THE ROAD TO MUDDY POND 



de-frise. All about are set the wickets 

 of the bog-hobble, the Nescea verticillata, 

 which in July will blossom into pink- 

 purple flags decorations, I dare say, 

 of wood-goblins who play at cricket here 

 on the soft turf of a midsummer-night's 

 tournament. 



Of a summer day this tiny bowl is a 

 mile-deep sapphire, holding the sky in its 

 heart. When thunder clouds hang threat- 

 ening over it, it is a black pearl with eva- 

 nescent gleams of silver playing in its 

 calm depths; and always the dense green 

 of the swamp cedars that rim its golden 

 bog-edge round are a setting of Alexan- 

 drite stone such as they mine in the heart 

 of the Ceylon mountains, decked with 

 lighter pencilings of chrysoprase and 

 beryl. And some man, looking upon all 

 this, saw only the mud beneath it! Prob- 

 ably he trotted the bog and only knew 



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