“_Over all the mountains_
_Is peace._”]
Nearer yet, the knob-like glacial hills around Pownal Pond shield the
Cranberry Swamp to the north, and the open Bogs of Etchowog east of the
pond. Nestling among the trees by the mill, I picked out the roof of
the mill-house where little Merwin lives. But the shadows of hill and
mountain were growing longer in the valley as the sun sank toward the
west, and it behooved me to waste no more time dreaming on the hilltop.
So I slowly descended to the valley, groping my way between bushy young
pines, passing a herd of gentle, meek-faced Jersey cows feeding on the
hillside. I found many cow-paths running around the bog, and was led out
into the swamp at a point nearly opposite the little white schoolhouse of
Barber District, Number Thirteen.
I did not find the place rose-purple with the little orchids, as it
should have been, but I did find a few dozen plants of Grass-Pinks
(_Limodorum tuberosum_), and six or eight delicate rose-pink blossoms
of Snake-Mouth (_Pogonia ophioglossoides_). I gathered a few flowers of
each, grateful that any remained to assure me that they were not quite
extinct here, and I observed how very careful one must be in plucking the
flowers not to pull the little roots and bulbs out of the moss at the
same time.
All my plants grew east of the stream that runs through the centre of the
swamp. When I tried to cross this creek, I found it so broad and deep
and muddy that I could not get anywhere near it. Wandering toward the
road skirting the bog, I came to a rude board bridge over the stream,
indicating a path formerly leading through the swamp to Barber’s Mill.
Some high-water tide had twisted and turned the plank about so that only
by catching and clinging to small bushes and saplings on the other bank
could I succeed in crossing. I found no Pogonias and Limodorums on the
west side of the stream, and it was just here that I had once found the
meadow one wave of rose-purple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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