My First Summer 



them safe by a thousand miracles; yet, 

 strange to say, allowing the trampling of 

 devastating sheep. One might reasonably 

 look for a wall of fire to fence such gardens. 

 So extravagant is Nature with her choicest 

 treasures, spending plant beauty as she 

 spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land 

 and sea, garden and desert. And so the 

 beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, 

 bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds 

 and bees, but as far as I have seen, man alone, 

 and the animals he tames, destroy these 

 gardens. Awkward, lumbering bears, the 

 Don tells me, love to wallow in them in hot 

 weather, and deer with their sharp feet cross 

 them again and again, sauntering and feed- 

 ing, yet never a lily have I seen spoiled by 

 them. Rather, like gardeners, they seem to 

 cultivate them, pressing and dibbling as re- 

 quired. Anyhow not a leaf or petal seems 

 misplaced. 



The trees round about them seem as per- 

 fect in beauty and form as the lilies, their 



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