What a
contrast from New York's or Philadelphia's streets! Everywhere great
patches of dingy-blossom'd horse-mint wafting a spicy odor through the
air, (especially evenings.) Everywhere the flowering boneset, and the
rose-bloom of the wild bean.
THREE OF US
_July 14_.--My two kingfishers still haunt the pond. In the bright sun
and breeze and perfect temperature of to-day, noon, I am sitting here
by one of the gurgling brooks, dipping a French water-pen in the
limpid crystal, and using it to write these lines, again watching the
feather'd twain, as they fly and sport athwart the water, so close,
almost touching into its surface. Indeed there seem to be three of us.
For nearly an hour I indolently look and join them while they dart
and turn and take their airy gambols, sometimes far up the creek
disappearing for a few moments, and then surely returning again, and
performing most of their flight within sight of me, as if they knew I
appreciated and absorb'd their vitality, spirituality, faithfulness,
and the rapid, vanishing, delicate lines of moving yet quiet
electricity they draw for me across the spread of the grass, the
trees, and the blue sky. While the brook babbles, babbles, and the
shadows of the boughs dapple in the sunshine around me, and the cool
west-by-nor'-west wind faintly soughs in the thick bushes and tree
tops.
Among the objects of beauty and interest now beginning to appear quite
plentifully in this secluded spot, I notice the humming-bird, the
dragon-fly with its wings of slate-color'd guaze, and many varieties
of beautiful and plain butterflies, idly flapping among the plants and
wild posies.
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