Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/44

 the brook flows. In the dapple of shadow and sunlight beneath them ferns of high and low degree, royal and lady, cinnamon, interrupted and hay-scented, wade in the shallows and caress the deeps with their arching fronds. The blue flags that waved beside the water a month ago are gone, leaving only green pennants to mark their camp site for another year; and it is well that it is thus marked, else it were lost, for in the very brook bottom where the March flood crashed along have come to usurp it those tender annuals, the jewel weeds. Their stems almost transparent, their oval leaves so dark a green that it seems as if some of the dancing shadows found rest in them, they press in close groups into all shallow places and lean over the edges of the clear pools to admire the gold pendants that tinkle in their ears.

With these through the grassy shallows climb true forget-me-nots, slenderest of brook-side wanderers, each blue bloom a tiny turquoise for the setting of the jewel-weeds' gold. Thus shaded and carpeted the little ravine wanders down from the hills, and the brook goes with it, as if hand in hand, bringing to its side all sprightly life, a place