THOREAU'S WALDEN 67 



fume seeming to make a lace collar all about the 

 place. In the bottom of this meadow grows much 

 thoroughwort, which is a plain, homely weed to 

 the passing glance, not considered fit for a garden 

 nor thought to beautify a roadside as do so many 

 fairer pasture blooms. Yet its gray-white heads 

 add a soft friendliness to the coarse meadow 

 grasses and give delicacy to the whole place, seem- 

 ing to invite invasion and preparing the invader 

 to find the more fragile flowers of the Gerardia 

 tenui folia that nestles beneath it, its pink bells 

 set by some fairy bell-ringer of the dawn with mute 

 throats open toward the sky. The little enclosure 

 is as deep as a well, stoned in by forest walls, and is 

 beloved of the argynnis butterflies whose spangled 

 underwings shine with the same silver as the 

 mica along the pond shore. Meadowsweet and 

 a half dozen other August flowers warm their 

 heads in the sun and cool their feet in the shadows 

 of this same meadow, but the thoroughwort 

 seems to possess it most and to have a feeling of 

 rightful ownership as if it were Thoreau's own 

 plant. All about the pond you will find it blossom- 

 ing in the same way, standing bravely out from 



