212 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



Earth takes care of her children. She 

 raises ehn seeds as man raises wheat. And 

 foolish man wonders sometimes at what he 

 thinks her waste of vital energy. 



I have found a seat upon a prostrate 

 maple trunk, one of the fathers of the grove, 

 so huge of girth that it was almost a gym- 

 nastic feat to climb into my position. Here 

 I can see the valley and the mountains only 

 in parts, between the leafy intervening 

 branches. Which way of seeing is the bet- 

 ter I will not seek to determine. Both are 

 good — both are better than either. A fly- 

 catcher near me is saying chehec with such 

 emphasis that though I cannot see him I 

 can imagine that he is almost snapping his 

 head off at every utterance. Much farther 

 away is a relative of his ; we call him 

 the olive-side. (I wonder what name the 

 birds have for us.) Que-quee-o, he whistles 

 in the clearest of tones. He is one of the 

 good ones. And how well his voice " car- 

 ries " — as if one grove were speaking to 

 another ! 



About my feet are creamy white tiarella 

 spires and pretty blue violets. The air is 



