belong in the swamp for all the beauty of the
place. It should rather be that of some delicately nurtured plant,
some rare orchid of sheltered conservatories, it is so delicate
and delightful.

The jewel-weed is as frail as a dream for all its vigorous growth
which reaches sometimes six feet. If you pluck it it withers
before you can get it home to put in water and its jewels shrivel
to nothing on the way. Turtle-head is far different and I like it
for its sturdiness, but most of all I like it because it is the
hast of a small friend of mine, the Baltimore butterfly. In summer
you may see this little fellow, a plaid of yellow and orange on
black, the Baltimore colors, whence his name, flitting about,
never far from the place where the turtle-head grows. If you see
one you may be almost sure that the other is nearby. I have not
seen the butterfly for many weeks, but among the stalks of Chelone
I find the webs which shelter its children. These tiny caterpillars
will feed on the leaves till winter, then by some witchery of nature
survive the frost and snow and zero weather, sheltered only by this
filmy, flimsy home, finish their growth in the spring, waxing fat
on the young leaves and by late May be floating about, more
Baltimore butterflies.

There can be no better evidence of the witchery and romance of the
place than this, that these frail pulpy creatures should with no
covering worth the name withstand cold that under similar
conditions would kill me before Christmas time. When I think of
this dreams of dryads that troop down from the hillsides and
stand, slender and adorable jewel-weeds, where the cool springs
ooze from beneath the gravelly hill, do not seem in the least
absurd or improbable.

CHAPTER XI

THE WAY OF A WOODCHUCK

The memory of my first glimpse of a woodchuck always reminds me of
an old story which needs to be retold that it may point my moral
even though it does not adorn my tale.

A minister, supplying for a time in a country parish, took a
pleasant path through the fields to the church of a Sunday morning
just before the service. There he found a boy digging most
furiously in the sandy ground.

"My lad," said the minister, in kindly reproof, "you ought not to
do this on Sunday morning unless it is a labor of necessity."

"I don't know nuthin' about necessity," replied the boy without
stopping for a moment, "but I've got to get this woodchuck. The
minister's comin' to dinner."