of 



longer asking leave, but claiming for her own the 

 pastures, gardens, waysides, even the dumps and 

 waste places. 



Yonder where the cattle feed stands the barbed 

 purple thistle, arrogant, royal, unapproachable by 

 man or beast. " Stand back," it says, by every one 

 of its thousand nettles ; " this field is mine." How 

 savage and how splendid it is ! After the royal pur- 

 ple fades, the goldfinches will dare to come and eat 

 the plumed seeds and scatter them by the million, 

 but even the goldfinch has been known to perish 

 upon the poisoned spikes with which the plant is 

 armed. 



As persistent and successful as the thistle, though 

 not as arrogant and savage, grows the wild white 

 carrot in the mowing fields. The courts have called 

 it names and set a price upon its life. It has been 

 pulled out, cut off and burned, exterminated again 

 and again by statute. 



Life snaps her fingers at us in July ; lays hold of 

 us, even, as we pass, and makes us carry her burs 

 and beggar' s-ticks for a wider planting. I am as 

 useful as the tail of my cow. Neither the cow nor 

 I ever come home from the July fields without an 



156 



