112 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



heart of the floret. The relationship of bees and clover is 

 most intimate; so deep, in fact, that red clover 

 would suffer for the assistance of the big burly black-and- 

 gold humblebee, and all clover decline in the scale, if 

 robbed of insect friends. 



The humor of the scientist, who gravely reasoned that 

 the crop of a field was dependent upon the spinsters of a 

 neighborhood, has an argument so acceptable that we are 

 willing to believe it. Its logic has wit in it. The play of 

 field mice in the stubble is pretty sport, and when they 

 go ahunting who would blame them for stalking the hum- 

 blebees as game 1 ? But again it happens as in life, the 

 victor must be vanquished, and the roving tabby cat 

 pampered by old maids is the Nemesis. 



My neighbor of single blessedness has often bewailed 

 the superfluous woman. Let this thought comfort her, 

 that she has not been forgotten in the machinery of the 

 universe. While she takes her walks abroad at evening, 

 with Madame Tortoiseshell at her side, they both are 

 actors in the great scheme involving the clover history, 

 and their stage of usefulness is the clover meadow in 

 blossom time, and even now while the sun drops low be- 

 hind the distant hills and the vesper bells are ringing. 



