Here is the place of our seeking. For
under the shade of one of those huge granite rocks over which the thin
soil of ---- County is sprinkled, and which here and there have shaken
off the superincumbent dust in indignation at the presumption of man in
attempting to farm them,--under that rock--of course I shall not tell
you which--you will find the White Arethusa, if you are born under a
lucky star.
A little later, the crimson lady-slipper loves to spring up in pine
clearings, around the base of the wood-piles which the cutters have
stacked in the winter to season. To one born by the salt water there is
an especial forest delight in the pine woods. For that best-loved sound
of the ceaseless fall of plunging seas upon the beach comes to him
there. Many a time I have walked from Harvard's leafy shades and
cheerful halls out to the quiet of the Botanic Garden for the sake of
hearing the wind in the pine tree-tops. Shut your eyes, and the inward
vision sees once more the long line of sandy and shingly beaches, the
green curving-up of the surges tipped with dazzling foam,--sees the
motionless and blackened timbers of the wreck on the shore, the white
wings dipping and turning along the combing tops of the waves racing in
upon the sands,--sees the dry tufted beach-grass, and the wet, shining,
compact slope down which slides swiftly the under-tow.
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