A NOISOME WEED. 



173 



than the leafy bowers of this curious vine. 

 Every one has sprung boldly from the sod in full 

 faith of finding the support it needs ; at least, I 

 see none that are standing quite alone. Two, it 

 may be, but oftener three or four, have started at 

 convenient distances, and, when well above the 

 tallest grass, each has sought out the tendrils 

 of its nearest neighbor and these have closely, 

 intertwined. So, here and there, we have a leafy 

 arch, and scattered among them many a pretty 

 bower. These may well have given the Indian 

 a clew to wigwam-building, Had ever, in the 

 distant past, a savage seen his child creep be- 

 neath the overarching branches of the despised 

 ' carrion-flower," he would have seen how easily 

 a summer shelter might be made. Perhaps 

 upon some such hint the stuffy caves and rock- 

 shelters were abandoned, for the time surely was 

 when even a more primitive dwelling than a 

 tent was man's protection against the summer's 

 sun. 



And may not these mutually supporting vines 

 have struck the fancy of some Indian poet ? In 

 the wigwams of these people, who but two cent- 

 uries ago peopled these meadows and the sur- 

 rounding hills, may not many a pretty tale have 

 been told of these same despised carrion-flow- 

 ers ? Dyer states, in his charming Folk-Lore 

 of Plants, how, " in the Servian folk-song, there 



