I Found My Bridge Holding Bravely In Place
Against The Swollen Torrent, Crossed It And Beat My Way Around Pools
And Logs And Through Two Hours Of Tangle Back To The Moraine On The
North Side Of The Outlet, - A Wet, Weary Battle But Not Without
Enjoyment.
The smell of the washed ground and vegetation made every
breath a pleasure, and I found Calypso borealis, the
First I had seen
on this side of the continent, one of my darlings, worth any amount
of hardship; and I saw one of my Douglas squirrels on the margin of a
grassy pool. The drip of the rain on the various leaves was pleasant
to hear. More especially marked were the flat low-toned bumps and
splashes of large drops from the trees on the broad horizontal leaves
of Echinopanax horridum, like the drumming of thundershower drops
on veratrum and palm leaves, while the mosses were indescribably
beautiful, so fresh, so bright, so cheerily green, and all so low and
calm and silent, however heavy and wild the wind and the rain blowing
and pouring above them. Surely never a particle of dust has touched
leaf or crown of all these blessed mosses; and how bright were the
red rims of the cladonia cups beside them, and the fruit of the dwarf
cornel! And the wet berries, Nature's precious jewelry, how beautiful
they were! - huckleberries with pale bloom and a crystal drop on each;
red and yellow salmon-berries, with clusters of smaller drops; and
the glittering, berry-like raindrops adorning the interlacing arches
of bent grasses and sedges around the edges of the pools, every drop
a mirror with all the landscape in it.
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