236 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



went to the house for bread, and incidentally 

 pie, while I made the stew, the ingredients 

 thereof being: the meat of one soft-shelled tur- 

 tle, trimmed of every particle of fat, a few small 

 bits of bacon, two potatoes sliced thin, a half 

 tablespoonful of butter, two eggs beaten to a 

 frazzle and a half dozen uneeda crackers crum- 

 bled fine. Salted to taste and boiled for an hour, 

 it was a stew fit for both Gods and men. Eaten 

 in the open with lemonade for drink and black- 

 berry pie for dessert it made a meal which M. 

 declared he would long remember. 



Stretched out for the last time beneath my 

 oak tree I looked around upon a square yard of 

 mother earth and noted fragments of twigs, bark, 

 dead leaves, decaying fungi, old acorns and 

 beechnuts, the old catkins of oak and hornbeam, 

 spears of dry and brown grass and moss, the 

 samara of maples, a dead beetle and moth, a 

 double score of other objects the flotsam and 

 jetsam of decay and death all going to make a 

 portion of that earth mold or blanket, which 

 next year or the next, will yield again the liv- 

 ing green of grass, the growing shrub or tree, 

 full of life, full of energy. Thus ever doth one 

 generation yield its elements, its dust, that an- 

 other may spring into life, grow, wax fat and 

 decay. Thus ever is the earth's mold, mother 

 of countless forms, renewed, made potent, strong 



