Meadow and Mountain 



Turn your eyes again to the weeds. Look at the Lamb's 

 Quarter. It comes in the spring, tender and juicy. You 

 will not see its beauty at first sight, and on the surface. 

 Turn the leaf, then you will see the silvery dust glitter like 

 frost in the sun. Look at it long enough to get its imprint 

 of beauty firmly fixed, then you may take it home for 

 "greens." Or, if you leave it till autumn, it will be worth 

 your while to pay it another visit. It will be from three to 

 six feet tall. Its branches will sprangle like the sycamore's. 

 Its limbs will be as smooth as glass, and very likely its trunk 

 and many of the branches as red as blood. It is defoliated 

 now, but its color and shapeliness are all the more clearly 

 seen. From its central trunk you may carry away a beau- 

 tiful, dark-red walking-stick. 



In the autumn, or even in mid-winter, you are apt to 

 be surprised of a sudden, almost anywhere in the prairie 

 grass, by the sight of the Indian Plume. You will seldom 

 find it in the buffalo grass, but often in the bunch-grass and 

 the bluestem. The plume is a tuft of sheath and seed. It 

 is sepia-colored, or brown, and deepens to almost black in 

 late winter. There is something reminiscent about the 

 Indian Plume. It minds you of summer because its bunches 

 of brown are so much like blossoms. Its tone is as deep as 

 if it held shadows from summer nights. 



The Tumbling Weed is as wonderfully made as the 

 cedar tree. This weed in the West is more compact in its 

 structure than it is in the East. It bears a general resem- 

 blance to the Russian thistle. The fineness of its fronds and 

 delicate leaves make it a thing of beauty. It is conspicuously 

 green, and so remains till killing frost comes in the fall. It 

 is a beautiful green sphere of vegetation. It is a beautiful 



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