The Cumberland Mountains 
Vines growing on roadsides receive many a 
tormenting blow, simply because they give evi- 
dence of feeling. Sensitive people are served 
in the same way. But the roadside vine soon 
becomes less sensitive, like people getting used 
to teasing — Nature, in this instance, making for 
the comfort of flower creatures the same benev- 
olent arrangement as for man. Thus I found 
that the Schrankia vines growing along foot- 
paths leading to a backwoods schoolhouse were 
much less sensitive than those in the adjacent 
unfrequented woods, having learned to pay but 
slight attention to the tingling strokes they 
get from teasing scholars. 
It is startling to see the pairs of pinnate 
leaves rising quickly out of the grass and fold- 
ing themselves close in regular succession from 
the root to the end of the prostrate stems, ten 
to twenty feet in length. How little we know as 
yet of the life of plants — their hopes and fears, 
pains and enjoyments! 
Traveled a few miles with an old Tennessee 
farmer who was much excited on account of the 
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