DEAD WILLOW BEND. 117 



Two tracts of meadow that I passed over this morn- 

 ing, had it not been for the dew, would have proved 

 strangely monotonous, considering what a wealth of 

 bloom overspread them but a few weeks ago. In that 

 one nearest my home Flora was certainly prodigal with 

 her favors, even so early as April. Along each hedge 

 the dog-wood fluttered its snowy raggedness ; and be- 

 neath, violets, blue, purple, ashen, and white, bloomed in 

 profusion. Spring beauty, wherever the ground was 

 dry, shyly peeped through the relics of departed years. 

 Wind-flowers, though trembling in every breeze, showed 

 a bolder front, and vied with adder's -tongue and bell- 

 wort in courting recognition. With azure snow the 

 distant knolls were dusted, and I knew that the wee 

 Houstonia was again in bloom. 



Later, when standing in the midst of them, I could 

 not but recall the curse of familiarity. How true it is 

 that many of the most beautiful objects in nature are 

 the most abundant, and yet they are systematically over- 

 looked and neglected. The bluets prove this. Why 

 one should exclaim over a rare flower of no special merit, 

 and yet be indifferent to the azalea, kalmia, or iris, is in- 

 comprehensible to me. If a plant has no particular at- 

 traction, it is proper that it should seldom loom up in 

 one's pathway ; and I am thankful, for one, that so many 

 of the choicest wild-flowers are so extraordinarily abun- 

 dant. Think of the bluets ! They grow so closely six- 

 teen are found to the square inch, or more than twenty 

 thousand to the square yard — more than a million to the 

 acre ! I have stood in the midst of many acres of them. 

 Must they be 6nubbed because of their abundance ? 



