THE CLUTCH OP THE BRAMBLE. 215 



Something had I picked besides the berries. 

 That something I did not see, but it had a fiery 

 splinter in its tail, a splinter which pierced my 

 finger and caused an involuntary "damn" and 

 the dropping of the berries. How the owner of 

 that splinter must have chuckled when he put it 

 to its proper use. Perhaps it was for the first 

 time and he had long been aching to make some- 

 thing else ache. 



Come to me, says the berry bramble, come and 

 let me clutch your clothes, draw you close. 

 Gather your fill of my juicy offerings. Scatter 

 far and wide the tiny seeds which they contain. 

 Then up another bramble will somewhere spring 

 and my mission on earth will have been success- 

 fully fulfilled. 



Back to the elemental, back to the dust of na- 

 ture, back to the simple life, back to the sod and 

 the blanket mold of this old earth, that is the 

 cry of everything that lives, or if not the cry, 

 the destiny of all. The reddish humus of the 

 nearly decayed oaken log before me has heard 

 the cry and has acted thereon. The iron, suffi- 

 cient in quantity amidst the carbon and other 

 elements of the wood to give its hue thereto, is 

 eager to become again the oxide of the mold. 

 The leaves in eight weeks time will be mostly 

 there. The katydids will follow the leaves ; the 

 birds in a few years or perhaps sooner, the katy- 

 dids. The mother gives. The mother is ever 



