IN OLD PONKAPOAG 41 



grasses. The gerardia might very well explain 

 all this if it would, but it is born close-mouthed. 

 If you will look at the yellow buds which later open 

 into the golden bells into which the bumble-bees 

 love to scramble, bumbling as they go, you will 

 see how tightly their lips are pressed together. 

 No word can you get from these by the most in- 

 sistent questioning, and even when they open it is 

 easy to see that they have learned that silence 

 is golden. 



The Baltimore butterfly, wearing Lord Balti- 

 more's colors of orange and black, is a common 

 visitant to these meadows, too. He loves to tipple 

 the lees of the milkweed blooms, but he does not 

 frequent the meadow for that. It is because along 

 its shoreward edges where the cool water oozes 

 from black mud grows his home plant, the turtle- 

 head. On fhis he was born and to it he goes for the 

 housing and feeding of his children. Like Gerar- 

 dia flava, Chelone glabra is close-mouthed, but its 

 silence is a wan white one which only blushes pink 

 with embarrassment when questioned, but yields 

 no reply. You cannot learn any mysteries of the 

 meadow from these. 



