The War with Nature. 91 



her heart, secretly she goes out at dawn of day and 

 blows her trumpet on the hills, summoning her in- 

 numerable 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 creeping things and in clouds that darken 

 the air. Mice and crickets swarm in the fields ; a 

 thousand insolent birds pull his scarecrows to pieces, 

 and carry off the straw stuffing 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 

 utterly. 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 im- 

 placable enemy. And she, too, is unsubdued ; 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 humble 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 fertility. Everywhere, 

 as if by a miracle, is spread the mantle of rich, green, 

 noisome leaves, and the corn is smothered in beauti- 

 ful flowers that yield only bitter seed and poison 



