WATER-LILIES


The stream that crept down from the hills, three miles away, has worn a
smooth bed for itself in the gravel; has watered the farmer's fields,
and turned the wheel of the old grist-mill, where the miller tends the
stones that grind the farmer's corn. But down below here the stream has
something else to do. It has been working hard, up and away from dam to
dam again; and as always in life there should be something besides
business,--something beautiful and peaceful,--so the stream has swept
round this corner, behind the wooded point of land which hides the mill,
and spread itself out in the hollow of Brown's meadow, where farmer
Brown says his grandfather used to tell him some Indian wigwams stood
when he was a boy. The land has sunk since then, and there is something
more beautiful than Indian wigwams there now.

Where the old squaws used to sit weaving baskets, and the papooses
rolled and played, is now thick, black mud, in which are great tangled
roots, some of them bigger than my arm.

All winter they lie there under the ice, while the children skate over
them. In the spring, when every thing stirs with new life, they, too,
must wake up: so, slowly and steadily, they begin to put up long stems
to reach the surface of the water. Chambered stems they are, each having
four passages leading up to the air, and down to the root and black mud.
The walls of these chambers are brown and slimy, and each stem bears at
its top a slimy bud,--slimy on the outside, brownish-green as it pushes
up through the water; for this outer coat is stout and waterproof, and
can well afford to be unpretending, since it carries something very