88 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



on the hills, summoning her innumerable children 

 to her aid. She is hard-pressed and cries to her 

 children that love her to come and deliver her. 

 Nor are they slow to hear. From north and south, 

 from east and west, they come in armies of creep- 

 ing things and in clouds that darken the air. Mice 

 and crickets swarm in the fields; a thousand in- 

 solent birds pull his scarecrows to pieces, and 

 carry off the straw stumng to build their nests; 

 every green thing is devoured ; the trees, stripped 

 of their bark, stand like great white skeletons in 

 the bare desolate fields, cracked and scorched by 

 the pitiless sun. When he is in despair deliver- 

 ance comes ; famine falls on the mighty host of his 

 enemies; they devour each other and perish ut- 

 terly. Still he lives to lament his loss; to strive 

 still, unsubdued and resolute. She, too, laments 

 her lost children, which now, being dead, serve 

 only to fertilize the soil and give fresh strength 

 to her implacable enemy. And she, too, is unsub- 

 dued; she dries her tears and laughs again; she 

 has found out a new weapon it will take him long 

 to wrest from her hands. Out of many little hum- 

 ble plants she fashions the mighty noxious weeds ; 

 they spring up in his footsteps, following him 

 everywhere, and possess his fields like parasites, 

 sucking up their moisture and killing their fertil- 

 ity. Everywhere, as if by a miracle, is spread the 

 mantle of rich, green, noisome leaves, and the corn 

 is smothered in beautiful flowers that yield only 

 bitter seed and poison fruit. He may cut them 



