144 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



you gathered a few blossoms, going thither 

 day after day, watching for them to open. 

 And the patches are there still. Some of 

 them are no broader than a dinner plate, and 

 the largest of them would not cover the top 

 of a bushel basket. For more than fifty 

 years perhaps for more than five hundred 

 they have looked as they do now ; a few 

 score of leaves and an annual crop of a dozen 

 or two of flowers. Their endurance, with so 

 many greedy hands after them, is one of the 

 miracles. Probably they are older than any 

 tree in the township. It is n't the tall things 

 that live longest. 



Here the path goes through an opening in 

 a rude stone wall, which was tumbling down 

 as long ago as you can remember. Beyond 

 it, in your day, stood a dense pine wood, a 

 darksome, solemn place, where you went 

 quietly. Now, not a pine is left. A mere 

 wilderness of hardwood scrub. The old 

 "cart-path," which at this point swerved to 

 the left, has grown over till there is no fol- 

 lowing it. But the loss does not matter. You 

 take a trail among the boulders, a trail famil- 

 iar to you of old ; the same that you took in 



