Robin Hood's Barn 



forth from dalliance, but it was never for assist- 

 ance or for those heartening counsels that one 

 calls out safe from shore. He had found the 

 elderberries thridded with a vine whose misty 

 blossoms gave out rare fragrance. He had come 

 upon a gentian too exquisite to pluck. Or close 

 by the culvert and buried underneath high brake, 

 he had discovered wealth of hard metallic gold. 

 And as I heard him call "Bidens Chrysanthe- 

 moides" or "Mycania Scandens," I did not need 

 his terms of praise translated to the vulgate. It 

 was, I knew, another version for the cry of "Life, 

 eternal life." 



The Hill of DiflBculty, too, which Christian 

 took at a slow trudge, my father made a glad 

 ascent. Why not, when it ran upward with a 

 rush of crimson and of russet that smoldered 

 into fire against the sky. In this season of the 

 year when all the world went gorgeously appar- 

 eled, it was as though each growing thing com- 

 bined for his elation. Blare of orange from the 

 poison-ivy, blast of scarlet from the sumach, rich 

 notes of gold and bronze and umber from the 

 ferns along the wall, even the. deep bass of purple 



[134] 



