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blaze in the shad-bush, to burn higher and hotter 

 across the summer, to flicker and die away, a line of 

 yellow embers in the weird witch-hazel of the autumn. 



At the sign of the shad-bush the doors of my 

 springtime swing wide open. My birds are back, 

 my turtles are out, my squirrels and woodchucks 

 show themselves, my garden is ready to plough and 

 plant. There is not a stretch of woodland or meadow 

 now that shows a trace of winter. Over the pasture 

 the bluets are beginning to drift, as if the haze, on 

 the distant hills, floating down in the night, had 

 been caught in the dew-wet grass. They wash the 

 field to its borders in their delicate azure hue. 



Along with the bluets (" innocence " we should 

 always call them), under the open sky, there unroll 

 in the wet shaded bottoms of the maple swamps the 

 pointed arum leaves of the Jacks, or Indian turnips. 

 How they fight for room ! There are patches where 

 all the pews are pulpits, with some of the preachers 

 standing three deep. 



Now why should there be such a scramble for 

 place among the Jacks, while just above them in the 

 dry woods the large showy lady's-slipper opens in 

 isolated splendor? Here is one, yonder another, with 



no 



