84: DATS OUT OF DOORS. 



ing, snow-white sand made a fitting background for the 

 delicate pyxie. Straightway, on seeing this plant, I forgave 

 the country for its want of birds. It were too great good 

 fortune to have both, perhaps. Gray says of it, " found in 

 the sandy pine barrens of New Jersey," but call no land 

 barren where the pyxie grows. The sands of an ancient 

 ocean-bed were here; the murmuring pines echoed the 

 long silent surf. The spot seemed less a land than an 

 earthly monument to a forgotten sea, and over it was 

 spread a mantle of richest green, starred with the spark- 

 ling pyxie. No other blossoms intruded ; no thoughtless 

 growths crowded. There they were left to grow, in a wil- 

 derness that now was silent as a tomb, immortelles deck- 

 ing a dead ocean's grave. 



Call this a " pine barren " if you choose, wherein plant 

 lovers may peep and botanize, but must never hope to find 

 a fortune ; yet may it not after all have capabilities men 

 now wot not of ? Surely a cottage with pyxie at the door 

 were a'pleasant place to live, attractive as any garden of 

 roses, and more suggestive of content than a lodge in a 

 garden of cucumbers. 



I longed for a boat, when I turned my face villageward 

 to explore the tempting shores of the river .that hurries by, 

 but, deferring this promised pleasure, gave the remaining 

 hours of a crowded day to " the pines," and a mile or two 

 of the creek that thridded them. 



Where bared sands' could not boast a blade of grass I 

 gathered curious earth stars ; and then pines in front, on 

 either side, and pines that walled the village from my view, 

 muttered and murmured. A home for birds in abun- 

 dance, yet what a beggarly showing ! Not until the open 

 country immediately adjoining the creek was reached did 

 I hear a single chirp. A single pigeon woodpecker had 

 ventured thus far, and twice I heard robins. Later a 



