow-gray current almost silently to the sea. 

 Here and there a few broad-backed sandbars 

 showed themselves above the surface, as though 

 preparing to rise up and inquire what had be- 

 come of the water. 



This primitive craft was a log that drifted 

 low and heavy, end on with the current. It 

 was going somewhere with a small cargo of tree 

 seeds. Upon a broken upraised limb of the log 

 sat a kingfisher. As it drifted with the current, 

 breezes upon the wooded hill-tops decorated the 

 autumn air with deliberately falling leaves and 

 floating winged seeds. The floating log pointed 

 straight for a sand-bar upon which other logs 



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