Some Summer Days in Iowa | Page 2

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
came on humming wings for the nectar lying deep in their tiny florets.
Eager stamens reached out far beyond the blossoms to brush the bees'
backs with precious freights of pollen to be transported to the stigmas
of older flowers. Playing each its part in the plan of the universe, flower
and insect added its mite to the life and the loveliness of the summer.
From the sunshine and the soil-water the long leaves manufactured
food for the growth of the plant. Prettily notched, daintily tapering, and
arranged in star-like whorls about the stem, they enhanced the beauty
of the flowers above them and attracted the observer to the exquisite
order governing their growth. When the leaves were arranged in whorls
of four, the floral spires were quadruple, like the pinnacles on a church

tower; if the green towers were hexagonal, then six white minarets
pointed to the sky. The perfect order of the solar system and the
majesty of the Mind which planned it, was manifested in this single
plant. So does beauty lead the way to the mountain tops of truth. By the
road of earthly beauty we may always reach religion and truth is ever
beckoning us to new and nobler visions. That "thread of the
all-sustaining beauty, which runs through all and doth all unite" gently
leads us from the things which are tangible and temporal to the truths
which are spiritual and eternal; from the beauty of the concrete to the
beauty of the abstract, onward along the road of beauty and farther up
the heights of truth until our admiration for the beauty of the sunrise,
the snow crystal, the graceful spray of the trees in winter, the exquisite
order and harmony of the universe from the orbit of the largest planet to
the flow of life in the tiniest leaf, develops into a lasting love for beauty
in life and in character; and still farther up the heights into an
atmosphere of intelligent, rational, genuine love for the Great First
Cause of all beauty. As the heart opens to receive the beauty of the
world, as the mind and soul strive, like the plants, for the highest
development, so is the world redeemed from error and crime and the
perfection of the race is attained. If one soul finds this truth more
quickly and easily here amid the trees and flowers, for him is the old
road greater than religious dogmas or social systems.
* * * * *
Always beautiful and interesting, in these long days of mid-July the old
road is at its best. No length of day can measure its loveliness or
encompass its charm. Very early in the morning there is a faint rustle of
the leaves, a delicate flutter through the woods as if the awakening
birds are shaking out their wings. Shrubs and bushes and trunks of trees
have ghostly shapes in the few strange moments that are neither the
darkness nor the dawn. As the light steals through the woods their
forms