Music of the Wild 



waved leaves a foot and a half across. I was ac- 

 customed to stems of from six to nine inches in 

 length and leaves of eight-inch diameter. As a 

 finishing touch, beneath the fern, with fuzzy leaf 

 of peculiar shape that could not be called round 

 because it was wider than long, and deeply cut 

 where the stem joined, and with bell-shaped, ma- 

 roon-colored cup blooming so close the root that 

 I had to remove the dry leaves to earth to find the 

 flower, grew wild ginger. I examined this partic- 

 ularly because I know a writer who has the hardi- 

 hood to compare this grimy little burrower of the 

 soil with papaw bloom, that has six artistically 

 cut petals, each of which is of much richer color 

 and texture, and large enough to make a perfect 

 ginger flower. 



In removing dry leaves around the ferns and 



digging out the ginger I unearthed a music-box, 



The and learned a lesson. I always had thought the 



Song of cricket a sort of domesticated insect, beginning 



with "The Cricket on the Hearth" and ending 



with one that sang for the greater part of last 



winter in our basement. A few weeks earlier I 



had learned in an oat field many miles away that 



there were more big black crickets under an oat 



sheaf where it lay in a low, damp place than I 



ever had seen elsewhere in all my field work. Now 



the forest taught me that the cricket in my cabin 



was a prisoner, lost from home and friends, and 



88 



