IX 
ORCHID-HUNTING 
My path led down the side of the lonely Barrack, 
as the coffin-shaped hill had been named. There 
I had been exploring a little mountain stream, which 
I had fondly and mistakenly hoped might prove to 
be a trout-brook. The winding wood-road passed 
through dim aisles of whispering pine trees. At a 
steep place, a bent green stem stretched half across 
the path, and from it swayed a rose-red flower 
like a hollow sea-shell carved out of jacinth. For 
the first time I looked down on the moccasin flower 
or pink lady-slipper (Cypripedium acaule), the lar- 
gest of our native orchids. 
For a long time I hung over the flower. Its dis- 
covery was a great moment, one of those that stand 
out among the thirty-six-odd million of minutes that 
go to make up a long life. For the first time my eyes 
were opened to see what a lovely thing a flower could 
be. In the half-light I knelt on the soft pine-needles 
and studied long the hollow purple-pink shell, 
veined with crimson, set between two other tapering 
petals of greenish-purple, while a sepal of the same 
color curved overhead. The whole flower swayed 
between two large curved, grooved leaves. 
Leaving the path, I began to hunt for others under 
the great trees, and at last came upon a whole 
