A BIT OF USELESSNESS 119 
from the far interior, eked out the occasional 
tins of cigarettes in which Degas indulged, and 
always the flame-colored little buck-peppers 
lightened up the shadows of the benab, as hot 
to the palate as their color to the eye. 
One day just as I was leaving, Grandmother 
led me to a palm nearby, and to one of its an- 
cient frond-sheaths was fastened a small brown 
branch to which a few blue-green leaves were 
attached. I had never seen anything like it. She 
mumbled and touched it with her shriveled, bent 
fingers. I could understand nothing, and sent 
for Degas, who came and explained grudgingly, 
“Me no know what for—toko-nook just name— 
have got smell when yellow.” And so at last I 
‘found the bit of uselessness, which, carried on- 
ward and developed in ages to come, as it had 
been elsewhere in ages past, was to evolve into 
botany, and back-yard gardens, and greenhouses, 
and wars of roses, and beautiful paintings, and 
music with a soul of its own, and verse more 
than human. To Degas the toko-nook was “‘just 
name,” “and it was nothing more.” But he was 
forgiven, for he had all unwittingly sowed the 
seeds of religion, through faith in his glowing 
caladiums. But Grandmother, though all the 
