226 Next to the Ground 



Time, unhasting, unresting, changes all that 

 — and always for the better. Sun, wind, and 

 rain are alchemists, always working to repair 

 nature's hurts. When they have done their 

 appointed work, leaching out, mixing through, 

 giving back some part to the air, some other 

 part to the clay, a pigeon-roost becomes the 

 richest of all virgin soil. The saplings grow 

 magically into trees, not tall and stately like 

 the dead trees, but gnarled and sturdily spread- 

 ing. In between, the quick earth laughs into 

 matted jungle — thicker, thornier, than even 

 the jungle which springs up in a hurricane 

 tract to feed upon the decaying trunks of the 

 windfalls. The jungle is starred all through 

 its green gloom with the rarest and richest of 

 the wild flowers. Lady-slippers grow rank 

 there, so do the fairy white plumes of rattle- 

 weed, and the constellations of whiter August 

 lilies. Cross-vine runs riot, creeping and 

 climbing to reach the sunlight, clinging fast 

 with clutching roots from each joint of the 

 stalk, then flinging down cataracts of flame- 

 hued blossoms and mottled waxen leaves. 

 Bindweed also stars the thickets all over. 

 There are never bumblebees enough to sip all 

 its purple-spotted trumpets. Scarlet trumpet- 

 flower grows there, too, so does the wild 

 buckwheat in the edges of sunny spaces. 

 And wherever a dead trunk stands fast, or a 



