LATE SUMMER NOTES 57 



is all a tangle of cresses and other plants. 

 Lucky bugs dart hither and thither upon 

 its surface, quick to start and quick to stop 

 (quick to quarrel, also, like butterflies, 

 so that two of them can hardly meet 

 without a momentary set-to), full of life, 

 and, for anything that I know, full of 

 thought; true poets, perhaps, in ways of 

 their own ; for why should man be so nar- 

 row-minded as to assume that his way is of 

 necessity the only one ? 



On either side of the brook, as it winds 

 through the swamp, are acres of the stately 

 Joe Pye weed, or purple boneset, one of the 

 tallest of herbs. I am beginning to think 

 well of its color, which is something like 

 what ladies know as " crushed strawberry," 

 if I mistake not, though I used to look 

 upon it rather disdainfully and call it faded. 

 The plant would be better esteemed in that 

 regard, I dare say, if it did not so often in- 

 vite comparison with the cardinal flower. I 

 note it as one of the favorites of the milk- 

 weed butterfly. 



Here on the very edge of the brook is the 

 swamp loosestrife, its curving stems all reach- 



