WEEDS 



BEES find honey in their bloom. That hint of nearby beauty 

 is sufficient to the wise. If "The Man With the Hoe" has 

 eyes, he will look well at weeds before he cuts them away. 

 Weeds are worth while. The Maker of mints and of meadows 

 is also Maker of weeds. Take a look at them. Hogarth's 

 curves are there, for they were nature's before they were his. 

 In them are also Rembrandt's shadow, for the lights of 

 nature made the shadows. Turner's landscape vistas, per- 

 spective, and dim distances all of them are in the wayside 

 weeds. Hugo said, "The beautiful is as useful as the useful." 

 And weeds are, in a limited way, useful. Wheat and corn 

 are so easily grown in the West that, if there were not a few 

 weeds in the way, farmers might grow lazy. But where it is 

 so easy to grow weeds, it is not so easy to grow lazy. Then 

 weeds are the natural shelter of birds, especially on the open 

 prairie. I have seen them scurry to shelter when the driving 

 rain was drenching the plain. Even the loco will shelter a 

 bird when a storm is on. At high noon in the sultry prairie 

 summer I have seen the plover and the lark cooling them- 

 selves in the shadows of weeds. The weed-shadow at such 

 a time is a paradise for the toad and the rabbit. When the 

 ministry of shadows is written, it will be the sweet story of 

 sheltering love. Shadows never speak. They serve in silence. 

 At the time of the westering sun they point away from sun- 

 set to sunrise. Many a blistered flower-leaf and blade of grass 

 and corn uncurl with new life in the cool balm of the shadow. 



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