nd
sang their purest melodies. The sky was blue, the sun bright, the air
perfumed for him; Belshazzar, always true to his name, protected every
footstep; Ajax, the shimmering green and gold wonder, came up the hill
to meet him; the white doves circled above his head. Stumbling half
blindly, the Harvester passed unheeding among them, and went into the
cabin. When he came out he stood a long time in deep study, but at last
he returned to the woods.

"Perhaps they will have found her before night," he said. "I'll harvest
the cranesbill yet, because it's growing late for it, and then I'll see
how they are coming on. Maybe they'd know her if they met her, and maybe
they wouldn't. She may wear different clothing, and freshen up after her
trip. She might have been car sick, as Doc suggested, and appear very
different when she feels better."

He skirted the woods around the northeast end and stopped at a big bed
of exquisite growth. Tall, wiry stems sprang upward almost two feet in
height; leaves six inches across were cut in ragged lobes almost to the
base, and here and there, enough to colour the entire bed a delicate
rose or sometimes a violet purple, the first flowers were unfolding. The
Harvester lifted a root and tasted it.

"No doubt about you being astringent," he muttered. "You have enough
tannin in you to pucker a mushroom. By the way, those big, corn-cobby
fellows should spring up with the next warm rain, and the hotels and
restaurants always pay high prices. I must gather a few bushels."

He looked over the bed of beautiful wild alum and hesitated.

"I vow I hate to touch you," he said. "You are a picture right now, and
in a week you will be a miracle. It seems a shame to tear up a plant for
its roots, just at flowering time, and I can't avoid breaking down half
I don't take, getting the ones I do. I wish you were not so pretty! You
are one of the colours I love most. You remind me of red-bud, blazing
star, and all those exquisite magenta shades that poets, painters, and
the Almighty who made them love so much they hesitate about using them
lavishly. You are so delicate and graceful and so modest. I wish she
could see you! I got to stop this or I won't be able to lift a root. I
never would if the ten cents a pound I'll get out of it were the only
consideration."

The Harvester gripped the mattock and advanced to the bed. "What I must
be thinking is that you are indispensable to the sick folks. The steady
dema