I do not know whether the practice of putting indigo-weed about horses’ tackling to keep off flies is well founded, but I hope it is, for I have been pleased to notice that wherever I have occasion to tie a horse I am sure to find indigo-weed not far off, and therefore this, which is so universally dispersed, would be the fittest weed for this purpose.
The thistle is now in bloom, which every child is eager to clutch once,—just a child’s handful.
The prunella, self-heal, small purplish-flowered plant of low grounds.
Charles[55] grew up to be a remarkably eccentric man. He was of large frame, athletic, and celebrated for his feats of strength. His lungs were proportionally strong. There was a man who heard him named once, and asked if it was the same Charles Dunbar whom he remembered when he was a little boy walking on the coast of Maine. A man came down to the shore and hailed a vessel that was sailing by. He should never forget that man’s name.
It was well grassed, and delicate flowers grew in the middle of the road.
I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high Between the horses’ path and the wheel-track, Which Dakin’s and Maynard’s wagons had Passed over many a time. An inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, Or an inch higher. And yet it lived and flourished As much as if it had a thousand acres Of untrodden space around it, and never Knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow trouble nor invite an Evil fate by apprehending it.[56] For though the distant market-wagon Every other day inevitably rolled This way, it just as inevitably rolled In those ruts. And the same Charioteer who steered the flower Upward guided the horse and cart aside from it. There were other flowers which you would say Incurred less danger, grew more out of the way, Which no cart rattled near, no walker daily passed, But at length one rambling deviously— For no rut restrained—plucked them, And then it appeared that they stood Directly in his way, though he had come From farther than the market-wagon.
And then it appeared that this brave flower which grew between the wheel and horse did actually stand farther out of the way than that which stood in the wide prairie where the man of science plucked it.