WILD PASTURES 



station, drops into the mud, and is ready 

 to lecture, or so I fancy it, before any 

 of the unio women's clubs on the world 

 as he has seen it. Not until then does 

 the unio, and then only if he is a mar- 

 garitifera, begin to accumulate pearls. 



By what mystery of sunlight and shal- 

 low water the unio has acquired the lucent 

 green and gold of the epidermis of his 

 outer shell I do not know, any more 

 than I know what pigments paint or 

 what naiad fingers hold the brush that 

 paints the gold in the heart or the pinky 

 green in the outer sepals of the water- 

 lily. The two find their sustenance in 

 the same mud. 



But even if I could tell this I might 

 well pause in wonder over the beauty of 

 the inner shell of this pulseless creature 

 of the ooze. Perhaps the golchidium, 

 darting back and forth beneath the rip- 



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