![]() ![]() ![]() – A Douglas squirrel, peppery, pungent autocrat of the woods, is barking overhead this morning, and the small forest birds, so seldom seen when one travels noisily, are out on sunny branches along the edge of the meadow getting warm, taking a sun bath and dew bath–a fine sight. Lying beneath the firs, it is glorious to see them dipping their spires in the starry sky, the sky like one vast lily meadow in bloom! How can I close my eyes on so precious a night? This evening, as usual, the glow of our camp-fire is working enchantment on everything within reach of its rays. The trees round about them seem as perfect in beauty and form as the lilies, their boughs whorled like lily leaves in exact order. ![]() Anyhow not a leaf or petal seems misplaced. Rather, like gardeners, they seem to cultivate them, pressing and dibbling as required. Awkward, lumbering bears, the Don tells me, love to wallow in them in hot weather, and deer with their sharp feet cross them again and again, sauntering and feeding, yet never a lily have I seen spoiled by them. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees, but as far as I have seen, man alone, and the animals he tames, destroy these gardens. Is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. ![]()
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