Marry Flowers And Ferns Grow Here And, Like The Birds, They,
Too, Have Their Preacher.
Jack in his pulpit of light green is
proclaiming wildwood messages to his flower brethren.
If scarlet
represents sin among the flower family then in his congregation
are many sinners, for the vivid hues of the cardinal blossoms
burn like coals of fire against their setting of green shrubs
and vines. Joe Pye weeds blush at what they hear, as if guilty
of some flagrant wrong, although they took their name from Joe
Pye, the Indian who cured typhus fever in New England by means
of these plants. Elecampane stands up tall and straight as if
conscious of having been mentioned by Hippocrates, the father of
medicine, more than two thousand years ago, as being an
important stimulant to the brain and stomach. Fox gloves, those
Good Samaritans among the flowers, bend low their lovely heads
to catch Jack's text, and among the patron Saints John's wort
humbly rears its yellow flowers, unmindful that it was hung at
the doors and windows on St. John's Eve as a safeguard against
thunder and evil spirits. As if to destroy the good Jack wished
to do, the Devil's Paint Brush (European Hawk-weed) had been
busy among the brethren, sowing seeds of strife and contention
and the brilliant orange blotches interspersed among the other
members told how successful were his labors.
We have not told much about the battle of Gettysburg and the
observing historian may say that our time was wholly wasted, but
the wonderful words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech still ring in
our ears like heavenly music and as we turned to leave this
"hallowed" - this "consecrated" - spot, the lines repeated here by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox came to us like some grand triumphal strain
of music:
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