It
was the same with the wild lilac, which Daylight had sent to him
from Mendocino County. It became part of the wildness of the
ranch, and, after being helped for a season, was left to its own
devices they used to gather the seeds of the California poppy
and scatter them over their own acres, so that the orange-colored
blossoms spangled the fields of mountain hay and prospered in
flaming drifts in the fence corners and along the edges of the
clearings.
Dede, who had a fondness for cattails, established a fringe of
them along the meadow stream, where they were left to fight it
out with the water-cress. And when the latter was threatened
with extinction, Daylight developed one of the shaded springs
into his water-cress garden and declared war upon any invading
cattail. On her wedding day Dede had discovered a long dog-tooth
violet by the zigzag trail above the redwood spring, and here she
continued to plant more and more. The open hillside above the
tiny meadow became a colony of Mariposa lilies. This was due
mainly to her efforts, while Daylight, who rode with a
short-handled ax on his saddle-bow, cleared the little manzanita
wood on the rocky hill of all its dead and dying and overcrowded
weaklings.
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