Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/56

38 from the water's presence. The truth is, perhaps, that I do see it.

High overhead a few barn swallows and chimney swifts are scaling, each with happy-sounding twitters after its kind. A jay screams, but so far off as merely to emphasize the stillness. Once in a while a song sparrow pipes; a cheerful, honest voice. When there is nothing better to do I look at the hardhack. The spiræas are a fine set; many of them are honored in gardens; but few are more to my liking, after all, than this old friend (and enemy) of my boyhood. Whether it is really useful as an herb out of which to make medicinal "tea" I feel no competency to say, though I have drunk my share of the decoction. It is not a virulent poison: so much I feel reasonably sure of. Hardhack, thoroughwort, and pennyroyal,—with the o left out,—these were the family herbalist's trinity in my day. Now, in these better times of pellets and homœopathic allopathy, children hardly know what medicine-taking means. We remember, we of an older generation. "Pinch your nose and swallow it, and I will give you a cent." Does that