Meadow and Mountain 



away for many long and lonesome hours. The traveler's eyes 

 had been gladdened in other journeys with the sight of 

 tasseling corn and silvering oats and goldening wheat, but 

 now it was sage-brush, cactus, and sand; cactus, sage-brush, 

 and sand; then a short shift to sand, sage-brush, and cactus; 

 and then and then, sand-sand-sand. What pity that he 

 could not catch sight of the blues and greens and grays and 

 browns and sepias in the sand. It is not straining a point to 

 say that sand is beautiful, only its beauty must be seen. 

 Not only are the colors of the sand beautiful, but many a 

 sand-drift is as shapely as a drift of snow. And the spirals, 

 and circles, and lines in the sand these are the exquisite 

 artistries of the desert winds. No human artist's carvings 

 could be finer than these curious carvings of the wind. There 

 are wave-lines and pebble-prints and a thousand beauties in 

 the sand. If one really wishes to find the wonder-work of 

 the wind, he will search among the sands. 



The traveler's mistake was in letting the old sights shut 

 out the beauty and wonder of the new. He was tired of 

 sand sand, and nothing but sand. A mud-puddle would 

 have been a welcome relief. He had sighed and shut his 

 eyes and opened them, and sighed again and had wondered, 

 "O Lord, how long?" It was in this dreary mood that he 

 suddenly caught sight of a green field and a grazing herd, 

 and, skirting the field, a lovely, old-fashioned lake. He 

 seemed to be waking from a troubled dream. He gazed and 

 wondered awhile; then, seeing some tall trees in the dis- 

 tance, he broke out delightedly to his companion, "Well, 

 we have reached God's country at last." His friend, from 

 his experience, replied, "That is only a mirage; we are many 

 miles from green fields and herds and lakes and trees." It 



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