A BIT OF USELESSNESS 119 



from the far interior, eked out the occasional 

 tins of cigarettes in which Degas indulged, and 

 always the flame-colored little buck-peppers 

 lightened up the shadow^s of the henab, as hot 

 to the palate as their color to the eye. 



One day just as I was leaving, Grandmother 

 led me to a palm nearby, and to one of its an- 

 cient frond-sheaths was fastened a small brown 

 branch to which a few blue-green leaves were 

 attached. I had never seen anything like it. She 

 mumbled and touched it with her shriveled, bent 

 fingers. I could understand nothing, and sent 

 for Degas, who came and explained grudgingly, 

 ''Me no know what for — toko-nook just name — 

 have got smell when yellow." And so at last I 

 found the bit of uselessness, which, carried on- 

 ward and developed in ages to come, as it had 

 been elsewhere in ages past, was to evolve into 

 botany, and back-yard gardens, and greenhouses, 

 and wars of roses, and beautiful paintings, and 

 music with a soul of its own, and verse more 

 than human. To Degas the toko-nook was "just 

 name," "and it was nothing more." But he was 

 forgiven, for he had all unwittingly sowed the 

 seeds of religion, through faith in his glowing 

 caladiums. But Grandmother, though all tlie 



