A Window in Arcady 
Once in a while the placidity of the river is disturbed 
by the passing of a steamer. The long ripples which her 
screw stirs up come rolling in at our feet, setting a-rustle 
the great beds of aromatic calamus, which grows in pro¬ 
digal abundance along these flats. Sweet flag is the old- 
fashioned country name for it. It is a sure sign of spring 
in town when we see upon the street the first bunch of 
the familiar, long, dirty-white roots swinging from the 
shoulders of some itinerant vendor. Time was when the 
plant was esteemed fit for princes’ gardens and Europeans 
used to import it from India for the domains of the rich. 
A popular Old World confection used also to be made 
from the warm, spicy root, which would be sliced for the 
purpose and the slices treated with sugar, with a result, 
one would imagine, like candied ginger. In some parts 
of New England the root is similarly prepared even yet. 
Not the least of the pleasures that the riverside has to 
offer is to be found about the old pilings and the wrecks 
of barges ingloriously stuck in the mud and left to the 
mercies of the elements. They represent commercial ven¬ 
tures in which man has no longer an interest, but Nature’s 
watchful eye has not overlooked them, and she has estab¬ 
lished gardens on them. To be sure, they are very humble 
plants she puts there, yet not incapable of touching the 
spring of feeling in human hearts, and so not without 
service. The crumbling cracks and ever-widening seams 
in planks and posts are rich in deposits of mould and river 
mud left by freshets, and furnish all the comforts of home 
to many a pleasant little plant—to the blue-flowered skull¬ 
cap, to the white smartweed, to grasses of several varieties, 
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