THE POND AT LOW TIDE 



Yet of all the life histories revealed 

 by the pond at low tide I still think that 

 of the Uniondce the most interesting. 

 You find them all along above and below 

 the margin of the shallow water, their 

 shells most wonderfully streaked with 

 olive-green and pale-yellow in alternate 

 bands, till one might think he had found 

 nodules of malachite which the long-ago 

 glacier had culled from some Labrador 

 ledge and ground to unsymmetrical ovoids 

 before it dropped them on the old-time 

 meadow marge. In certain individuals 

 and certain lights the shells of these ob- 

 scure creatures send out gleams of green 

 and gold, like gems that have soft fires 

 within them. It is as if an opalescent 

 soul dwelt within, and the thin shell 

 which a crow with his bill may puncture 

 with a blow was so constructed as to 

 hold in the reds and blues of the opa- 

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