Meadow Grass | Page 2

limpid flowing. To this day, I
know not whether they were horse-hairs, far from home, or swaying
willow roots; the boys said they were "truly" hairs of the kind destined
to become snakes in their last estate; and the girls, listening, shivered
with all Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along the backbone.
Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. The peculiarity of a
wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart's desire, if only
you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossible premise defeats
the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough, simply because
you can't catch him in the first place. Yet the fascinating possibility is

like a taste for drink, or the glamour of cards. Does the committee-man
drive past to Sudleigh market, suggesting the prospect of a leisurely
return that afternoon, and consequent dropping in to hear the geography
class? Then do the laziest and most optimistic boys betake them hastily
from their dinner-pails to the river, and spend their precious nooning in
quest of the potent bug, through whose spell the unwelcome visit may
be averted. The time so squandered in riotous gaming might have, fixed
the afternoon's "North Poles and Equators" triumphantly in mind, to the
everlasting defiance of all alien questioning; but no! for human delight
lies ever in the unattainable. The committee-man comes like Nemesis,
aequo pede, the lesson is unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher
orders out the rack known as staying after school. But what durance
beyond hours in the indescribably desolate schoolroom ever taught
mortal boy to shun the delusive insect created for his special undoing?
So long as the heart has woes of its own breeding, so long also will it
dodge the discipline of labor, and grasp at the flicker of an easy
success.
On either side the little bridge (over which horses pounded with an
ominous thunder and a rain of dust on the head of him who lingered
beneath the sleepers, in a fearsome joy), the meadows were pranked
with purple iris and whispering rushes, mingling each its sweetness
with the good, rank smell of mud below. Here were the treasures of the
water-course, close hidden, or blowing in the light of day. The pale,
golden-hearted arrow-head neighbored the homespun pickerel-weed,
and--oh, mysterious glory from an oozy bed!--luscious, sun-golden
cow-lilies rose sturdily triumphant, dripping with color, glowing in
sheen. The button-bush hung out her balls, and white alder painted the
air with faint perfume; willow-herb built her bowery arches, and the
flags were ever glancing like swords of roistering knights. These flags,
be it known to such as have grown up in grievous ignorance of the lore
inseparable from "deestrick school," hold the most practical
significance in the mind of boy and girl; for they bring forth (I know
we thought for our delight alone!) a delicacy known as flag-buds,
everlastingly dear to the childish palate. These were devoured by the
wholesale in their season, and little mouths grew oozy-green as those of
happy beasties in June, from much champing and chewing. Did we lose

our appetite for the delectable dinner-pail through such literal going to
pasture? I think not. Tastes were elastic, in those days; and Nature, so
bullied, durst seldom revolt.
On one side, the nearest neighbor to the school lived at least a mile
away; but on the other, the first house of all owned treasures manifold
for the little squad who, though the day were wet or dry, fair or
frowning, trotted thither at noon. Here were trees under which lay, in
happy season, over-ripe Bartlett pears; here, too, was one mulberry-tree,
whereof the suggestion was strange and wonderful, and the fruit less
appealing to taste than to a mystical fancy. But outside the bank wall
grew the balm-of-Gileads, in a stately, benevolent row,--trees of
healing, of fragrance and romantic charm. No child ever sought the old
home to beg pears and mulberries, or to fill the school-house pail at its
dark-bosomed well, without bearing away a few of the leaves in a
covetous grasp. Sweet treasure-trove these, to be pressed to fresh young
faces, and held and patted in hot little palms, till they grew flabby but
evermore fragrant, still diffusing over the dusty schoolroom that warm
odor, whispering to those who read no corner but their own New
England, of the myrrh and balsams of the East.
We knew everything in those days, we aimless knights-errant with
dinner-pail and slate; the dry, frosty hollow where gentians bloom
when the pride of the field is over, the woody slopes of the hepatica's
awakening, under coverlet of withered leaves, and the sunny banks
where violets love to live with their good gossip, the trembling
anemone. At noon, we roved abroad into solitudes so deep that even
our unsuspecting hearts