40 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
tinted with dim blue, distant blue, like lilies in a 
river of green; Indian arrows brown as their wont 
is but at rare flowers red as if they were fresh 
drawn from some deep wound; and then a blos- 
som, deep yellow like a buttercup and yet larger 
of flower but whose identity escaped me, for the 
train was so swift and refused to stop amid fields 
but panted a little at stations where nothing was 
to be seen. Long pools of muddy water were 
here and there, in evidence where marsh grasses 
and reeds and cattails were indolently growing, 
and then once I saw a vivid crimson like a lily 
wounded and bleeding nigh to death. I could 
not tell what it was. 
I had great mind to pull the rope and set the 
air and stop the train a spell; but it does beat 
all how although a passenger has paid his fare 
and has beside purchased a seat in the parlor 
car, he is not at liberty to run the train. Here 
is a thing, a definite evil under the sun, which 
the many tinkerers with the railroad bill should 
have included by way of amendment if not in 
original draft. It would have been much wiser 
than much which was included. But here was 
a passenger without the simple, elementary right 
to pull the rope and stop the train to get a full- 
face look at a prairie flower so as to be able to 
name it. Such are the infelicities of travel in 
civilized countries. Had I been journeying in 
a rickshaw, phantom or real, I could have stopped 
