There was the star-shaped bloodroot, with its ten or a dozen petals of
waxen white set with jewel-like precision about a centre of dead gold.
There was the less formal phlox of a pinkish purple; deer's-tongue,
white and yellow; frail anemones, both pink and white; small but
stately violets, and the wake-robin with its wine-red centre among long
green leaves. There was a dogwood in the act of unfolding its little
green tents that would presently be snow-white, and a plum tree ruffled
with tiny flowers of a honied fragrance.
With a fine Japanese restraint, Clem had placed a single bough of these
in a dull-colored vase on my out-of-doors breakfast table.
All these were to say that the soul of the world is ageless, and that
time is but a cheap device to measure our infirmities. Above, the trees
were hinting that life might still be lived acceptably, as in Eden days;
though they seemed to suspect that the stage of it to which they were
amazedly awakening must be at least the autumn, and timidly clothed
themselves accordingly. The elm, the first big tree to stir in its
sleep, showed tiny, curled leaflets of a doubting, yellowish green; and
the later moving oaks were frankly sceptical, one glowing faintly brown
and crimson, another silvery gray and pink.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171