But last spring a change came to it. Its nearly fenced condition for the first time allowed Mother Nature a chance, and anxious, like other mothers, to hide the evil deeds of her children, she went busily to work,
"With a hand of healing to cover the wounds And strew the artificial mounds And cuttings with underwood and flowers."
We may call them weeds, but forever blessed be the hardy, rapid-growing, ever-ready plants we name so scornfully! What else could so quickly answer the mother's purpose? She had not time to evolve a century-plant, or elaborate an oak-tree, before man would be upon it again. She did the best she could, and the result was wonderful.
When I returned from the country I found, to my delight, in place of the abomination of desolation I have described, a beautiful green oasis in the world of stone and brick. From fence to fence flourished and waved in the breeze an unbroken forest. The unsightly heaps had become a range of hills, sloping gently down to the level on one side, and ending on the other in an abrupt declivity, with the highest peak bare and rocky, overhanging a deep and narrow ravine. The bordering fences were veiled by luxurious ailanthus shoots, chicory blossoms opened their sweet blue eyes to every morning sun, and it was beside
"Rich in wild grasses numberless, and flowers Unnamed save in mute Nature's inventory."
In the air above, myriads of dainty white butterflies sported, ever rising in little agitated parties of two or three, climbing gayly the invisible staircase till at an immense height, and then fluttering back to earth no wiser than they went up, so far as the human eye could see.
The forest, as I have called it, was, to be sure, by measurement of man, not more than three or four feet high. But all things are relative, and to the frequenters of that pleasant bit of woodland, far above whose head it towered, it was as the deep woods to us. I chose to look at it from their point of view, and to them it was a noble forest, resembling indeed a tropical jungle, so thickly grown that paths were made under it, where might be enjoyed leisurely walks, given up to quiet and meditation. For there were inhabitants in plenty,--the regulars, the transients, the stragglers,--in furs, in feathers, in wings.
