IN THE OPEN 



the wild rose. Timothy and redtop and witch- 

 grass are the very children of /Eolus. The pollen- 

 bearing wind mothers the grass and plantain ; the 

 seed-carrying wind distributes the thistle and wil- 

 low. Birds are very willing to carry cherry-pits 

 provided they may have the cherry for their 

 trouble. 



The breeze comes laden with thistle-down, such 

 fragile craft embark on these untried seas with all 

 sails set. The story of such a seed would read 

 like a fairy tale. Has not the wind whispered 

 daily to it as its silken sail was spread? And the 

 seed has tugged at its moorings like any boat till 

 these were loosed and she was off, beating in and 

 out among the high blueberries and shadbushes 

 of the pastures, at last sailing clear of all such reefs 

 and ascending in air to drift out into the open. 

 How it rises and falls on the currents, like a ship 

 riding the long swells of the sea; again it drives 

 free before the wind to settle down at last in some 

 pasture. If, perchance, such a seed fall on stony 

 ground it is no great matter. The marvelous 

 silken sail will now fall away, for the craft has 

 reached port, no more forever to sail these seas. 

 On occasion one is caught in a spider's web, where- 



