spores from the mushrooms over the fence in the pasture; pollen pushed
from the glumes of the red top grasses and the lilac spires of the
hedge nettle and germander by the roadside; shoals of spores from the
mosses and ferns by the trees and in the swamp; all these life
particles rose and floated in the haze, giving it tints and meanings
strangely sweet. When a farmer's buggy passed along the old road the
haze became a warm pink, like some western sky in the evening, slowly
clearing again to turquoise as the dust settled. Viewed in this way,
the haze became a mighty, broad-mouthed river of life, fed by billions
of tiny streams and moving ever toward the vast ocean of the sunlight.
Faintly visible to the discerning eye, it was also audible to the
attentive ear, listening as one listens at the edge of a field in the
night time to hear the growing of the corn. If all the millions of
leaves had ceased their transpiration, if this flow of life had been
shut off, as the organist pushes in the tremolo stop, the sound of the
summer would not have been the same. Something of the strength and
joy of the summer was in it. Drinking deeply of it the body was
invigorated and the heart grew glad. In it the faith of the winter's
buds and the hope of the spring's tender leaves found rich
fulfillment. Theirs was a life of hope and promise that the
resurrection should come; this was the glorious life after the
resurrection, faith lost in sight and patient hope crowned.

* * * * *

Slender white minarets of the Culver's root, rising from green towers
above the leafy architecture of the woodland undergrowth and reaching
toward the light of the sky, told the time of the year as plainly as
if a muezzin had appeared on one of its leafy balconies and proclaimed
a namaz for the middle of July. Beholding them from afar, honey bees