The War with Nature. gl 
her heart, secretly she goes out at dawn of day and 
blows her trumpet on the hills, summoning her in- 
numerable children to her aid. She is hard-pressed 
and cries to her children that love her to come and 
deliver her. Nor are they slow to hear. From 
north and south, from east and west, they come in 
armies of creeping things and in clouds that darken 
the air. Mice and crickets swarm in the fields; a 
thousand insolent birds pull his scarecrows to pieces, 
and carry off the straw stuffing to build their nests ; 
every green thing is devoured ; the trees, stripped 
of their bark, stand like great white skeletons 
in the bare desolate fields, cracked and scorched 
by the pitiless sun. When he is in despair deliver- 
ance comes; famine falls on the mighty host of 
his enemies ; they devour each other and perish 
utterly. Still he lives to lament his loss ; to strive 
still, unsubdued and resolute. She, too, laments her 
lost children, which now, being dead, serve only to 
fertilize the soil and give fresh strength to her im- 
placable enemy. And she, too, is unsubdued; she 
dries her tears and laughs again ; she has found outa 
new weapon it will take him long to wrest from her 
hands. Out of many little humble plants she 
fashions the mighty noxious weeds; they spring 
up in his footsteps, following him everywhere, and 
possess his fields like parasites, sucking up their 
moisture and killing their fertility. Everywhere, 
as if by a miracle, is spread the mantle of rich, green, 
noisome leaves, and the corn is smothered in beauti- 
ful flowers that yield only bitter seed and poison 
