INDIAN SPRING iii 



but we demurred, though they certainly looked 

 temptingly clean and tender. Other logs in less 

 shaded locations were covered with lichens. Some 

 of these were rosette -like in form and pointed 

 here and there with soft red. Others took on 

 weird, serpent -like shapes as they crept silently 

 over the surface of logs and adjacent rocks. If an 

 artist wishes to revel in color harmonies the like 

 of which can be found in no fabric contrived by 

 oriental skill, let him visit the deep woods and 

 seek out these lowly plants. They will give him 

 more suggestions in a few hours than he will be 

 able to carry out in as many years. If he could 

 but tell the history of each one, as well as repro- 

 duce its likeness, his fortune would be made. 



We came finally to a brook more wild and 

 mysterious than the others. There were a half- 

 dozen stepping stones between the end of the path 

 we were on and the place where it began again 

 on the opposite side. After a few missteps and 

 much laughter we were landed at last, but several 

 of the party had wet feet to remember the expe- 

 rience by. We found ourselves in a space that 

 had once been a clearing. A tumbledown chim- 

 ney overgrown with brambles and vines told of 

 an abandoned hearthstone. The blackened rem- 

 nants of many a picnic camp-fire strewed the 

 ground. A slight turn brought us to the spot 

 where the Indian Spring welled out of the 

 hillside. The setting was all that we could have 

 hoped for, — great moss-grown rocks wet and slip- 

 pery, deep shade which almost made us doubt the 



