Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/140

 men born in direct descent from heroes of a stubborn stand, a stricken field, of seven hundred years before, and I dare say it is true. Planted among the Concord meadows and fertile uplands, grown lusty upon the richness of her soil, were men of Kent, that sturdiest county in all England; men whose very forbears had stood with Harold behind the wattled fence at Hastings, and died there with Norman arrows in their necks. More than all else in the building of men blood counts.

Yet, tramping the highways and fields of the old town, dreaming within her woodlands and by her ponds and streams, it pleases me to think there is more to it even than this. In Plymouth woods grows the mayflower, as we love to call it, the trailing arbutus, filling the spaces with rich scent in late April and early May, and though it is eagerly sought by thousands and is sold in bunches on all city streets in spring, yet it is not rooted out but retains its hold on the soil there. In certain other eastern Massachusetts towns the trailing arbutus never grew, and though I know of many attempts to transplant it to these