A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 19 
can get a blessing from the ambrosial ether in 4 
a bright glistening sheen and a border of dew- \ 
drops, even on a cloudy night, when all his 
neighbors are athirst. 
The tobacco-field over the wall looks be- 
witched and all on end, the plants simulating the 
conical shape they soon shall bear in the drying- 
house. The flowers on the potato-plants, saucer- 
shaped by day, are now perchance nodding with 
their open rim puckered in gathers around the 
central stamens—a common caprice of these 
flowers, but dependent upon some whim which 
I have not yet solved. 
Turning to his “posies,” our 
floriculturist may pick an exotic 
bouquet from his own familiar 
borders. His starry “ blue-bot- 
tles” have raised their horns 
and assumed the shape of a 
shuttlecock. His balsams wear 
a hang-dog look, with every 
leaf sharply declined. Certain 
of his coreopsis blossoms are 
turned vertically by a sharp 
bend at the summit of the stem. 
Many of his favorites, like the 
Eschscholtzia blossoms, have 
closed their eyes or perhaps hung 
their heads, and refuse to look 
him in the face, while his climbing 
nasturtiums, especially if they should be = 
of the dwarf variety (#zzus), await his ~~ 
coming in hushed expectancy, and their wall 
of sheeny shields flashes a “boo” at him out 
of the darkness, which immediately reveals the 
changed position of their foliage. Every individual 
i 
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